It was all coming back.
Last October, I had the pleasure (pain) of going to NLDS GM3 where the Cubs hit 6 home runs and not only beat the ever-loving stuffing out of the Cardinals but signaled to the baseball world that the future Cubs weren’t coming… they were here.
Kyle Schwarber's home run ball returned to top of Wrigley video board https://t.co/umhkkJpTcj via @PWSullivan pic.twitter.com/OloOXbpmde
— Chicago Tribune Sports (@ChicagoSports) April 11, 2016
After the game I took the red line back to my apartment and it was a less than stellar experience. A dude wearing a Cardinals Hawaiian shirt and a red cap was going to take a fair amount of shit – I get it – but it didn’t make it any more fun.
A day later, the baseball season, as far as I was concerned, was over.
https://twitter.com/JaredAHerbert/status/675388988052520960
One NLCS sweep and a winter later, the agony of that day wasn’t totally gone, but it was gone enough to be fired up to watch the Cards and Cubs go toe to toe once again.
1st and 2nd the NL Central and knowing that each of the upcoming 19 head-to-head games would be critical, we expected not a game, but a GAME.
And for 5 innings, it was.
No runs scored. Lackey showing the Cardinals what they missed out on. Leake up to the task, performing up to his new contract. We had a GAME.
Then the failed attempt to score from 3rd with less than 2 outs. Then the Fowler home run. Then the Diaz meltdown.
5-0. Cubs win. The 4th straight ‘W’ against the Cardinals, dating back to 2015.
Cubs (10-3) match their best start since 1970 by shutting out Cardinals, 5-0.
John Lackey: 7 IP, 4 H, 0 R, 11 K pic.twitter.com/MnayiP1w3D
— SportsCenter (@SportsCenter) April 19, 2016
I got fired up on Monday with what Will Leitch wrote in the Chicago Tribune:
And yet and yet and yet … for 20 years, the Cardinals have been among the most successful franchises in baseball (they have missed the playoffs only four times this century) and they have been particularly vexing for the Cubs. For every grand Cubs prospect era — from Sandberg/Grace/Davis to Wood/Prior/Zambrano to Bryant/Schwarber/Russell — the Cardinals have won a World Series as the Cubs haven’t, usually on the backs of unheralded nobodies like Allen Craig and Skip Schumaker and David Freese and Jeff (freaking) Weaver. Somehow, even when it makes no sense for them to do so, the Cardinals have found a way.
Today?
Cubs (10-3) match their best start since 1970 by shutting out Cardinals, 5-0.
John Lackey: 7 IP, 4 H, 0 R, 11 K pic.twitter.com/MnayiP1w3D
— SportsCenter (@SportsCenter) April 19, 2016
I’d like to believe that the Cardinals had a bad game. And that over the course of 162 games, you’re going to have bad games – this one just happened to be against the Cubs.
But one game is one game.
The past 4 have shown that the team that usually falls to pieces at the first application of pressure isn’t the team that always falls to pieces.
Will the Cardinals fight back tonight?
I hope so.
I used to know so.
Photo: ESPN
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