Why Cubs have been the surprise team in baseball this season
Attention all those aboard the Cubs Express: Your train is now arriving at Destination October.
Whether that train's timetable was moved a year ahead of schedule was the subject of some discussion around Wrigley Field Saturday, some 9 or 10 hours after the Cubs found out they had clinched a playoff berth.
The San Francisco Giants lost 5-4 to the Oakland Athletics around midnight Friday, allowing the Cubs to secure one of the two wild-card spots in the National League.
Cubs manager Joe Maddon said he found out by checking his iPad. Catcher David Ross said a middle-of-the-night bathroom break is when he heard the Cubs were going to the playoffs.
With a noon game on tap against the Pirates Saturday, the mood around the Cubs clubhouse was "subdued happiness," according to Maddon, who shook hands with players to congratulate them on the team's first postseason appearance since 2008.
The Cubs have been the surprise team of baseball in 2015. After they finished 73-89 last year, most observers felt a good season would have been one that had the Cubs finishing at .500 or a few games above.
Maddon talked playoffs from the day he was hired last November and all the way through the winter fan convention and into spring training.
"Coming through this baseball thing like I have from the minor leagues on up, I had a lot of young good players," he said. "I've always believed our teams were going to do well. Maybe it's just a positive nature. I don't know. It's accelerated with the skill level of these young guys. They're an unusually skillful group of young players. There's a lot of teams that could have played five rookies the other day in a meaningful game but probably would not be in the position we are."
That position is the likely one-game wild-card playoff, Oct. 7 at either Pittsburgh or St. Louis. The question was put to several member of the Cubs family whether making the playoffs had come a year early.
"It would have been impossible to expect this group of young players to play at this level," said general manager Jed Hoyer. "We're not surprised they've done it, but certainly expecting it would have been difficult. I like that. If it means we exceeded expectations and that made the summer a little bit more improbable, that's great.
"We think these guys will do this going forward. I understand that narrative that you're one year too early. But I think Joe and the coaching staff really believed in this group all year, and they proved them right."
Inside the clubhouse, players seemed to think they were quite capable of pulling off this feat.
"Joe said 'playoffs' from the moment he was a in a Cubs jersey," said ace pitcher Jake Arrieta, who is the scheduled starter for Sunday Night Baseball and the wild-card game. "As players, that's something you really appreciate to see from you manager, to know that he's all in and he's not looking for anything less than the playoffs. And here we are."
The Cubs got "here" with a torrid second half. At the all-star break, they were 47-40 and in good shape. They fell to 51-46 after getting swept by the Phillies in late July, a sweep that included a no-hitter thrown at them by Cole Hamels. But the Cubs took off in August, going 19-9 for the month and thereby announcing they were for real. In early September, the Cubs took four of six games from the Cardinals over two series, giving them another jolt of confidence.
Maddon was asked to pinpoint one key moment of the season, and he picked a four-game sweep of the defending World Series champion Giants at Wrigley from Aug. 6-9.
"I thought the series against the Giants was really pertinent," Maddon said. "That was really pertinent, that series. They're really good. They were coming in here. I fully respect what they have done. They know how to win. All that stuff. I thought that series there, to me, in my mind, proved to me and to us that we can do this."
Don't get off the train now.
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