Can the Cubs pull a 2004 Red Sox? History and their play say ‘nope’
CHICAGO — Theo Epstein is a numbers man. His whole life is numbers. He’s become a rich, successful and respected man because of numbers and what he sees in them.
But right now he can’t believe in numbers.
Won’t believe in those numbers.
Or at least not those numbers, the ones that say the Chicago Cubs are facing a virtually impossible climb out of the 3-0 series hole they’ve rapidly fallen into against the New York Mets.
Baseball’s long history has seen 33 teams take a 3-0 lead over another team in a best-of-seven postseason series. As SB Nation’s Grant Brisbee noted last year, just five of those series saw a fifth game. Three made it to a sixth. Only one made it to a seventh and the previously trailing team was actually able to complete the comeback, finally providing a sliver of hope to future teams staring up from a pocket of quicksand.
“It’s been done before, rumor has it,” Epstein said with a slight smile on Tuesday night.
That team of course, was the 2004 Boston Red Sox and it was Epstein who was the architect of that squad that came back against the rival New York Yankees in the ALCS. He’s now the president of the Cubs and his presence was being used as a hopeful totem for the reeling Cubs after a 5-2 loss in Game 3 of the NLCS at Wrigley Field.
“One New York team has blown a 3-0 lead,” Cubs first baseman Anthony Rizzo said. “Let’s make it happen to the other [New York team].”
Rizzo trailed off as he said that, perhaps realizing that it sounded a little bit silly. And it did. The Cubs have done nothing in this series to make one believe they can win one game against a good Mets team, let alone four straight. The Cubs haven’t held a lead over 27 innings of baseball against the Mets. Haven’t scored more than two runs in a game. Haven’t scored more than one run in any one inning. They haven’t pitched very well and dug their own grave in Game 3 with a series of fielding miscues.
Yet the Cubs still searched for optimism as a cold rain ushered off their disappointed fans who had seen their first NLCS baseball since a crushing Game 7 loss in 2003.
Epstein briefly talked with reporters before retreating when the media crush became too much. His message was the same he was sharing with players and it had to do with the numbers he was choosing to believe in over those daunting 3-0 hole statistics.
The 2015 Cubs won four or more consecutive games on nine different occasions.
“So let’s do it 10 times, one game at a time,” Epstein said.
One of those four-game winning streaks came against the Mets at Wrigley Field in mid May.
But as has been said many times over the past week, the Mets are a much different squad than the one that was 0-7 against the Cubs in the regular season. David Wright didn’t appear in any of those games. Yoenis Cespedes was still a member of the Detroit Tigers. Daniel Murphy had yet to morph into 1984 Steve Garvey or 1989 Will Clark, just to name two fellow players who will be forever cursed in Wrigleyville for their postseason success against the Cubs.
If you’re looking for the biggest reason the hope of this Cubs’ season has evaporated, look no farther than the performance of the team’s 2-3-4 hitters: Kyle Schwarber, Kris Bryant and Rizzo are a combined 6-for-32 over the three games.
Their three counterparts on the Mets — Wright, Murphy and Cespedes — are 13-for-36.
“They’re a really good team with good pitching,” Rizzo said. “But we knew that coming in.”
Jason Hammel will take the hill in Game 4 and it’s true there will be virtually no pressure on the Cubs. People have stopped talking about “just eight more wins” and what they’d be willing to spend for World Series tickets. People are starting to think the promising prediction of Back to the Future 2 — which said the Cubs would win the World Series on October 21, 2015 — was just another cruel joke played by the universe on Cubs fans.
But as Joe Maddon said on Tuesday, maybe Hammel gets it done on Wednesday and the Cubs bats finally come alive. Maybe Jon Lester, another Red Sox export who actually plays a direct role in what happens on the field, gets it done in Game 5. And then you’ve got Jake Arrieta going in Game 6 and maybe the Mets, no strangers to hard luck themselves, start to doubt themselves.
Maybe, just maybe.
“To get it back to Jon and Jake would be kind of interesting,” Maddon admitted, allowing himself to momentarily drop the one-game-at-a-time recording being repeated by his team.
But still, there are those numbers that suggest Cubs fans will soon be able to turn their full attention to combing winter free agent lists for the players that will round this team into something more complete for next year.
One week earlier, this same Cubs team sprayed champagne on each other in the same clubhouse, their triumph over the Cardinals in the NLDS looking like a gateway to much, much more.
One Tuesday later, the scene was a lot more sober.
“Our backs are against the wall,” Rizzo said. “There’s no hiding that.”
History, the Mets and the Cubs’ play this series won’t allow it.
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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
