Imrem: Cubs definitely will battle
The over-under on the first Cubs bench-clearing brawl is, well, anytime now.
Call it a hunch, but they're going to have to become the Combative Cubs on the way to wherever they'll wind up.
Why? Because they seem to have the potential to be a team that other teams don't like.
Especially if Jake Arrieta pitches like he did last year and like he came out winging in Monday night's season opener.
Talk about picking up where Arrieta left off: The 2015 Cy Young Award winner went 7 innings on a yield of 2 hits and zero runs.
The consensus says that Arrieta can't repeat the type of effectiveness he demonstrated last year except, that he did in this game.
Look out, league.
If the Cubs are really as great as analysts predict, opponents will test and tweak them a little and manager Joe Maddon will make sure his team doesn't back down.
So while these Cubs are being challenged by expectations, one expectation should be that they'll have to throw a few punches this season.
And won't that be fun, a heavy dose of hardball to go with what promises to be a rough, tough pennant race?
Maybe it'll be Kyle Schwarber charging Zack Greinke at the mound or Anthony Rizzo wrestling Yasiel Puig on the turf.
Heck, Joe Maddon and Dusty Baker might collide at home plate while barking at each other.
If the Cubs continue to ascend, they won't do so without competition. Teams will battle them on the scoreboard, in the standings and it says here occasionally in an imaginary diamond-shaped steel cage.
It was taken for granted forever that the Cubs wouldn't ever win anything. Now it's taken for granted that they will.
With that turn of events, don't be surprised if offended opponents consider Maddon a little too hip a manager, Kris Bryant a little too perfect a slugger, Jason Heyward a little too wealthy a .268 lifetime hitter.
Envy, jealousy and resentment being what they are, other teams are likely to perceive too many Cubs to be a little too much of something and a little too full of themselves.
The Cubs do like to celebrate their successes. It's the kind of behavior athletes like to be a part of but hate being apart from. The season is long, tempers grow short and people in the other dugout will tire of the Cubs.
Even before the Cubs made the playoffs last season they had a confident swagger as if to announce that they're good and intend to get better. This season, confidence might be perceived as cockiness and swagger as arrogance.
The Cubs still haven't won anything but are being treated like they already won everything.
You know, like rock stars without a hit album.
That can't thrill the Cardinals, who have won a lot, and the Pirates, who slowly improved for years only to lose to the upstart Cubs in the 2015 postseason.
Maddon doesn't care what others think. He does what he does - tricks and gimmicks mixed with masterful strategy - and dares you to beat him.
Oh, and the Cubs manager isn't afraid of conflict either. Remember last season when he warned the Cardinals, "We don't start stuff, but we will stop stuff"?
Read that to mean that if necessary the Combative Cubs will respond to mumble with grumble and grumble with rumble.
The over-under on the first brawl is sooner than later.
mimrem@dailyherald.com