Cubs' Maddon OK with fans' second-guessing

In the pre-social media days, barroom banter about baseball was confined "to the length of the bar," according to Chicago Cubs manager Joe Maddon.

"With social media as it is, it's international basically," he added. "I have no problem with it whatsoever."

Maddon's moves in Saturday night's 8-4 victory over the Los Angeles Dodgers in Game 1 of the National League championship series still were being discussed Sunday.

After the game, Maddon invoked the name of one of his mentors: former big-league manager Gene Mauch.

"Play the game three times - before, during, and after," Maddon said. "Gene told me that many, many, years ago."

So on Sunday, Maddon said he was good with the "after" part, especially bringing in closer Aroldis Chapman with nobody out and the bases loaded in the eighth inning. Chapman struck out Corey Seager and Yasiel Puig before giving up a game-tying 2-run single to Adrian Gonzalez. Chapman then retired Yasmani Grandal on a groundout to end the inning.

"We did win the game," Maddon said. "If your look at it retrospectively, the reason we won that game was because of Chapman. The fact that he did give up 2 runs, he didn't give up any more than that. You didn't want anybody else pitching to Seager there. Had they gone ahead, then you would have seen (Dodgers closer Kenley) Jansen in there, and it would have been very difficult.

"In spite of all the different permutations, I know we won that game because (Chapman) punches out those two guys. He gives up a hit, but then we get out of the inning with only the 2 runs scoring. That pretty much won the game, I thought."

In Game 3 of the division series against the Giants, Chapman came in with two runners on base and nobody out in the eighth and gave up a 2-run triple to Conor Gillaspie and an RBI single to Brandon Crawford.

"The ball that Gillaspie hit was over his head," Maddon said. "God bless him. A hundred whatever that was (in mph) last night, (Gonzalez) squares it up and gets a knock. Would do you possibly say right there except turn the page? What's lost in the shuffle is that he gets Grandal to ground out there. A lot of times you see guys lose their composure and then the next guy scores. Then the meatier part of their bullpen comes in and we have less of a chance to do what he did."

Looking for sharpness:

Former closer Hector Rondon entered Sunday having given up 8 hits and 2 walks in 7⅔ innings this postseason. Rondon went on the disabled list Aug. 19 with a triceps ailment, and he has not been sharp since.

On Saturday, he gave up a run and 2 hits in the ninth inning.

"He hasn't been as sharp, there's no question," Joe Maddon said. "Velocity was good. He gets the first guy out and we get the chopper to first. That's a play that we could have made. It does not get made and that kind of like gave them some hope. Otherwise he's on the verge of having a nice inning.

"He's coming off the injury. We try to get him out there as much as we can. Same with (Pedro) Strop. The good and the bad is the fact that they're rested but maybe not as sharp as they could have been had they been pitching more consistently."