CHICAGO — There was a buzz at the corner of Clark and Addison entering the bottom of the seventh inning Thursday, with the Wrigley Field crowd of more than 40,000 waiting to explode. Holding onto a slim 2-0 lead over the San Diego Padres, the Cubs were looking for anything to give them some breathing room and give a sellout crowd something to get excited about.
And with the stage set for something special, Michael Busch was up for the challenge.
Busch hammered a deep drive off Padres reliever Robert Suarez high into the sky, sending the crowd to its feet. As the ball landed in the right-field bleachers, the 111-year-old building began to shake.
The Cubs’ finally had the moment they’d been waiting for. As Busch rounded third base in front of an elated Cubs dugout and electrified crowd, the first baseman let himself embrace the moment.
“You just feed off of it,” he said after Chicago’s 3-1 victory to advance to the NLDS. “You feed off of the moment. You feed off your teammates. You feed off the fans. … It’s one thing that you just kind of let it happen.”
The road to a winner-take-all matchup in Game 3 of this NL wild-card round wasn’t an easy one for Chicago. But the team the Cubs showed themselves to be in their triumph over the Padres was established long before the Champagne started popping in the home clubhouse.
There were many times over the past three months when it looked like the Cubs were losing their way. After a climb to the top of baseball’s elite in the first half of this season, August and September brought a dramatic reversal of fortune, as the team went 29-25 to finish the regular season. With the offense scuffling and a slate of devastating injuries, the Cubs looked to be stumbling their way to October, seemingly unable to right the ship.
But the beautiful thing about the postseason — and, in the Cubs’ case, an elimination game — is that none of what happened before matters. And in their series-clinching victory Thursday, the Cubs remembered exactly who they are when they’re at their best.
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All season, the Cubs’ offense was their greatest strength, and in Game 3, it returned to being the engine that makes this team go. Chicago put pressure on San Diego’s entire pitching staff from the first batter, grinding out at-bat after at-bat. They got to starter Yu Darvish early and forced him from the game in the second frame. Chicago plated two runs in that inning, and all told, the Cubs’ first batter of the inning reached base in five of their eight trips to the plate.
And with the team’s back against the wall, the players who helped carry the Cubs this season stood out. Designated hitter Kyle Tucker provided a multihit game, and so did Pete Crow-Armstrong, who after a second-half swoon recorded his first three-hit performance since Aug. 15.
“I think the playoffs often give you a great example of what it means to be a Major League Baseball player,” manager Craig Counsell said postgame. “In a three-game series, [if] you have two offensive games that you’re not really happy with, you’ve got to show up the next day with kind of the right mindset and not try to do everything and stay within what you’re good at. But Pete has the ability to deliver the spectacular and deliver greatness, and he had a heck of a game today.”
The Cubs’ pitching, not just in this game but across this series, rose to the occasion as well, allowing just five runs in the three-game set. Starter Jameson Taillon shined in his four shutout innings Thursday, but it was the bullpen combination of Daniel Palencia, Caleb Thielbar, Drew Pomeranz, Brad Keller and Andrew Kittredge who slammed the door for the Cubs.
“They did [Thursday] what they’ve done a lot this year, and I think — I always say they’re connected because they get each other’s outs, and that makes the next guy’s job easier,” Counsell said. “I’m really proud of that group. They worked hard today … and they worked hard this series.”
“Really tight-knit group down there,” Keller said of the bullpen. “We do a lot of things off the field together. We’re constantly talking, hanging out, doing things. It just makes us really close. I think that helps us out a ton, especially in games like this, yesterday and today, [when] we don’t know when our name is going to get called. We want to go out there and do our job and pass it on to the next guy.”
That they did. The Cubs’ Game 3 win marked their first postseason series victory since they defeated the Washington Nationals in the 2017 NLDS. It was the first series-clinching win at Wrigley Field since the Cubs defeated the Dodgers in the 2016 NLCS to send them to the World Series.
“When you’ve got 40,000 pulling in your direction, I think that’s always fun,” Crow-Armstrong said. “We owe more playoff baseball to this fan base, for sure.”
Another area that shined for the Cubs in the wild-card round and especially Game 3 was their elite defense. Having Gold Glove Award winners all around the diamond can sometimes go unnoticed, but in a series as tight as the one played between Chicago and San Diego, run prevention becomes paramount. Across the three games, shortstop Dansby Swanson, second baseman Nico Hoerner and Crow-Armstrong showed that the Cubs are better up the middle than any other team in baseball.
And while metrics have always considered Swanson an elite defender, sometimes you have to show people with the eye test. Against San Diego, the Cubs’ shortstop was a man on a mission, making leaping grabs and over-the-shoulder-catches and killing San Diego rallies with his glove work.
“I don’t think they give an MVP for defense this round, but I’d give it to Swanson,” Padres manager Mike Shildt said. “Dansby played his tail off, man. He almost single-handedly beat us with his glove.”
“These moments never get old,” Swanson said. “Being able to compete on a stage like this is literally the most fun you’ll ever have in your life. But to be able to do it with guys like [Busch] and [Ian Happ] and Nico and [Taillon] and just so many guys on our team, to be able to go take the field with them and come together for something greater than ourselves, for this city — man, it literally sends chills down my spine.”
With Thursday’s victory, the Cubs finally exorcised their recent postseason demons and reasserted themselves as legitimate contenders to win it all. After Thursday’s celebration, they will quickly turn their attention to the NLDS, where they’ll face the division rival Milwaukee Brewers beginning Saturday in what should be a series full of fireworks.
“I expect it to be a good one,” Busch said. “There’s been some good environments throughout the year between us, so I expect it to be a little higher, but we’re excited about it. It’s kind of the next step. This was one goal that we had, but there’s plenty more in front of us. It’s going to be a fun one for sure in Milwaukee.”
To be sure, there is no love lost between these two teams or between their two fan bases, with just 90 miles separating the cities and Counsell having history with both franchises. Heading into the matchup, the Cubs are once again playing like a team with confidence, and they’ll need every bit of it in what will likely be another tightly contested series against an opponent that knows them better than any other.
“It’s Cubs-Brewers. That’s going to be as good as it gets,” said Counsell, who managed the Brewers for nine seasons. “It’s always a great atmosphere when the two teams play each other. We’ll try to get as many Cubs fans in there as we can.
“They won’t like that, but it’s going to be a fun atmosphere — I know that.”
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