When the Chicago Cubs lost back to back games to the Los Angeles Dodgers in the National League Championship Series earlier this week, even optimistic Cubs fans including Zach Bernard began to feel the jitters.
“I remember between the last pitch of game 3 and the first pitch of game 4 there was a general uneasiness going through the day talking to people about the Cubs. You just didn’t know. There was a significant difference to tying the series in game 4 or being down 3 to 1 in game 5” said Bernard.
Former GLT staffer Bernard is now a reporter and local host for NPR's All Things Considered at WBOI in Ft. Wayne, Indiana and writes and edits for the online baseball site robaseball.com. He conceded his optimism was tested after Rich Hill and a series of Dodger relievers shut out the Cubs for the second game in a row. And going into game 5 down 3-1 would mean the Cubs would have to beat Dodgers ace Clayton Kershaw to get to a game 7. Bernard mentioned two reasons he feels the Cubs have a better chance the second time they’ll face Kershaw, despite his 7 strong innings in game 2 that helped the Dodgers even the series. He said first, Cubs hitters have a pattern of feeding off each this year, and now that a "feeding frenzy" kicked in, he doesn’t think it will stop, even against arguably the best pitcher in baseball. He sees the earlier meeting with Kershaw as a positive.
“What Cubs fans can take away from Sunday’s 1-0 loss to Kershaw is that around the third time through the order, they started hitting the ball really well" said Bernard. "They were squaring it up, they were making hard contact, but they were just turning into outs. The way the offense is hitting now plus having seen Kershaw and making decent contact off of him before, I don’t think it’s going to be as easy a night for Kershaw than it was in game 2.”
Cubs fans who lived through the heartbreak of the ground ball that went through the legs of Leon Durham in 1984, or the infamous “Bartman game” 13 years ago when the Cubs were also up 3 games to 2 in the National League Championship Series can be forgiven for holding their breath. Bernard though, said especially compared to 2003, the makeup of this Cubs team is a much different.
“The difference between the Cubs in 2016 and 2003 was that the 2003 Cubs were not prepared to be where they were. Dusty Baker wasn’t prepared. The rest of the roster wasn’t prepared. They were young and some of the older guys were playoff inexperienced. So when the Steve Bartman thing happened, there was this collective meltdown. Dusty Baker should have talked to somebody on the field or the infielders should have had a meeting of some kind. None of those things happened, and then everything spiraled out of control. So I think people are quick to point fingers at Steve Bartman, but when you look at the team’s makeup and how they handled everything after, it was awful. It was not the makeup of a playoff team.”
Bernard said he feels if the Cubs "hit" the field Saturday night at Wrigley treating game 6 as “just another game,” they will fine.
