Imrem: Cubs' Maddon won't say it, but Wednesday was a big game

While trying not to, Joe Maddon sounded like he really wanted this one Wednesday night in Wrigley Field.

“We have to focus on winning series,” the Cubs' manager said.

This week's wasn't just any series against just any team. It was a four-gamer against the St. Louis Cardinals.

Yes, those danged St. Louis Cardinals. The traditional engine St. Louis Cardinals that the historic Cubs' caboose always seems to be chasing.

The Cubs won both ends of a doubleheader from the Cardinals the day before.

“‘Four games, won 2 for a split, happy with that,'” Maddon said of the series. “I don' want to say that. Don't be satisfied with that. Move on to the next level. We'll see.”

The next level would be to beat the Cardinals in Game 4, win the series 3-1 and feel a lot better about yourself.

Ah, but the next level will have to wait.

The Cubs did everything well enough to win but get the last out.

Cardinals' shortstop Jhonny Peralta hit a 2-run home run with two outs in the ninth inning to beat the Cubs 6-5.

So the teams split the four-game series and the first-place Cardinals maintained an 8½-game lead over the third-place Cubs.

Maddon didn't tell the Cubs in so many words that this was a big game. He sort of wanted his young team to figure out for itself not to be satisfied.

“I'm waiting to see it,” Maddon said. “I'm not going to go out and make speeches. It's one of those organic things. We'll see.”

Maddon couldn't have liked what he saw at the end.

There's a novel, feature film, radio adaptation and stage production titled “The 39 Steps.”

I went to the play thinking for sure the plot revolved around the process a Major League Baseball team must go through to win a World Series.

Take this step. Then that step. Then another step. Then the steps start adding up. Then …

Well, if you're the Cubs, then you fall down and have to start all over again.

That's how a team goes since 1908 without winning a World Series and since 1945 without winning even a National League pennant.

Standing up to the Cardinals is one of the final steps and the Cubs will have to wait a while longer to take it.

I continue to believe that the Cubs won't win a World Series in my lifetime. Yes, fans, that's my shtick and I'm shticking to it.

But the Cubs are on their way up again, just as they were in the late 1960s and mid-1980s and during a nice run last decade.

The most formidable obstacle in the Cubs' way right now remains the Cardinals, just as the Bears had the 49ers, and the Bulls the Pistons, and the Blackhawks the Red Wings.

To the Cubs, the Cardinals are the 49ers, Pistons and Red Wings in one untidy, uncomfortable, uncompromising package.

“They've had the same good system in place,” Cubs' manager Joe Maddon said. “They have been able to sustain it despite bad moments.”

The Cardinals have had their share of bad moments this year, especially injuries to a few important players.

Yet the Cards have the best record in the major leagues despite a batting order that shouldn't scare anyone and a pitching rotation of mostly unfamiliar names.

“Nobody is going to give you status … you have to take it,” Maddon said. “For us, to get where we want to be, we have to take it.”

Joe Maddon will have to wait until later this season to see whether the Cubs can take status away from the Cardinals.

mimrem@dailyherald.com