Chicago Cubs return to where they came of age
If you're looking for a day when the Chicago Cubs as we know them today came of age, it was Oct. 7, 2015.
On a 68-degree night in Pittsburgh, the Cubs shut out the Pirates 4-0 at PNC Park to win the National League wild-card game, getting a complete game from Jake Arrieta and home runs from Kyle Schwarber and Dexter Fowler.
The Cubs returned Monday to Pittsburgh for the first time since that October night, as they opened a three-game series.
Asked the other day what moment he remembered from that night, Cubs manager Joe Maddon said: "I think the soft liner to Starlin."
Maddon was referring to the final out of the game, a little liner off the bat of Francisco Cervelli that nestled safely into the glove of then-Cubs second baseman Starlin Castro.
Of course there were other moments: Schwarber's blast in the third inning and Fowler's solo homer in the fifth. Before the bottom of the sixth, Maddon moved Kris Bryant from left field to third base. With nobody out and a man on first, Bryant snagged a line drive off the bat of Gregory Polanco.
The Pirates wound up loading the bases before Starling Marte grounded to rookie shortstop Addison Russell, who turned a 6-4-3 double play.
Inside a delirious Cubs clubhouse afterward, team president Theo Epstein made a statement that set the tone for a busy off-season.
"It wouldn't have felt right to go home," Epstein said. "We had a little magic going on all year long. It just felt with all of our being that we deserved a nice little run here in October."
Let's hold that thought for just a minute.
In addition to inhaling their favorite bubbly beverages that night, the Cubs also let out a massive exhale, knowing their postseason would continue. They beat the Cardinals in the division series before getting swept by the Mets in the championship series.
But as that postseason unfolded, the Cubs seemed more and more assured of themselves - that last year was just the start of something, not a one-off event.
Of course, the postseason can be a crapshoot, especially in the one-game wild-card playoff.
That's one of the reasons Epstein went after the off-season as hard as he did, signing veterans Jason Heyward, John Lackey and Ben Zobrist and then smiling at his good fortune as Fowler dropped into his lap during spring training after an apparent deal with Baltimore fell through.
The goal was to win the division and eliminate the need to play in the diciest crapshoot: the one-game playoff.
"To be able to win that game and then stretch it through the Cardinals, and then getting that close to the World Series is not easy to do," Maddon reflected over the weekend. "It's not an easy thing to do. There's so much that has to go right, especially a short series.
"How about one game? I've been involved in that now twice. It's wonderful. That's the seventh game, man. You play the seventh game first. I thought we would be ready for that game. Jake obviously was the right guy, and he was ready for that game."