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10.09.2019 13:24
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LOS ANGELES -- Everybody got your National League Championship Series storylines straight now? Cool. Tuesdays story: Cubs dead. Wednesdays story: Cubs back from dead. OK, that about sums it up. Now lets all overreact.Everybody had us buried yesterday. Today were on top of the world, said Cubs catcher David Ross, again displaying his excellent grasp of modern civilizations need to oversimplify, after his teams 10-2 scrunching of the Dodgers on Wednesday in Game 4 of the NLCS. But we dont ride that roller coaster.No, thats our job. And were quite good at it, if we do say so ourselves. Instead of feeding you the usual baloney about momentum shifting and bats awakening, we thought wed try a different approach today.Lets try to figure out what we know, what we dont know and where this National League Championship Series goes from here, now that its tied at two games apiece.Do the Cubs really have the momentum now?Hmmm. Is that a trick question? The real question is whether momentum even exists in a series as topsy-turvy as this one.Cubs left fielder Ben Zobrist assured us that momentum is a real thing. And Cubs manager Joe Maddon announced that when you start hitting, its contagious. But over on the other side, Dodgers manager Dave Roberts was still trying to recover from a messy eruption of errors, mistakes and other forms of self-destruction, yet still found a way to predict confidently: I expect for us to play a much cleaner game tomorrow.So to recap, have you noticed that winning teams always seem to believe in momentum much more passionately than losing teams? Of course they do -- maybe because it feels better. But in reality, said Ross, a man playing in his 11th postseason series, the outside world has no firm comprehension of what momentum actually means in October.Its day to day, he said. Its game to game. Its pitch to pitch. Its small victories.And friends, all of that is true. But do blowout victories like this, even in gigantic win-or-else games, really tell us anything about who is going to win this series? Weve done the math. And that answer is NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.Here is the proof: The Cubs are the 10th team in history to win Game 4 of a best-of-seven LCS on the road to even that series. So if momentum really existed, you would imagine that the previous nine teams would have used those huge wins as the impetus to roar back and win the series, right?Nope. That would be wrong -- even though all the teams that were in that situation knew theyd be playing Games 6 and 7 at home.Of the nine Game 4 winners, six of them went on to lose that series anyway. The only exceptions were the 1998 Yankees (against the Indians), the 1993 Phillies (against the Braves) and the 1988 Dodgers (against the Mets). So beware of momentum at times like this, even though it seems so obvious.Have the Cubs bats really reawakened?Can we all agree there was an excellent chance the Cubs werent going to get shut out in every game for the rest of this series? They hadnt been shut out in two straight games in 2 ? years before it happened to them in Games 2 and 3. And it has been 50 years since any team got shut out in three straight postseason games -- when the 1966 Dodgers pulled that off against the Orioles.So sooner or later, the Cubs were due for a game like this. Anthony Rizzo was 1 for his last 28. Addison Russell was 4 for his last 56. And coming into this game, they had gone a combined 3-for-50 in this postseason. So they were due to revert to their mean, too.Russell admitted this week he has been struggling to control his adrenaline in the biggest games of his life. Rizzo has been burying himself in counts and chasing pitches he hadnt chased all year. So were there signs of life for both of them, in a game in which they combined to go 6-for-10, with a homer apiece? Absolutely.The biggest thing, said Cubs bench coach Dave Martinez, is that I know [hitting coach John Mallee] talked to both of those guys about staying in the middle of the field and if they did that, the adrenaline would take over. He said, Lets not get ahead of ourselves and use the biggest part of the field. And Addie had great at-bats. Rizzie had great at-bats. And they all did.But recognize that once Dodgers starter Julio Urias appeared to get unraveled by a Zobrist bunt hit and a couple of soft singles before serving up Russells game-turning two-run homer in the fourth, the Cubs did most of this damage against the less-than-elite portion of the Dodgers bullpen. And we recommend you file that knowledge away, because well give you more perspective on that momentarily.What will Game 5 bring?If youve been paying attention, you know the correct answer to that question would not involve momentum. No, this game will actually bring a pitching matchup --?Jon Lester versus Kenta Maeda -- that would seem to tilt heavily in the Cubs favor. And lets just say that was a pregame topic of concern among the Dodgers, even before Game 4.Lester has now faced the Dodgers three times this year. In 21 innings, he has given up just 10 hits and two runs -- both of them on solo homers. So theres that. He also is a man who has been there, done this October thing in seven different seasons, and been about as good at it as any active pitcher not named Madison Bumgarner.Over 16 postseason starts plus two relief appearances, Lester has a 2.57 ERA, and has allowed one earned run or none in half of those starts. Meanwhile, this is where we remind you that the Dodgers had the worst batting average (.213) and OPS (.622) against left-handed pitching of any team in baseball during the regular season. And nothing has changed in this postseason, where theyre at .187, with a .581 OPS.Maeda, on the other hand, seems to have hit the wall in what was mostly a tremendous rookie season on this side of the Pacific. He was the Dodgers leading winner, but in his past four starts (including the postseason), he has a 9.88 ERA and has gotten an average of 10 outs per start. So the Cubs are in excellent position to find themselves heading home, up three games to two.Any chance of Kershaw?It wouldnt be hard to draw up a juicy list of reasons that the Dodgers really ought to push Clayton Kershaw up a day to start in this game instead of Maeda: (A) Hes Clayton Kershaw! (B) It would give the Dodgers the option to pitch him in relief in Game 7 if they need him. (C) It also would line him up to start Game 1 of the World Series on Tuesday in Cleveland if the Dodgers make it. And (D) have we mentioned hes Clayton Kershaw!But Roberts was adamant, both before Wednesdays game and after Wednesdays game, that that wasnt happening. So Maeda will start Game 5. And Kershaw will come back Saturday (on extra rest) for Game 6, to give him some much-needed recovery time after pitching four times in 10 days earlier this month.Tomorrow isnt a deciding game, Roberts said Wednesday. Its not an elimination game. And I think the accumulation of his usage over the last 10 days plays a factor in our decision. So I think those are kind of the reasons why were not going with Clayton tomorrow.What he didnt say is that the Dodgers have decided that, because they need to win two more games in this series, they believe their best shot is Kershaw and Rich Hill on full or extra rest in Games 6 and 7. And they might be right -- because here comes the most important question of all.Can the Cubs figure out Kershaw, Hill or Kenley Jansen?Put away your Cubs bats are alive and well narratives and look at this series this way:? Against pitchers not named Kershaw, Hill or Jansen, theyre hitting .291 in this NLCS (23-for-79), with 12 extra-base hits.? But against the Dodgers big three -- Kershaw, Hill and Jansen -- theyre hitting a slightly different .093 (5-for-54, with 18 strikeouts), with zero extra-base hits.So why do we think that ultimately, what is going to decide this series is whether the Cubs can figure out a way to score against two of the most unhittable left-handed starters in baseball and a dominant closer who now routinely starts warming up in the seventh inning when the game demands it?We ran that question past one scout covering this series. He didnt paint a real attractive picture of the Cubs chances.They wont beat Kershaw, he said, unequivocally. And I think they will struggle again with Hill. Anyone who pitches in and changes speeds will have success against the Cubs right now. Any kind of downer breaking ball destroys them.But when we raised this uncomfortable topic in the Cubs clubhouse Wednesday night, it was about as popular a subject of conversation as goats and curses.Were just going to worry about tomorrow, Martinez said. When the time comes Saturday to face that monster, well worry about it when it comes.Weve got to worry about tomorrow first, Ross said, without any consultation with his bench coach. If were worried about facing Clayton Kershaw at some point, then weve got bigger problems. Weve got to worry about the task at hand.I do know this team is usually a lot better the second or third time they face a guy, Ross went on, in his relentless search for rainbows and sunshine. So if you want to paint a narrative, how about that one?We would like to say, right here, that we greatly appreciate all suggestions for future narratives that help get us through another day of incisive postseason coverage. But in this case, were going to politely decline, because we dont need to make any official announcements of our weekend narratives until, well, the weekend.Just remember, though, whatever happens Thursday in Game 5 of this series, it probably wont mean what you think it means. Because this time of year, almost nothing ever does. Patrick Mahomes Womens Jersey . Bryant, who signed a five-year, $34 million contract as a free agent with Cleveland in March, reported symptoms on Monday morning, a team spokesman said. Juan Thornhill Chiefs Jersey . Three came down to the fourth quarter while quarterbacks continued to shine in all four games; so important to the overall quality of the game. http://www.prochiefsauthentic.com/Youth-Darwin-Thompson-Elite-Jersey/ . -- The Bishops Gaiters are showing they belong among the countrys top varsity football teams. Tyrann Mathieu Jersey . Andreas Johnson had a goal and two assists while Jacob de la Rose also scored for Sweden (2-0-0). Esa Lindell and Rasmus Ristolainen replied for Finland (1-1-0) Lindell opened the scoring for Finland just 41 seconds into the game, but the hosts quickly regained their composure and tied the score less than four minutes later on Wennbergs first of the game. Frank Clark Youth Jersey . In what the team had called a retirement, Ryan said Thursday that he is resigning as chief executive of the Rangers in a move effective at the end of this month. SAN LUIS OBISPO, Calif. -- Gage Gubrud threw for 357 yards and four touchdowns, wide receiver Cooper Kupp threw for two more scores before hauling in a third, and Eastern Washington pulled away from Cal Poly for a 42-21 win Saturday night.Kupp finished with 154 yards receiving, including the 45-yard TD grab in the fourth quarter, but showed he can throw the ball, too. Twice in the third quarter, Kupp got the ball flicked to him in the backfield and threw to Shaq Hill for 28- and 10-yard touchdowns to put the Eagles (8-1, 6-0 Big Sky) up 35-14.Hill aalso hauled in a 30-yard touchdown pass from Gubrud in the first quarter.dddddddddddd.Cal Poly (6-3, 4-2) tied it at 7 with a 9-yard touchdown run by quarterback Dano Graves but fell behind again less than a minute later when Gubrud connected with Kendrick Bourne for a 25-yard touchdown. Bourne also had a 25-yard TD catch.Graves finished with just 67 yards passing but had 121 yards on the ground, including two touchdowns. ' ' ' |
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