Rozner: Young Cubs ripe to strike

Anticipation versus expectation.

This season for the Cubs has been all about the former, while next season will be all about the latter.

Just one more reason for the young Cubs to relax and enjoy the ride, but also make the most of an extraordinary opportunity.

Jake Arrieta has been literally unhittable for long stretches of games in the second half - and for at least one entire game at Dodger Stadium. He's been so good for so long that it's difficult to imagine him losing a game.

So it's not absurd to think past Wednesday's wild-card game against Gerrit Cole in Pittsburgh and wonder how the Cubs will fare against the Cardinals in the NLDS.

The good news is the Cubs won't be flustered by this game, and it goes back to something Jon Lester said earlier this season about - essentially - being too dumb to know any better.

"This is going to sound really bad, but I've always been a big believer in playing stupid. Being naive," Lester said. "I saw it with the Rays in 2008. They were naive to the situation. They had nothing to lose.

"We have nothing to lose. We're not supposed to win. We're supposedly still in the rebuilding stages. I like that. I like that we're not really the underdog, but we're not really expected to do anything."

This wasn't expected in the fourth year of a five-year plan, but here the Cubs are and they're not taking lightly the chance to get to the World Series from the wild-card game, just as San Francisco and Kansas City did a year ago.

"This is kind of the year we hoped and expected to have next year," Cubs president Theo Epstein told me on the Score last week. "The fact that everyone matured at a pretty rapid rate and that it happened now is great. It gives us a great jumping off point for next year.

"We want to do consistent damage in October, and great organizations win a lot of games in October. We haven't done that yet, but this gives us an opportunity to start that process. Next year we'll have to earn our way back to October and try again.

"Those opportunities are so hard to come by. Sometimes teams that look like they're set up for five years never fully materialize and end up having injuries or bad fortune and make bad decisions.

"So we really want to capitalize on this opportunity this October while we're here."

It will be considerably different next season, when the Cubs will be one of the National League favorites and expectations will be enormous.

Just one more reason Joe Maddon wants his players to relax and have fun.

"I want us to do less preparation for this game," Maddon said. "Less work, less prep, less video, less everything. Just go play.

"This is the time of the year where you just go play and rely on your abilities, your instincts, all the training and the work you've done to get to this point.

"The worst thing you can possibly do is overthink it. We've played them 19 times already this year. My goodness, you've got to know the other side. They know us. We know them.

"We'll remind each other about a couple little things prior to the game, but it's about the players."

This is a team that has played with youthful enthusiasm and no fear all season, and Maddon wants nothing different Wednesday night - or any other night, if the Cubs advance.

"If you turn your players loose and let them play, that's your best chance of winning," Maddon said. "You don't want them to go out there encumbered with thoughts that are only going to get in the way."

While the play-in game has added drama to the regular season, it has also added incredible stress for front offices involved in a one-and-done scenario.

"That's the thing about the wild-card game," Epstein said. "You don't perform in that game - you lose that game - it's cruel, because your season goes up in smoke in an instant and you're forgotten right away. It's like you didn't even make the playoffs. That's the feeling afterward.

"So all of our focus and all of our energy is on this game. We all feel like if we can get past this game, we can make our mark in October."

So there it is. Lose and go home, win and dream big.

In Chicago, it really does feel like October again.

brozner@dailyherald.com

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