Kris Bryant and Anthony Rizzo fly high to All-Star Game as Cubs’ resurgence begins

CINCINNATI — The Sunday night flight was a relatively short one: Up from the urban sprawl of Chicago, over the corn and soybean fields of Indiana and then down toward the banks of the Ohio River where the 2015 Major League Baseball All-Star Game was waiting to begin.  

Aboard the private jet hopping across the Midwest were two pillars of the Chicago Cubs’ future and their families. The two corner infielders were easy to tell apart. One had white knuckles. The other didn’t. 

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“That was pretty cool, but I probably wouldn’t want to do it again,” Cubs third baseman Kris Bryant said the next day of his first trip on a private jet. “I hate flying and it was so bumpy. I was just like, ‘Get me on the ground.’”

At a podium across the way at The Westin Cincinnati on Monday, first baseman Anthony Rizzo just laughed and shook his head at his friend. 

“He’s a baby,” said the Cubs’ other All-Star (and a veteran of private jet travel). “It was bumpy, but it wasn’t bad. We even got a little bigger size [jet] because he was nervous.” 

Rizzo’s tone was playful and it underscored the friendship that he and Bryant have built since the latter was called up to the Cubs a few weeks into the season. Rizzo jokingly refers to the powerful pair as “Bash Brothers 2.0,”  they record funny Instagram videos together and, oh yeah, the duo figures to help push the Cubs in their latest drive to end the longest title drought in professional sports. 

That may be a tall order and the quest may not always go according to script. Both sluggers were on opposite sides of Monday night’s Home Run Derby bracket and could have met in a final tailor made for Chicago’s North Side. Neither, however, advanced past the first round. 

Still, it seems hard not to recognize that there’s something afoot in Wrigleyville with Rizzo making his second All-Star squad — he’ll start as the NL’s designated hitter in Tuesday night’s game — and Bryant being named to his first. The two players are far from the only reason for the Cubs’ optimism, but they’re definitely the foundation, giving the Cubs plenty of representation in the sport’s new wave of talent that includes Mike Trout, Bryce Harper, Manny Machado, Joc Pederson and others.

“I think it’s a new era of baseball in Chicago at Wrigley right now,” Rizzo said. “With all respect to the history of that field and organization, this is a new realm. … It’s really something special.” 

Had the season ended at this All-Star break, the 47-40 Cubs would be in the playoffs, facing off against the Pittsburgh Pirates in the one-game wild card playoff. Quite a turnaround for a team that was 40-54 when Rizzo rejoined the club after last year’s All-Star trip to Minneapolis.

[On this week’s StewPod: Everything you need to know about the All-Star game.]

Both Rizzo and Bryant have posted stellar first-half numbers to set up what should be a second half filled with meaningful baseball. Rizzo’s slash line stands at .298/.413/.542 with 16 homers and 48 RBI while Bryant’s is .269/.376/.472 with 12 homers and 51 RBI. 

Both players are under the Cubs’ control until 2021 and putting them with other young players like Addison Russell, Jorge Soler and Futures Game MVP Kyle Schwarber only increases hope around manager Joe Maddon’s club. 

While many pegged 2015 as a learning and growing year for the Cubs, every day spent in the wild-card discussion raises the expectations further. 

It’s not anything the team will shy away from, Rizzo said. 

“We got off to the start we wanted to,” Rizzo said, noting that dismal Aprils submarined the team in previous seasons. “But we’ve got a lot left in our tank that we can tap into. I think the best is yet to come from our team this year.”

How so?

“Just seeing our potential,” he said. “How young we are. Guys are still developing.” 

Rizzo credits Maddon with keeping the team on an even keel during the first half, which featured its own share of disappointments. The Cubs have struggled against the NL Central-leading St. Louis Cardinals — though they’re far from the only team guilty of that shortfall — and lost two of three to the crosstown White Sox coming into the All-Star Game. 

But they’ve also had plenty of success. Take away the Cubs’ 4-9 record against the Cardinals and they’d be 12 games over .500. The consistent performance has put the Cubs in a position where they could be buyers around the trade deadline for the first time in six or seven years.

Bryant says he’s never played on a looser team or a squad that has had this much fun, which is not a throwaway comment considering he’s still not that far removed from the youth-filled days of college and travel baseball.

The two stars were positioned across from each other during Monday afternoon’s media availability and attracted a fair number of media members though far from anything that resembled the crushes surrounding guys like Harper and Trout. 

 But if all goes well for the Cubs, the sizes of those crowds — as well as the total number of private jet trips to the All-Star Game — will grow as Rizzo and Bryant attempt to lead the team to its first playoff appearance since 2008, its first NL pennant since 1945 and first World Series title since 1908. 

The size of the accomplishment isn’t lost on the two guys who figure to be at the center of it if when it does happen. 

“I’m pretty young, so I haven’t had too much of the history lesson [about the Cubs], but I get the gist of it,” said Bryant, who grew up in Las Vegas. “Our fans have been absolutely unbelievable and we really hope to go out there and give them what they want.

“I think it’s coming in the next couple of years.”

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Kevin Kaduk is a writer for Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter! Follow @KevinKaduk