October 22, 2016 Cubs.com 6th Tense: Kershaw. Cubs. Wrigley. Clinch? By Phil Rogers Cubs fans have waited 71 years and 23 days for their team to clinch another World Series berth, but that interval may be down to its final hours. An event that last occurred on Sept. 29, 1945, could see a reprise tonight at Wrigley Field, but it won't be easy. Standing between the Cubs and the Fall Classic that has eluded them all these decades, however, is the best pitcher on the planet. Clayton Kershaw will take the ball for the Dodgers, trying to extend the National League Championship Series to a winner-take-all Game 7 on Sunday. The stakes in tonight's Game 6 are almost as high as they can get, especially for the Cubs, who are pursuing their first World Series championship since 1908. Kershaw twice helped the Dodgers avoid elimination in the NL Division Series. He'll be asked to do the same tonight, with the Cubs one win away from advancing to meet the Indians in the World Series, which starts Tuesday in Cleveland on FOX. Kershaw's counterpart in Game 6 will be Kyle Hendricks. Kershaw will have to turn around the momentum of the Cubs, who rolled to two easy victories at Dodger Stadium after the Dodgers won two of the first three games. Kershaw beat the Cubs, 1-0, in Game 2. If the Dodgers win Game 6, left-hander Rich Hill will meet Jake Arrieta in the deciding game. "If [Kershaw] is on top of his game, it's going to be another very close, low-scoring game," Cubs manager Joe Maddon said. "We just have to do our best to eek out as many runs as we can. And on the other side, you have to pitch better than good pitching to win. ... Nothing has been decided, obviously. We have to go back there and play our A-game to beat these two -- or the first outstanding pitcher, and hopefully that's all we have to face." With Kershaw sidelined for more than two months this season with a back injury, Hendricks used his command and trademark changeup to become the first Cub since 1945 to win the NL ERA title. He was 16-8 with a 2.13 ERA over 190 innings, and grew more effective late in the season (7-1, 1.72 in his last 11 starts). Kershaw knows that Hendricks could steal the spotlight from him, as he did the ERA title. "Well, he obviously had an amazing year," Kershaw said. "He's kind of like the Greg Maddux of this generation, with his ability to sink the ball, cut the ball, and put it in spots where hitters are enticed to swing at it, but you can't put the barrel on it. He's really good at mixing speeds, changing it up. He's a tough guy to go against, for sure." Hendricks worked 5 1/3 innings in the 1-0 loss to Kershaw in Game 2, with the difference in the game a second-inning homer by Adrian Gonzalez off an 89-mph fastball. He allowed only three hits but walked four, the latter more a sign of how carefully he was pitching than a lack of control. "It's not like anything was out of whack," Hendricks said. "I've just got to dial it in, basically, for this start. It wasn't terrible again. I knew who I was going up against, so with that being said, I knew I couldn't give in. After I gave up the one run, I knew I had to keep it there to give us a chance.

"You really have to toe the line in the playoffs. Because one run against a guy like that could be huge. I was just trying to do all I could to keep it a 1-0 game." In the 2003 NLCS, the Cubs also returned to Wrigley with a 3-2 series lead, but they couldn't finish the job against the Marlins, even though they led in the eighth inning of Game 6. The Marlins were one of 10 teams in MLB history to win Games 6 and 7 on the road in a best-of-seven series, and the 2004 Red Sox were the last club to do it, coming back from a 3-0 ALCS deficit vs. the Yankees. While Maddon has done a great job downplaying that storyline in his two seasons in Chicago, the painful history will hang over the franchise until it writes a different ending. For the Cubs to avoid the angst of a winner-take-all Game 7, they've got to figure out a way to do something they couldn't in Game 2 -- do damage against Kershaw. His curveball wasn't its best, but he allowed only three runners to reach base in seven innings of the Dodgers' shutout victory on Sunday at Wrigley Field. Kershaw is trying to help his team reach the World Series for the first time in his sixth postseason, including NLCS losses in 2008, '09 and '13. He said he can't describe how he'll feel when it's time to play, but he is hoping for normalcy. "I don't know if I have a word for it," Kershaw said. "But I think you do everything you can to try and keep it just like another start at the beginning. Then obviously the magnitude and the situation of the game kind of raises everybody's adrenaline and things like that. But trying to keep it the same right now." Kershaw pounded the strike zone with fastballs that averaged 94 mph. He threw 50 fastballs out of 84 pitches, giving up two hits and one walk before manager Dave Roberts turned the lead over to closer Kenley Jansen. Kershaw has used his command of pitches and unusual delivery to rack up three NL Cy Young Awards, and probably would be in line for a fourth this season had he not been limited to 21 starts because of a mild herniated disk in his lower back. Maddon offered a good description this week of what sets Kershaw apart from other left-handers. "Delivery," Maddon said. "Deception has a lot to do with it, even out of the stretch. He just falls. Like he comes in and he just falls toward home plate. He's got a good move [to first base], so you have to honor that. But the way he comes set and falls toward the plate, I'm certain there's got to be a deception." Maddon said he thought Kershaw "had to be really tired by the time he came out of [Game 2]" because he was working for the fourth time in 10 days. "I was really impressed with his command and his velocity," Maddon said. "I was anticipating neither to be that sharp or that good. I was hoping, but they were, and that was the difference-maker. Plus, he's so competitive. He's hyper-competitive, and he's got a tremendous level of self confidence." Kershaw was 12-4 with a career-low 1.69 ERA during the regular season but didn't reach the 162-inning limit to qualify for the ERA title. His postseason work is probably better measured by the Dodgers' 4-0 record in his appearances than his 3.72 ERA over 19 1/3 innings. Kershaw said he was available to start Game 5 on three days' rest if needed, but Roberts and the Andrew Friedman-led front office decided to take the patient approach. He will be working on an extra day's rest, and has thrown only 168 1/3 innings between the regular season and postseason. That could be an edge for him, not that he needs one. "If you haven't done something, you're probably fresher,'' Kershaw said. "But I never really felt bad in previous Octobers. I've always felt the same. So I don't know. I don't think it really works like that, honestly. But I feel good."

History awaits. -- Cubs.com 'Designated yo-yo' Zobrist an asset for Cubs By Carrie Muskat CHICAGO -- Early in his career, Ben Zobrist was what he calls the "designated yo-yo," bouncing from the Majors to the Minors as he tried to win a spot on the Rays. If it weren't for an offseason phone call from manager Joe Maddon telling him to show up at Spring Training with six different gloves, Zobrist might be sitting on the couch watching the Cubs in the National League Championship Series. Today, Zobrist is the unlikely cleanup hitter for the Cubs, who are one win away from their first trip to the World Series since 1945. Zobrist's bunt in Game 4 might have been the key hit that propelled the Cubs. The Dodgers shut out the Cubs in Games 2 and 3 behind Clayton Kershaw and Rich Hill. Young Julio Urias was on the mound in Game 4 at Dodger Stadium, and Zobrist led off the fourth inning with a perfect bunt toward third. "I felt like that spot in the game was the right time," Zobrist said. "After we hadn't gotten any hits up to that point, I was like, 'Well, it's time. Someone needs to do it.'" That mini hit ignited a four-run inning for the Cubs, highlighted by Addison Russell's two-run homer. Chicago won, 10-2, to even the best-of-seven series at two wins apiece. It was Zobrist's decision to bunt. "It's always best when Benny does something extemporaneously," Maddon said. "Whenever I give him a sign, it never works. So I'm glad he thought of it on his own." It wasn't the first time for Zobrist, either. According to ESPN Stats and Information data, the only time in the postseason when a cleanup hitter has bunted for a hit since 2000 was in Game 1 of the 2011 American League Division Series between the Rays and Rangers. And, yes, Zobrist was the batter. The Rays were leading, 3-0, with one out and a runner at first in the third against the Rangers, when Zobrist took advantage of third baseman Adrian Beltre playing deep. He bunted toward third and reached on the infield hit. One out later, Kelly Shoppach smacked a three-run homer to open a 6-0 lead. The Rays won the game, 9-0, but that was their only victory of the series, and the Rangers advanced. "That's definitely his call, but I don't think there's too many cleanup hitters in the league that do drop that bunt," Johnny Damon said at that time. There aren't too many batters who can do what Zobrist, 35, does. This season, he has started at second base, left and right field, appeared at first and even shortstop, which was where he started with the Rays in 2007. "He was a nice shortstop, he was fine," Maddon said, recalling their early days in Tampa Bay. "But he didn't have this extraordinary range or tools or arm that you want out of a shortstop. He's a switch-hitter, and he's one of the best teammates you've ever had in your life. "Moving forward, when you get a guy like that, who's talented, who can hit from both sides of the plate, you try to find a spot for somebody like that. We just thought by giving him multiple positions that it was his best avenue to get to the Major Leagues. And, of course, the player has to concede and say, 'I'm on board, I like this, I can do this,' which he did." The Rays had acquired shortstop Jason Barlett in November 2007, which is when Maddon, Tampa Bay's manager at the time, called Zobrist.

"[Maddon] said, 'I want you to bring about six different gloves to the field,'" Zobrist said. Maddon's theory was that by being versatile, Zobrist could sub at a variety of positions and get more at-bats. A fractured left thumb in March 2008 limited Zobrist, and he wasn't activated until mid-May. Then, he started his shuttle trips between Tampa Bay and the Triple-A Durham Bulls. "I was the designated yo-yo," Zobrist said. "Finally, my hitting started catching up." Zobrist finished strong in September, batting .321 in 20 games, and he began 2009 on the Rays' bench. But an injury to another infielder gave Zobrist an opening, and he played in 152 games, quite a leap from the 62 he totaled in '08. Maddon felt Zobrist made some adjustments with his swing at Triple-A, and they paid off. "When the power showed up, that made it even more interesting to have him become this multiple-positional player," Maddon said. "You didn't see him as an everyday shortstop, but he definitely has an outfielder's body. We found out he can play second base. We were just working him all around the diamond. Second base and either corner outfield is probably his best position." With the emergence of Javier Baez, Zobrist has started in left in the NLCS. The veteran has put all of his gloves to good use. "It wasn't my idea," Zobrist said of playing all positions. But it was Zobrist's idea to bunt in Game 4, although he admits he considered doing so in Game 2 against Kershaw. "You're not going to hit a bunch of three-run homers every game," Zobrist said. "You really have to find a way to play small ball, especially in the postseason when we're facing good pitching, and they've been tough on us. That [bunt] just kind of got everything going. Offensively, everyone contributed. It just kind of felt like the floodgates opened." Zobrist already has a World Series ring after helping the Royals win last year. However, he grew up in downstate Eureka. This time, he'd be able to say he did so for his home state team. "That's the definition of a good baseball player and a guy that's going to find a way to win," Chicago's David Ross said of Zobrist after his bunt. If Zobrist hadn't learned to play all those positions, if he had gone home after the 2008 season, what would he be doing now? "I'd probably be out of baseball," Zobrist said. "I'd be doing something else, probably sitting on the couch watching these games." The Cubs are glad Zobrist is in the lineup. "I'm not a cleanup hitter," Zobrist said. "I'm just batting fourth." -- Cubs.com Ross' storybook career nearing its end By Jenifer Langosch CHICAGO -- Though he comes to bat while the words of Alphaville's "Forever Young" echo throughout Wrigley Field, David Ross understands there is no freezing time now.

Ross long ago announced his intentions to retire at the end of the year, plans he recently reaffirmed with "99.9 percent" certainty. Things are building toward a crescendo, too, as Ross, whose career has spanned 15 seasons with seven organizations, finds himself on a Cubs team one win from advancing to the World Series. It's a familiar, but nonetheless cherished, position for Ross, who was in the same spot with the Red Sox in 2013. Boston dispatched of the Tigers in a six-game American League Championship Series that season en route to capturing the franchise's second championship in seven seasons. It was Ross' first. For Ross to pen a storybook ending to his year-long retirement party, he'll need some help. As Jon Lester's personal catcher, Ross has already started twice in this NLCS against the Dodgers. But he's unlikely to do so again this weekend. Kyle Hendricks has been paired with catcher Willson Contreras throughout the postseason, and Jake Arrieta has developed a strong rapport with Miguel Montero. And so Ross will watch and root and once again offer his experience to teammates who haven't been on this doorstep before. "I'm just trying to stay in the moment," Ross said. "Don't even think about the World Series. We have Clayton Kershaw on the docket for Saturday. This guy is one of the best in the game. We'll celebrate once we go, but if you start looking at big picture, you'll get lost and it will swallow you up and it will be gone." Despite a part-time role and an underwhelming regular-season slash line (.229/.338/.446), Ross has emerged as a key piece within an organization that he joined two winters ago, mostly to follow Lester. Teammates often talk about the 39-year-old Ross as they would an older brother. He rebukes when it's needed, instructs when he's asked and breaks the tension when he senses things are getting too serious. Perhaps that impact was best described by Lester when he characterized his batterymate as "the heartbeat of our clubhouse" earlier in the postseason. "He's the most vocal leader we have," Hendricks added. "He's been around. He's won where he's been. Just watching a guy like that, picking his brain, talking to him day-in and day-out, I've learned a ton from him, and I know what he's done for the team has been monumental." The internal impact Ross has made has seeped out of those clubhouse walls, which perhaps explains how a backup catcher nicknamed "Grandpa Rossy" became so beloved by a fan base that has hardly known him. There were stories about him riding around in a motorized scooter during Spring Training, and the creation of an Instagram account that teammates Kris Bryant and Anthony Rizzo used to document Ross' season. The depth of Ross' impact then took on a more tangible quality when Jason Heyward revealed that he would pay for Ross to have a hotel suite on every road trip this season. It was Heyward's way of saying thank you to the man who had, years before, taken him under his wing in Atlanta. "It's a lot of love," Ross said, "and I promise you, I don't deserve even half of it." Ross says that about his career, too, wondering how an offensively challenged catcher managed to survive in this game as long as he has. Yet, in a sport where players so often fade away before they're ready, Ross has the unique opportunity to not only go out on his own terms, but to also go out on top. "I kind of feel like I've lived my dream," Ross said. "I feel like I've had a very long Major League career and have done things that I never thought I would be able to do. It's gone way off script." -- Cubs.com Lucky No. 7? Cubs 0-6 since '45 in potential NLCS clinchers By Daniel Kramer and David Adler

The Cubs are on the verge of claiming their first National League pennant in 71 years. With a win tonight against the Dodgers in Game 6 of the NL Championship Series, the Cubs would be four wins away from their first World Series championship since 1908 -- eight years before they moved into historic Wrigley Field. But they've been in this position before, only to come up short. Six times since their last trip to the World Series in 1945, they were one win away. All six games manifested through the Cubs taking a two-game advantage in the NLCS -- in 1984 against the Padres and in 2003 against the Marlins. Here is a historical snapshot of each of those games: 1984 NLCS Game 3: Padres 7, Cubs 1 The Cubs rolled into Game 3 with a 2-0 lead in the last best-of-five NLCS (the LCS round moved to a best-of-seven format in 1985). They'd won the first two games of the series at Wrigley Field and needed to win just one of the final three in San Diego to advance to the World Series. Not only that, they boasted both the NL's Most Valuable Player, Ryne Sandberg, and the Cy Young Award winner, Rick Sutcliffe. Dennis Eckersley, in his first season with Chicago, was on the mound for Game 3. But after shutting down the Padres for the first four innings, he was tagged for five runs in the fifth and sixth. The Padres' Kevin McReynolds capped the scoring with a three-run homer off reliever George Frazier, Tony Gwynn went 3-for-4 and San Diego cruised to a 7-1 win. "You need some breaks, and I didn't get any," Eckersley told The Chicago Tribune. "I don't think the team is depressed, but I am. I could've done something about it, but didn't." 1984 NLCS Game 4: Padres 7, Cubs 5 This one was tough. Game 4 moved into the bottom of the ninth inning tied, 5-5, and the Cubs had star reliever Lee Smith on the mound. But after striking out the first batter of the inning, Smith allowed a single to Gwynn and then surrendered a walk-off two-run homer to eventual NLCS MVP Steve Garvey to even the series. The Cubs twice rallied from a two-run deficit during the game. The Padres took a 2-0 lead in the third inning, but the Cubs responded with three runs in the fourth on back-to-back home runs by Jody Davis and Leon Durham. After San Diego retook the lead in the seventh, the Cubs again fought back, scoring twice in the eighth off All-Star Goose Gossage to tie the game. But Garvey's heroics against Smith rendered it all for naught, and the NLCS moved to a winner-take-all Game 5. Even in 1984, the Cubs felt the burden of their World Series drought. Ron Cey, who had won the 1981 World Series with the Dodgers, told The Chicago Tribune before Game 4: "In Los Angeles, they expected us to win. In Chicago, they only hoped we could. We had to live out somebody else's past. We had to put up with something that wasn't our fault." 1984 NLCS Game 5: Padres 6, Cubs 3 With a World Series berth on the line, the Cubs handed the ball to Sutcliffe, who led the Major Leagues with 20 wins that season. Sutcliffe had already beaten the Padres once in the series, throwing seven shutout innings in Game 1. Sutcliffe's dominance continued for much of Game 5. For the first five innings, he held San Diego scoreless as the Cubs jumped out to a 3-0 lead, again on home runs by Durham and Davis. But in the sixth inning, the Padres started to chip away, scoring twice on sacrifice flies. And in the bottom of the seventh, they broke through in a big way, scoring four times to knock Sutcliffe out of the game. Gwynn and Garvey once again had the big hits. Gwynn knocked a two-run double to give the Padres the lead, and Garvey singled him home to add an insurance run. Gossage shut down the Cubs for the final two innings, and just

like that, it was over. The Cubs, who had held a commanding lead days before, were going home. They became the only team to blow a 2-0 series lead in a best-of-five NLCS. "They're going to the World Series and we're going home," Sutcliffe said to The Chicago Tribune. "This will hurt me for a long, long time. It will stay with all of us for a long time. It's hard to deal with. Very hard." 2003 NLCS Game 5: Marlins 4, Cubs 0 After falling in Game 1, the Cubs reeled off three wins in a row, outscoring the Marlins by 13 runs to take a commanding series lead. But their bats fell quiet in Game 5 to the tune of just two hits in a 4-0 shutout at the hands of eventual World Series MVP Josh Beckett. "We needed a good outing from a starter. I knew that going in," Beckett said at the time, per The Associated Press. "They had roughed us up pretty good. We needed to pitch better." Beckett carried a no-hitter into the fifth inning, when Alex Gonzalez laced a two-out single, but the game remained tied until a half-inning later, when Mike Lowell lifted a two-out, two-run homer that pushed the Marlins ahead. Ivan Rodriguez and Jeff Conine each homered in the later innings to send the series back to Chicago. 2003 NLCS Game 6: Marlins 8, Cubs 3 This one evoked arguably the most heartbreak for Cubs fans in the 141-year history of the franchise: "The Bartman Game." The Cubs were confident with a 3-2 lead as the series shifted back to Chicago. And with a roaring Wrigley crowd behind them, they took a 3-0 lead into the eighth inning of Game 6 behind a masterful outing from NL Cy Young candidate Mark Prior. Then an onslaught ensued. It began with one out when Luis Castillo lifted a foul ball down the left-field line just beyond the outstretched glove of Moises Alou, who tangled with fan Steve Bartman while trying to haul it in. Alou's visible angst led to backlash at the Friendly Confines -- all while the Marlins began a miraculous comeback. "I timed it perfectly; I jumped perfectly," Alou said, per The AP. "I'm almost 100 percent that I had a clean shot to catch the ball. All of a sudden, there's a hand on my glove. "Hopefully, [Bartman] won't have to regret it for the rest of his life," Alou added, perhaps with no inclination of the infamy Bartman faces even to this day. Though the Cubs had plenty of chances to recover. Castillo's at-bat ended in a walk, then Rodriguez laced an RBI single to left to cut the Cubs' lead to 3-1. Miguel Cabrera hit a routine ground ball to shortstop that would have been an inning-ending double play, but Alex Gonzalez bobbled it and the bases were loaded. Derrek Lee then tied the game with a two-run double to left, Conine pushed the Marlins ahead on a sacrifice fly and Mike Mordecai cleared the bases with a three-run double as the team batted through the order. Juan Pierre poured salt on the Cubs' wound with an RBI single to cap an eight-run frame. In one half-inning, a potential pennant-clinching victory was a shocking 8-3 loss. 2003 NLCS Game 7: Marlins 9, Cubs 6 On the heels of their deflating Game 6 defeat, the Cubs fell behind, 3-0, in the first inning the following day in the face of elimination. But they responded by scoring five unanswered runs -- including a two-run homer from pitcher Kerry Wood. Then, in a brilliant act of desperation, the Marlins turned to Beckett out of the bullpen, who twirled four masterful

innings, giving up just one hit, a Troy O'Leary homer in the seventh, while the Marlins scored six more runs to reclaim the lead and win the series. A disappointed Wood put the weight of the loss on himself. "I felt I let the team down, the organization down and the city of Chicago down," Wood said, according to The AP. "I choked." -- Cubs.com Rogers: Heyward should start Game 6 in RF By Phil Rogers CHICAGO -- From the first grisly scene to the climax, "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" lasts 90 minutes. Running time on "The Exorcist" is two hours, 13 minutes. It took 4 hours, 16 minutes to play Game 5 of the National League Championship Series, and the time spent watching Jason Heyward bat must have seemed like a horror film for Cubs fans. We get it. Anybody who was watching gets it. But what should manager Joe Maddon do about it? Should he sit Heyward against Clayton Kershaw tonight, when a victory gets the Cubs into the World Series, or should he stick with him for his Gold Glove defense in right field? It's a question worth pondering, given how games can turn on one at-bat. Do the Cubs really want Heyward to face Kershaw three times? Cubs president of baseball operations Theo Epstein, Maddon and the analysts Maddon calls "my geeks" are sure to consider a variety of right-field scenarios before the potential clincher against the Dodgers. In the end, the guess here is they'll stick with their man, Heyward. If they do, they won't be doing it because the front office doesn't want to bench a $184 million player. They'll be doing it because it's the right thing to do. The Cubs play their best when they have their best defensive players on the field, and Heyward is certainly one of those. He has had as much to do with them being a historically good fielding unit as anyone, including middle infielders Addison Russell and Javier Baez. No question, Heyward is lost at the plate. He has been throughout the season, hitting .230 with seven home runs. He's 2-for-28 in the postseason and hitless in 15 at-bats since a triple off Kenta Maeda that had Wrigley Field rocking in Game 1 of the NLCS. The Dodgers are pounding him inside with fastballs and sliders, one after another, and he simply doesn't have the bat speed to turn on them. His struggles have never been uglier than they were on Thursday night, when his best moment came when Maeda hit him with a 1-2 fastball. Otherwise, it was as ugly as it gets. To recap: First inning, two outs, men on first and second: The count climbs to 2-2, Heyward fouls off two pitches and then swings at a 92-mph fastball he can't catch up to, ending the inning and stranding two runners. Sixth inning, nobody out, man on second: Baez briefly preoccupies Joe Blanton with his leads off first, then steals second. Heyward gets the count to 3-1, but then takes a strike and swings and misses on a slider in the dirt. He does the fundamentally right thing (as he always does) by running to first, but catcher Carlos Ruiz makes a routine throw to finish the strikeout.

Seventh inning, two outs, men on first and second: Facing left-hander Luis Avilan, Heyward again gets ahead in the count, 2-0. He eventually finds himself at 3-2 and fouls off two pitches. But the eighth pitch of the at-bat is a changeup, and Heyward pops it up weakly to Ruiz. Eighth inning, man on second, two outs: Ross Stripling starts Heyward off with a ball, but Heyward pops up the next pitch, a 91-mph fastball, to second baseman Enrique Hernandez. That's 0-for-4, every time with a runner in scoring position, stranding six runners. And now here comes Kershaw. So sit him, right? Wrong. Remember when Heyward made a throw to the plate to stop Adrian Gonzalez from scoring on that much-debated (and reviewed) play in Game 4? Or, better yet, remember when Jorge Soler collided with Dexter Fowler in Game 3, the last time Maddon benched Heyward to get a right-handed bat into the lineup? Here's a fact that might surprise you: In the postseason series against the Dodgers and Giants, the Cubs are 6-1 when Heyward starts, 0-2 when he sat against Rich Hill and Madison Bumgarner. While Heyward isn't hitting, he still makes pitchers work. He saw 27 pitches in his five plate appearances in Game 5. He was 0-for-2 against Kershaw in Game 2, grounding out to third base and hitting a foul pop to third. But that was better than Soler, who struck out as a pinch-hitter. Heyward could use that look at Kershaw to help him get the barrel of the bat on the ball in Game 6. "I think the more you face him, maybe you have a better shot, but he's really good," David Ross said. "We have our work cut out for us." Don't underestimate the value of Heyward's consistently solid work in the outfield in a game certain to be played on a high wire. Defensive lapses led to the Cubs' postseason unraveling at Wrigley Field against the Dodgers in 2008 and the Marlins in '03. With Kyle Hendricks on the mound, the Cubs have a chance to win a 2-1 game. They can't sacrifice that by weakening themselves defensively. If Heyward comes up in a big spot, with the Cubs trailing, give Soler or Albert Almora Jr. a crack off the bench. But Heyward needs to be out there in right field when Hendricks steps on the rubber. If you don't want to watch him hit, that's OK. Go get popcorn or walk the dog. But get back in time to see if he can run down a gapper or two. -- ESPNChicago.com All eyes on Wrigley for Game 6 By Jesse Rogers CHICAGO -- We’ve been here before. Granted, it hasn’t been often. Only twice since 1945 have the Chicago Cubs been in position to advance to the World Series with just one more victory. In those two cases -- 1984 and 2003 -- they actually had a combined six chances to win one more game, yet they came up short. Winning Game 6 of the National League Championship Series on Saturday against the Los Angeles Dodgers will be just as hard as any of those six chances -- maybe even harder. To get to the promised land, the Cubs have to go through the best pitcher of this generation, left-hander Clayton Kershaw. You want to talk drama? It’s coming to Wrigley Field on Saturday night.

“It's going to be a formidable event,” Cubs manager Joe Maddon said. “Our guys will absolutely be ready for the moment. I promise you that. It's great. The city of Chicago has got to be buzzing pretty much right now. I expect a sellout at Wrigley. It will be a lot of fun.” Forget the park; the entire neighborhood is going to be sold out, with millions watching across the world as they follow a Cubs teams that's more a cultural phenomenon than a baseball story. It happens every time they’re good but particularly when they’ve been the best team in baseball since Opening Day. Can they finally, once and for all, shed the lovable loser label? I was there in 1984, when it looked like a sure thing, with the Cubs leading the then-best-of-five NLCS 2-0 against the San Diego Padres. I saw it up close again in 2003, when they were up 3-1 against the Florida Marlins, but it isn't just the playoff heartbreak that comes to mind. It’s also the years when the Cubs were out of it the moment spring training began. Most of the time it wasn’t by design, but five years ago, a plan was hatched to bring the Cubs sustained success. It sounded slightly ridiculous: "Let’s lose even more games so we can win -- maybe -- in a few years." But it worked. The result is a powerhouse team just coming into its own. Yet we’ve been here before, with other managers and players and good front-office personnel. And it never happened. The years rolled on, and teams in new baseball cities such as Tampa Bay played in the World Series, but not the Cubs -- never the Cubs. “That’s why I signed here,” Ben Zobrist said back in spring training and again during the playoffs. “Everyone wants to be on that Cubs team that wins it all.” Getting there might feel just as good, at least for the moment: The World Series at Wrigley Field. Many have pictured it, but what would that feel like? No one in the game today could know, and fewer and fewer people are alive who can attest that it ever happened. We’d like to think this is the best of all the Cubs' playoff teams, but I’m sure that was the thinking in previous postseasons too. Once the bandwagon starts, it’s hard to stop; Cubs optimism becomes rampant. At least this playoff run is allowing the better team to show itself. There was a bump or two in the road against the San Francisco Giants, but eventually, the cream rose to the top in the form of an incredible, four-run, ninth-inning rally in the deciding game. The Dodgers have been a formidable foe, putting a big scare into the Cubs with shutouts in Games 2 and 3, but again the Cubs responded. Maddon's crew pushed back against adversity to bring the Cubs to the point many have waited a lifetime for. It won’t come without some negative moments. Tell me you haven’t gone through the worst-case scenario this weekend: Kershaw is magnificent Saturday, then Jake Arrieta, the Cubs' reigning Cy Young winner, isn’t on Sunday. If you haven’t thought about it, you aren't a Cubs fan. Finding where things can go wrong is part of the DNA in any fan -- and particularly one who roots for the Cubs. And so, on Saturday, the Cubs turn to the mild-mannered right-hander who won the ERA title to bring a pennant to Chicago. “It's big," Kyle Hendricks said, "but at the end of the day, you have to take the same mindset into it as any game." That’s the challenge no other professional athlete in the world can know. Treating a potential pennant-clinching game for the Chicago Cubs as just another contest might be the hardest task of all. Everything Maddon has preached applies in this moment. Every zoo animal and onesie flight come into play. Stay loose. Play the game like it’s March -- not October. Stay in the moment.

Did Jim Frey preach the same thing in 1984? What about Don Zimmer in 1989? Jim Riggleman in 1998? Dusty Baker must have had some calming words as the Cubs went up 3-1 in 2003. Lou Piniella never got a chance to taste a postseason victory, as he got swept in the division series in 2007 and 2008. That brings us to Maddon, the perfect manager for this team. He’s one reason young players have excelled, and if staying loose instead of tensing up is key, he’s the right man for the job. Hendricks against Kershaw with the pennant in the balance is a matchup made in baseball heaven. “It's within our reach right now,” Maddon said. “But I do want us to go after it as though it's -- again, hate to say it, but -- Saturday. Let's just go play our Saturday game and see how it falls.” Yes, let’s see. -- ESPNChicago.com It's time for Joe Maddon to sit Jason Heyward By Jesse Rogers CHICAGO -- Amid the celebration by Chicago Cubs fans after Games 4 and 5 of the NLCS -- both resounding wins over the Los Angeles Dodgers -- there was undoubtedly a lingering question for many: Why is Jason Heyward still starting? Social media has asked that question over and over throughout this season without getting a satisfactory answer. Manager Joe Maddon would tell you that the Cubs have now won 109 games with Heyward as their starting right fielder, at least for the majority of them, so how much can he be messing things up? Of course, we all know the answer to that: Just because it hasn’t happened yet doesn’t mean his lack of production won’t hurt the Cubs in the future. And in fact it has hurt the Cubs, because whether they know it or not, it’s putting more pressure on the other players. The Cubs are great at picking each other up, so maybe they can continue to survive playing Heyward, but it’s clearly not putting the team in the best position to win. Heyward stranded six runners Thursday night, most of them well before the Cubs pulled away in their 8-4 win. Even the job of getting a runner from second to third base seems like a monumental task, as he failed to get that done in Game 5 just before Addison Russell hit the home run that put the Cubs in front for good. Heyward was saved by his teammate. Maddon asked Heyward to bunt recently, and that didn’t go well either. With an .071 batting average this postseason, which followed a .230 regular-season mark, it’s pretty remarkable he’s still playing. It’s not like the Cubs don’t have options. Overall this postseason, according to ESPN Stats & Information, Heyward's .312 OPS ranks second to last among 50 players with at least 15 plate appearances. His 10 percent hard-hit percentage is actually five points lower than the league average during the regular season. We can go on and on, but your eyes tell the story as much as the statistics. It’s not pretty to watch. There’s little doubt that Heyward brings a lot to the table -- including his attitude, which is top-notch -- but none of his best qualities right now have anything to do with hitting a baseball. And here’s the thing: The Cubs are deep -- deep enough that they can still play good defense while inserting a better bat into the lineup. It’s as simple as that. This is the time of year when contracts and egos are always set aside, so it’s time for Maddon to make the move. It’s not as if the Cubs don’t know any of this. It’s just that sometimes a manager has so much respect for a player that he’s slower than the rest of the baseball world to come to a full realization. Or perhaps he knows more than any of us and he’s making the right moves. But we’ve already seen him sit Heyward this postseason against some of the tougher lefties -- so Maddon isn’t opposed to it. He needs to play others, starting with Willson Contreras, who is 7-for-17 in the playoffs. Forget about small sample sizes or any other excuses that keep him out of the lineup -- Contreras is screaming for more playing time right now.

Here's the bottom line: Ben Zobrist proved he could play right field in spacious AT&T Park. Contreras has proved he can deal with the postseason stage just fine. Even Albert Almora Jr. has been up to the task: He was able to get a bunt down on a 99 mph fastball. We have no idea if any of these players will come through -- they could easily go 0-for-4 -- but right now we do have a good idea about Heyward. This is about maximizing what we know. So let’s start with this weekend. In Game 6 against Clayton Kershaw, against whom Heyward has never gotten a hit and has struck out in more than half of his at-bats, he needs to sit. Maddon already sat Heyward against lefty Rich Hill once, so that’s an easy call if there's a Game 7. If the Cubs move on to the World Series, Heyward should be coming off the bench. Perhaps Maddon will think he has enough offense in Cleveland with the addition of the designated hitter to keep Heyward in the lineup, but at the very least Heyward shouldn’t start at Wrigley Field again the rest of this season. This isn’t personal. This doesn’t mean the end of his career as a Cub. A revamped swing heading into next season is the obvious course of action, as things can’t continue as they are. Some tough decisions have to be made at this time of year -- as painful as they might be. The Cubs are too good and have too much at stake to carry a dead bat. And it’s just too important right now. In reality, given everything, it should be an easy call for Maddon: Heyward comes off the bench from now on. -- CSNChicago.com Clayton Kershaw Stands Between Cubs And World Series: ‘To Be The Best, You Got To Beat The Best’ By Patrick Mooney Clayton Kershaw stands between the Cubs and the World Series, a possibility that left veteran catcher David Ross thinking about Ric Flair inside Dodger Stadium’s visiting clubhouse late Thursday night: To be The Man, you got to beat The Man. “Woo!” That’s how the Cubs like to punctuate their postgame celebration routine, channeling the professional wrestling legend in a ritual with so much sensory overload that the fog machine set off fire alarms throughout the underground Wrigley Field lair…after a win in the middle of August. “Woo!” The Cubs left Los Angeles one win away from their first National League pennant since 1945, and with two chances to pull it off this weekend at Wrigley Field, beginning on Saturday night in Game 6. So imagine how this crew would trash the Party Room if they beat Kershaw, a three-time Cy Young Award winner and 2014 NL MVP. “The guy competes,” manager Joe Maddon said. “It’s pretty much like mechanics be damned, it’s just about me beating you somehow. “He’s got a good fastball that he locates. He doesn’t walk people. He’s got a dynamic curve and slider. And he’s got deception. He’s a little bit funky, and that’s got to be hard to pick up. The ball gets on you pretty quickly, and then he commands it. “So there’s nothing you could possibly ask for that he doesn’t already have.” Now we’ll see if something clicked while the Cubs turned a 2-1 deficit into a 3-2 NLCS lead – handling rookie starters Julio Urias and Kenta Maeda and the softer parts of the Los Angeles bullpen – or if those 18 runs combined in Games 4 and 5 were a mirage. In 16-plus innings so far, the Cubs still haven’t scored a run off Kershaw, if-necessary Game 7 lefty starter Rich Hill or dominating closer Kenley Jansen, who got this review from Maddon: “He’s like a 100-pound heavier version of Mariano Rivera. He’s the bigger man with the same kind of stuff.” Why are the Cubs so confident? Remember, this offense scored 808 runs during the regular season, more than every NL team except for the Colorado Rockies. This lineup knocked out October legend Madison Bumgarner after

five innings in the divisional round (though pitcher Jake Arrieta delivered the three-run homer in a game the San Francisco Giants would win in extra innings). The Cubs should at least have a better idea of what to expect after getting that up-close view during a 1-0 loss in Game 2, the end of a 10-day period where the Dodgers used Kershaw for three starts and a division-series save against the Washington Nationals. Ben Zobrist – a veteran of 11 postseason series – explained: “His heater – as straight as it is – (comes from) the deception of his funky windup. You think you’re there, and it’s right above your barrel.” “We’ll all be ready to go,” All-Star first baseman Anthony Rizzo said. “Any time you see a guy back-to-back, it’s always to our advantage as hitters. We just have to go out there and play our game and have good at-bats off a left-handed pitcher. “I know it’s Clayton Kershaw, but we really got to just focus in on having good at-bats.” The Dodgers still have to beat a leading Cy Young contender (Kyle Hendricks) and last year’s award winner (Arrieta) on back-to-back nights in a building that will be shaking if the Cubs take an early lead with a Kris Bryant home run. And until this October, Kershaw had a reputation for underachieving in the playoffs. “We got to battle,” Bryant said. “We know Kershaw likes to keep his pitch count down, because he wants to pitch the whole game. He’s a competitor, so we got to find a way to work counts and not swing at the pitches that he wants us to. “Any time you got the best in the game going at you, it’s a challenge. And it’s going to be fun.” That’s exactly how the Cubs have approached everything this year, with an Embrace-The-Target attitude and all this Flair for the dramatic. “To be the best, you got to beat the best,” Rizzo said. -- CSNChicago.com How Game-Changing Kyle Hendricks Deal Came Together For Cubs Team On Brink Of World Series By Patrick Mooney Kyle Hendricks will have that same blank look on his face as 40,000 fans stand on their feet at Wrigley Field and the sea of people forms around Clark and Addison, waiting to explode in celebration when the Cubs win their first National League pennant in 71 years. Hendricks is exhaustive in his preparation, creative with his variety of pitches and unpredictable sequencing and not at all intimidated by the idea of going up against Clayton Kershaw and the Los Angeles Dodgers on Saturday night in Game 6 of this best-of-seven NL Championship Series. Even Kershaw – a three-time Cy Young Award winner – recognizes Hendricks as “the Greg Maddux of this generation.” Hendricks will stand on the mound as a billboard for The Cubs Way, a mixture of the patience, natural talent, Ivy League intelligence and guts needed to reimagine this franchise and get to the brink of the World Series. It also took some luck, the kind of random bounce or happy accident you don’t automatically associate with the Cubbies. What if the initial Ryan Dempster deal with the Atlanta Braves didn’t fall through and the Cubs wound up with an underwhelming reliever like Randall Delgado? What if the Dodgers – the team Dempster desperately wanted to join so he could play with Ted Lilly again – changed their minds at the last minute? “It was bizarre,” general manager Jed Hoyer admitted. “I’ve never been a part of something like that.”

Just think about how much Wrigleyville has changed since July 31, 2012. The Cubs were in the middle of a 101-loss season that would be rewarded with the No. 2 overall pick in the next year’s draft, which became potential MVP Kris Bryant, a tanking strategy that helped create a 103-win team. As the clock ticked down toward the trade deadline, Dempster hung out inside the team’s offices, playing Golden Tee in the lounge, kicking his feet up on a staffer’s desk and watching the coverage on MLB Network. “He was quite comfortable,” Hoyer said. “Listen, (players with) full no-trades or 10/5 rights – they have power. And I think Ryan is very thoughtful and had very specific desires and the Dodgers are obviously a destination. But I think he understood by the end that we had an obligation to the Cubs to make the best trade we could. And we couldn’t make a trade we liked with the Dodgers.” The pitching infrastructure that would eventually help Hendricks win 16 games and an ERA title this season first built up value for Dempster, who posted a 2.25 ERA in his first 16 starts in 2012, the final year of his contract. The Cubs had been focused on a group that included three pitching prospects – Allen Webster, Zach Lee and Chris Reed – who are no longer in the Los Angeles organization. “Listen, nobody knew how it would turn out,” Dempster said. “That’s the truth. No matter what trade you make with anybody, you don’t know how the trade’s going to turn out.” President of baseball operations Theo Epstein understood all the risks and all the rewards, flipping one short-term asset after another and trying to collect as many potential building blocks as possible. During the Jeff Samardzija negotiations, the Cubs asked for Corey Seager so many times that it became a running joke with the Dodgers. The Cubs found another future All-Star shortstop in Addison Russell when they shipped Samardzija to the Oakland A’s in a blockbuster Fourth of July deal in 2014. Dempster had been so fixated on the Dodgers that Cubs management finally told him: Fine, you don’t believe us? Talk to Ned Colletti yourself. Dempster spoke directly with Colletti, the Dodgers GM at the time and a former Cubs PR guy. “I was like: ‘Wow, this really isn’t going to happen,’” Dempster remembered. “‘OK, so where do we go from here?’” Like Rick Renteria, Colletti ultimately became part of the collateral damage when Andrew Friedman left the Tampa Bay Rays for a president’s job with the Dodgers in October 2014. That triggered the escape clause in Joe Maddon’s contract, allowing the star manager to score a five-year, $25 million contract in Chicago, while Colletti got bumped into an advisory role in Los Angeles. “We got some criticism for this, but (Dempster) couldn’t actually hear the (other) conversations,” Hoyer said. “It wasn’t like he was forcing the negotiations. He was just there (in the office), so that way we could ask him any questions that we would have, like: ‘Will you do this? Will you do that?’ It wasn’t like we were having him on speaker.” The Cubs also had a source with connections to the Texas Rangers who recommended a Class-A pitcher with a fluid delivery, pinpoint control and that Dartmouth College education. “Theo would pop his head in,” Dempster recalled. “He would be like: ‘St. Louis?’ And I’d say: ‘No.’ “‘Yankees?’ ‘Do I have to shave my beard?’ ‘Yeah.’ ‘Then, no.’ We were going back and forth. And then (Theo said): ‘Hey, we like this package from Texas. It gives us a couple good players.’ “I was like: ‘All right, let’s do it.’” Whatever tension may have existed in the moment, Dempster earned his World Series ring with the 2013 Boston Red Sox, signed on with MLB Network and rejoined the organization as a special assistant in December 2014, or right around the time the Cubs pushed to close Jon Lester’s $155 million megadeal.

“I love the Cubs,” Dempster said. “To see one of the guys that you got traded for contributing so much to a place that you care so much about, man, every fifth day, I don’t miss (it). I don’t miss when he’s pitching. I don’t miss an inning. “I’m locked in, because I totally enjoy it. I think it’s awesome to leave somewhere that you care so much about – and the guy that comes back as a piece is much better than you (and) has been such an integral part.” The Cubs are up 3-2 in the NLCS again, which means the national media will bring up Bartman, etc. But the Cubs will give the ball to a pitcher with poise, the ability to think on his feet and way more stuff than he’s given credit for, even if he’s not Kershaw. “This is still the same game,” Hendricks said. “You go out there and you’re making the same pitches. It’s the same lineup, same hitters. There’s just more going on outside. So all the attention – the added pressure coming from the outside – you don’t pay attention to it. “It has nothing to do with the job that you have to do when you go out there.” -- CSNChicago.com Willson Contreras Channeling Emotions To Provide Postseason Spark For Cubs By Tony Andracki The moment is not too big for Willson Contreras. That much can be concluded from his first season in the big leagues. After homering on the first MLB pitch he ever saw, Contreras is still living up to the hype four months later. Contreras leads all Cubs hitters in postseason batting average, going 7-for-17 (.412 AVG) with three RBI. The Cubs have made it a point to get Contreras in every single playoff game as either a defensive replacement or pinch-hitter and he's hit safely in six of the seven contests in which he's earned a plate appearance. "I'm feeling great," he said. "Like I always say, I don't try to do too much. I don't try to hit a homer. I just make my plan before I come up to bat and just execute it. "If you think about the postseason, you're gonna put pressure on yourself. You just take it day-by-day like it's a normal game." Contreras has shown his spunk all season long, wearing his emotions on his sleeves. The same was true in the Cubs' win in Game 5 of the National League Championship Series Thursday night. After singling in the eighth inning, he raised his fist in triumph. "I'm a really emotional player," Contreras said. "I was excited to hit. He was throwing 99 mph and it's not easy to him. That was just my reaction." That emotional style has been on display all postseason. The Cubs had an 8-1 cushion by the time he came into Game 5 to catch, yet he made sure to let home plate umpire Alfonso Marquez know he didn't like the strike zone. Even with a big lead, he still felt the need to protect his pitchers.

He got one of the Cubs' biggest hits of the playoffs with a two-run single during that epic NLDS-clinching comeback in San Francisco. In Game 4 in Los Angeles Wednesday night, Contreras was called for his second catcher's interference of the postseason, but also picked Justin Turner off second base to get the Cubs out of the first inning. In that same game, he delivered the RBI hit that busted the Cubs out of a 21-inning scoreless streak when he plated Ben Zobrist in the fourth inning. In Game 2 against Clayton Kershaw, Contreras stepped to the plate and as the all-world left-hander delivered each of the first two pitches, Contreras put the bat on his shoulder and didn't even bother to get into a hitter's position. Contreras wound up striking out in the at-bat, but he also sent a message that he would not be intimidated by the three-time Cy Young winner and was one of only two Cubs to collect a hit off Kershaw in that game. Contreras reacted similarly during the regular season, including during his first week in the big leagues when he faced Marlins ace Jose Fernandez. "That was part of my plan," Contreras said. "That was something I had in mind. I just wanted to see how he pitched." Now Contreras will get to see Kershaw again Saturday night at Wrigley Field as the Cubs sit one win away from the World Series. "I'm more comfortable at home plate [against him now]," Contreras said. "I know when to start my timing and stuff." -- CSNChicago.com Feeding Off 'Good Karma,' Cubs Believe Everything Happens For A Reason By Tony Andracki LOS ANGELES - Ben Zobrist leaned to Matt Szczur and asked, "Hey, what do you got for me?" Everybody wants a piece of Szczur's "good karma" right now. And why not? Anthony Rizzo breaks his bat in the ninth inning of Game 3 of the National League Championship Series. Then he strikes out twice to begin Game 4 and decides to switch to Matt Szczur's bat. Boom: Home run and just like that, Rizzo is out of his postseason funk. Addison Russell forgets his leggings. No matter. Szczur has some Russell can wear. Boom: Two big home runs and just like that, Russell came to life and lifted the Cubs to two key victories. Just as importantly, Russell has his mojo back. "Definitely. I feel like my at-bats haven't been that bad this whole postseason, but you stick to your work ethic and you believe in yourself and you stay confident," he said after Thursday's Game 5 victory. "There's a little frustration there, but it's a different type of frustration. It's a frustration where you know you have the stuff to get the job done, but you want to help produce for your team and for your offense. And that's where I was kind of struggling a little bit with that frustration."

Szczur's not even on the Cubs' playoff roster, yet spent a second straight night in the bright lights of Hollywood, giving his take to reporters crowded around his locker and delivering a live interview on national TV talking about his underwear. The good-natured outfielder believes it's all good karma coming back to him and the Cubs. Before Game 4 Wednesday, ESPN re-ran a feature on Szczur's heroic act - donating bone marrow to a young girl from the Ukraine, which helped save her life at a time in his life when he was trying to make the nearly-impossible leap from college athletics to the pros. "I didn't expect to talk to the media at all," Szczur said with a grin. "A lot of things have been coming out - the bone marrow story. "The same day everything came out, they ended up breaking out of slumps. And it just so happened to be with my stuff. It's good karma. I feel like a lot of things happen for a reason." And now the Cubs are positioned just one win away from history. It's about time this franchise had some good karma in the postseason, eh? Szczur isn't just giving the interviews and absorbing the attention. Before Russell's offensive breakout in Game 4, the young shortstop asked Szczur - the ex-Villanova football star - to throw a football around in the outfield to loosen up and just get back to having fun on a baseball field. Now, the two plan to make it a part of their regular routine. Szczur also wrapped another bat for Rizzo, just in case something happened to the one that helped the face of the franchise return to his typical self at the plate. With a lineup now featuring confident, relaxed versions of Rizzo and Russell, the Cubs love their chances against Clayton Kershaw in a possible NLCS clincher in Game 6 Saturday at Wrigley Field. So much so that they felt they could joke about the Cubs' World Series drought before boarding a plane back to Chicago. A reporter asked Dexter Fowler how the Cubs get past the history of a team that hasn't made it to the World Series in 71 years. "Well, for starters, I don't think any of us are 71 years old," Fowler deadpanned. Jason Heyward interjected. "I didn't know that," he said, poking some fun at the franchise drought. "We weren't alive then," Fowler continued. "We've heard the history, but at the same time, we're trying to make history. -- Chicago Tribune NLCS Game 6 pitching matchup: Kyle Hendricks vs. Clayton Kershaw By Paul Skrbina Cubs: Kyle Hendricks

Kyle Hendricks walked four Dodgers in Game 2 of the National League Championship Series before Cubs manager Joe Maddon told him to walk off the mound after 5 1/3 innings of the eventual 1-0 loss to Clayton Kershaw. That mark equaled a level Hendricks reached just twice during the regular season, when he walked only 44 hitters in 190 innings. "(A) couple I think were based on he was OK with the walk," Cubs manager Joe Maddon said. "It's not that his command was bad." Hendricks, whose 2.13 ERA was the lowest in baseball, will take the mound for the Cubs in Game 6 of the series Saturday night at Wrigley Field. But the rematch against Kershaw isn't just any old rematch. With a victory, the Cubs would advance to the World Series for the first time since 1945. "It's big," Hendricks said. "But you have to take the same mindset into it as any game. "It's going to be the same environment; Kershaw again. I'm looking forward to it. It's a good matchup. I'm excited in a sense to get another crack at it. It's obviously going to be fun. It should be a close game." Both pitchers will be on six days' rest, something Hendricks has become accustomed to with great success. He has allowed just 17 hits with 24 strikeouts in 32 2/3 innings while compiling a 5-0 record and 0.83 ERA after having at least five days between starts. The Cubs are hoping the extra day pays off in a celebration afterward. But just as he was in his last game, Hendricks said he will be ready for anything in this one — even if he finds himself in a jam. "Just simple thoughts," he said. "Not thinking about, 'Oh, am I going to get taken out? Is he coming for me?' "We have so many good arms in the bullpen that if he sees your stuff getting elevated a bit … he's going to go with the next guy because that's the better option at the time." Dodgers: Clayton Kershaw Clayton Kershaw struck out 15.64 hitters for every walk he issued, a ratio more than twice as good as his previous career high. But strikeouts weren't so much the problem for the Cubs when they faced the Dodgers left-hander in Game 2 of the National League Championship Series. Their problem was they managed just two hits and a walk against the three-time Cy Young Award winner while striking out six times in seven innings during that 1-0 defeat at Wrigley Field. Now, at least for one night, Kershaw stands between the Cubs and the World Series, a place the North Siders haven't been since 1945 and a thing the franchise hasn't won since 1908. "He could negate a phone booth," Cubs manager Joe Maddon said. "He's just that good. "But at this time of year, if you wanted to get to your ultimate goal, you have to beat people like that. … The line always has been for me, you have to pitch better than good pitching to win." The Cubs will have to figure out a way to hit against him, though, to have a chance. And the postseason has been the time to do that against Kershaw, who has a career 2.37 ERA during the regular season. That number balloons to 4.39 in 17 career postseason games.

Kershaw said he was fortunate to escape Game 2 with a victory. "I don't know if it was anything special that I did, but it happened to work out," he said. But Maddon and the Cubs know Kershaw is special. -- Chicago Tribune Beating Clayton Kershaw is Cubs' biggest barrier to 1st pennant since 1945 By Mark Gonzales The temptation to look ahead to the World Series is great, but the challenge of beating three-time National League Cy Young Award winner Clayton Kershaw is even greater. "Honestly, it's just like any normal game until you get to those last couple of innings," Ben Zobrist said of playing in a playoff clinching game. And it's simple, really. If the Cubs can get past Kershaw when they face the Dodgers on Saturday night in Game 6 of the National League Championship Series at Wrigley Field, they will go to their first World Series since 1945. "You just try to stay in the moment, stay focused on doing the job early in the game, trying to get a lead, hold the lead," Zobrist said. "Sometimes your mind can wander thinking about this really means something here, for winning the Series and such. But you try to put those thoughts out of your mind and win the game. "We know we have a challenge ahead of us in Kershaw again. Hopefully we can get a lead early and keep it going." Unlike many Cubs players and fans, Zobrist has the distinction of playing in two LCS clinching games in 2008 with the Rays and in 2015 with the Royals. The Royals went on to win the World Series thanks largely to his contributions. The Cubs would like to avoid a Game 7 on Sunday, get an extra day of rest and line up their rotation for the World Series. But they will have to overcome Kershaw, who beat them 1-0 in Game 2 at Wrigley and will have the benefit of five days' rest. That should help his valuable left arm recuperate as well as further strengthen his back after he missed 2 1/2 months with a herniated disc. The Cubs believe Kershaw relied mostly on fastballs to limit them to two hits over seven innings on Sunday, but that experience may help them fare better. "I always think the advantage goes to the hitters when you're seeing a guy (in back-to-back starts)," Anthony Rizzo said. "But we'll have to execute and capitalize on every detail." That means getting some early success against him as Kershaw retired the first 14 batters before Javier Baez collected the first of their two hits against him. "He's going to come at you early," a veteran National League scout said. "You have to be ready for his fastball early and do something. He'll tend to mix in his secondary pitches — sliders and curves — the second time around (the order). "It's not easy because he'll throw that slider in (to right-handed batters) to keep them honest." Cubs manager Joe Maddon realizes Kershaw will take his best shot at the Cubs, particularly because of his competitive nature that was on full display during the division series when he threw 110 pitches on Oct. 11 and came back two days later to toss seven in getting the final two outs as the Dodgers won the fifth and deciding game against the Nationals.

"It's pretty much like mechanics be dammed," Maddon said. "It's about me beating you somehow. And then he has great stuff with the good fastball. He doesn't walk people. He has a dynamic curve and slider — and deception. "That's what people don't talk about. It's a little bit funky, and that's when it hard to pick the ball up. (It) gets on you pretty quickly and he commands it. There's nothing you can possibly ask for that he doesn't have." By taking two of three at Dodger Stadium, the Cubs regained home-field advantage at what's expected to be a delirious crowd at Wrigley with another shot on Sunday if they don't beat Kershaw. "I like our chances," Rizzo said. -- Chicago Tribune In Cubdom, the anticipation is brimming, the eagerness palpable By David Haugh A look of marvel filled Tom Ricketts' face late Thursday night as the Cubs chairman weaved his way through several hundred fans still cheering behind the visiting dugout at Dodger Stadium. The Cubs' 8-4 victory in Game 5 of the National League Championship Series had ended almost an hour earlier, but a loud and lively crowd that didn't want the night to end kept chanting, "Let's Go, Cubbies!" Then a chorus of "Go, Cubs, Go,'' began. Then someone professed his love of Ricketts. This was nothing compared to the spontaneous celebrations that will break out Saturday night all over Chicago if the Cubs beat the Dodgers at Wrigley Field to win the National League pennant, but it spoke to how ready for that moment Cubdom is. The anticipation is brimming, the eagerness palpable. Ricketts played along, appearing only slightly overwhelmed, high-fiving strangers and pointing at familiar faces, as every giddy person in the big blue mob of bedlam sensed the history in their midst. A Cubs team that had overcome the adversity of back-to-back shutouts against the Dodgers in Games 2 and 3 regained its hitting stroke and swagger in time to bring a franchise defined by futility within one win of its first World Series appearance since 1945. Good luck finding somebody in town who remembers that Cubs-Tigers series. Wasn't catcher David Ross a September call-up on that Cubs team? Except for the understandable reluctance of White Sox fans to enjoy what's happening, the Cubs' success carries a universal appeal that connects people from all generations and walks of life, all of them united by a red "C" or a white "W" flag. They may have nothing more in common than an appreciation for Jake Arrieta's beard or an antipathy for the Cardinals, but that's enough for good conversation and a smile. Everybody knows somebody who claims to be the best Cubs fan ever. Everybody knows of a parent or grandparent, aunt or uncle who seriously fears dying before their beloved Cubs win it all. Everybody talks about the Cubs validating President Theo Epstein's plan, but nobody can deny how this season also possibly can fulfill a purpose for many Cubs fans who have been waiting for this for so long, for too long. To some families, the Cubs always will be about more than baseball. Dodgers manager Dave Roberts had said before Game 5 that the noticeable presence of Cubs fans at Chavez Ravine was good for the game. So would the Cubs finally winning a pennant and playing in a World Series, the type of thing that transcends sports. Winning it all remains the primary bucket-list goal and a reasonable expectation for a Cubs team that won 103 regular-season games. But first things first, and the Cubs just getting there would provide many North Side fans the highlight of their lives and the city an epic memory — one that could begin to unfold as early as 7:08 p.m. Saturday. Or, if you prefer, 19:08 military time. "It's within our reach right now,'' Cubs manager Joe Maddon said. "We're not going to run away from anything.''

That includes Dodgers starter Clayton Kershaw, the man whose baseball mythology has loomed over this series. Kershaw dominated the Cubs in Game 2, combining guts and smarts to give up only two hits in seven innings. The outing reminded America why so many of us consider Kershaw the best pitcher on the planet. But remember, the planet is still Earth, where even the most gifted humans have been known to fail. The three-time Cy Young Award winner makes fewer mistakes than almost any pitcher in baseball, but he still makes them. Sometimes baseball happens, even to Kershaw. As recently as 11 days ago, for example, Kershaw gave up five runs in 6 2/3 innings to the Nationals. Four days before that, he surrendered three runs in five innings against the same team. "Hopefully he's not the good Kershaw and we get kind of the mediocre guy who gives up a few runs,'' Cubs pitcher Jon Lester said. The Dodgers have every right to feel as confident as they sounded after Game 5, but the Cubs have no reason to cower. They have another Cy Young Award candidate, Kyle Hendricks, pitching. They believe they now not only are curse-proof but "Kersh"-proof on offense, better equipped to handle the left-hander than in Game 2 before Cubs hitters settled down in this series. Before the Cubs treated their trip west like a visit to one of those California rejuvenation spas, replenishing themselves with confidence. "If he's on top of his game, it's going to be another close, low-scoring game,'' Maddon said. "We just have to do our best to eke out as many runs as we can.'' We all realize what it means if the Cubs can't. No matter how good Maddon is at keeping players loose and relaxed, the Cubs should want no part of Game 7. Besides Last Call and Snow Advisory, the two most dreaded words in Wrigleyville this month are either Game 7 or If Necessary. And if Game 7 becomes necessary because of a Cubs loss, so begins Chicago's great social experiment. As Hawk Harrelson might say, call your friends, call your neighbors, call your sociologists — and don't lose the number to your therapist. "We can't focus on the atmosphere outside or what's going on on Clark (Street),'' Ross said. "We have to stay focused on Clayton Kershaw.'' The Cubs can beat Kershaw. And perhaps they better to avoid a Game 7 that poses even greater and more unpredictable challenges. -- Chicago Tribune Clayton Kershaw, baseball's BPOTP, latest obstacle to Cubs being the best By Paul Sullivan It was during the summer of 2013 that Anthony Rizzo waded into the madness of the Blackhawks' Stanley Cup-clinching celebration outside Wrigley Field to see what it was like. If things go according to plan this weekend, Rizzo and his teammates can join the Wrigleyville mosh pit for a celebration of their own. The anticipation is mounting to see if the Cubs can play in an actual World Series instead of the video game variety. They have two chances to win one game and end the endless Series drought, starting Saturday night in Game 6 of the National League Championship Series against Dodgers ace Clayton Kershaw. He also goes by the acronym BPOTP — Best Pitcher On The Planet. "The more you face him, maybe you have a better shot, but he's really good,' catcher David Ross said. "We have our work cut out for us, and, to quote Ric Flair, to be the best you have to beat the best. Woo!

"We have to face one of the best, if not the best." Kyle Hendricks, who led the major leagues in earned-run average, will face Kershaw with a chance to shake the 102-year-old foundation of Wrigley, as happened during Miguel Montero's Game 1 grand slam. And if that doesn't work, there's always Game 7 on Sunday, when Jake Arrieta would meet former Cub Rich Hill. Two shots. One dream. No waiting. "Game 6" once struck fear into the hearts of Cubs' fans, thanks to the Marlins' eight-run eighth-inning in their Game 6 victory at Wrigley in the 2003 NLCS. That night somehow has been erased from their collective memories, and fortunately no video evidence exists to replay over and over again. Game 6 will be all about "right now," one of Joe Maddon's many mantras, with no good reason to believe the past is prologue. The Cubs offense has been hit-or-miss this series, scoring 26 runs in the three games neither Kershaw or Hill pitched, and none in the games the two lefties started. The key for the Cubs may be whether there's enough stuff in Matt Szczur's locker to go around. Szczur credited "good karma" when Rizzo broke out of his slump with Szczur's bat, and Addison Russell did likewise with his leggings. "I feel like a lot of things happen for a reason," Szczur said. The Cubs for years have battled the perception they have bad karma, based on one lousy century and all the extraneous baggage they carry, like the goat and the Game 6 foul ball. Believe it or not, the players don't care about perceptions, and have mocked the baggage. When Kris Bryant was sent down to the minors at the start of 2015 despite leading all major leaguers in home runs in spring training, he wound up making a light-hearted commercial for an energy drink that ended with him traveling to Chicago on a bus with a goat. "Once we saw it, I said 'Yeah, that looks good. Let's do that,'" agent Scott Boras said. "If he can't play in the big leagues, at least we can kill the curse." It was a bold move, even for a hot prospect like Bryant. But Cubs President Theo Epstein said he didn't mind it at all. "Curt Schilling, when we traded for him in Boston and before he even played a game for the Red Sox, he made a commercial saying 'I'm going to Boston to break an 86-year-old curse.' It showed a little bit of bravado, some swagger. I'd rather guys face this stuff head on than evade it." This Cubs team has a swagger unlike any other in recent memory, and after suffering back-to-back shutouts in Games 2 and 3, it rediscovered that swagger in the nick of time. Kershaw seems swagger-proof, but we soon will find out. "We feel good," Bryant said. "We have one of the best pitchers this year going for us, and they have one of the best in the game going. Should be a great game." -- Chicago Tribune Dodgers executive Ned Colletti returns to old stomping grounds at Wrigley By Paul Sullivan Dodgers executive Ned Colletti will be attending Saturday night's game at Wrigley Field with a die-hard fan who has waited 71 years for a chance to see the Cubs get into the World Series.

"I'm going to be sitting in the seats with my Uncle Frank," he said. Only one of the Franklin Park Colletti's is certain to walk out happy. The Cubs either will fulfill Frank Colletti's lifelong wish, or give Ned's Dodgers one more shot. "Let me tell you a story about Uncle Frank," Ned said Thursday night before Game 5 at Dodger Stadium. "In 1945, my dad was 15, and I had another uncle who was 17, and another uncle who was 21. They all decide to go to Game 5 of the 1945 World Series. "So they're on the street car, Division to Halsted, and then Halsted to Wrigley. Little Frankie was 12-years-old, and their dad died when they were young, so the brothers all kind of looked after each other. "They get to the street corner to head into the city, and Little Frankie is there, and he goes 'I want to go with you guys.' "They say 'Frankie, you're too young. We're going to stay out all night to try to get seats and we're probably going to have to get sheets off of clotheslines to keep warm. You're just too young. But we'll take you the next time. We promise.' "So far, there have been no next times." Colletti laughed. He has been here before, and knows the drill. He was a Bleacher Bum in 1969, when the team folded down the stretch. He was the Cubs' media relations director in 1984, when they blew a 2-0 lead to the Padres in the National League Championship Series. And he was just a fan in the stands in the 2003 NLCS, watching the Cubs lose Games 6 and 7 to the Marlins. A former sportswriter, Colletti has spent most of his life in the game. After leaving the Cubs to become assistant general manager of the Giants, he was hired as general manager of the Dodgers in 2006 and went to the playoffs five times in nine years, with no World Series appearance to show for it. Colletti was kicked upstairs after 2014, taking a senior adviser role to wunderkind Andrew Friedman, the Rays GM who was hired as president to take the Dodgers to the next level. Colletti naturally is rooting for the team that signs his paycheck, even if he still maintains a soft spot for the Cubs. It may be just another game, but when Colletti walks into Wrigley on Saturday, a flood of memories will rush through his head. "I grew up there and went to my first Cubs game in 1961, and I was out there a lot in '69, '70, '71," he said. "It's where I grew up learning and watching the game, and where I first cut my teeth as an executive for 13 years. There's a lot of heartfelt feelings involved. "But I've also been in L.A. for 11 years, and had a little bit of a hand in putting this team together, so I root for our guys, root for our franchise." Actually, Colletti had more than a "little bit of a hand" in putting the Dodgers together. He was GM when they drafted, acquired or signed most of the key players, including Clayton Kershaw, Adrian Gonzalez, Kenley Jansen and Corey Seager. The only blemish on his resume was not getting the Dodgers a ring. Colletti still keeps in touch with his old Chicago pals, including radio personality Mike Murphy, reminiscing about the days when bleacher tickets and Old Styles could be purchased with pocket change. He knows well the psyche of Cubs fans, their feeling of boundless optimism battling their feeling of inner dread. Wrigley will explode one way or another this weekend, and Colletti doesn't care if it's a reaction of horror.

"Not something I'm worried about," he said. "In '69 I was there a lot, and of course in '84, working for the team. I was also there in '03, watching Games 6 and 7 with Uncle Frank. And in '08 we beat the Cubs (in the division series) even though they had the best record in the National League. I felt bad about that, but only for a second." No matter what happens this weekend, Colletti believes this Cubs-Dodgers series has given baseball a shot in the arm. New stars like Javier Baez and Seager have made the most of their moment in the spotlight. Old lions like Jon Lester and Gonzalez have displayed their October mettle. "Two great markets, two great ballparks, great fan bases," he said. "Almost every game of the series has been terrific. "It has been great for the game, and I've always considered it an honor to walk into Wrigley Field since I was 5 years old." -- Chicago Tribune A challenge to Cubs fans? Adrian Gonzalez says Wrigley won’t get any louder By Colleen Kane As the Dodgers packed up their belongings Thursday night for what could be their final trip of the season, first baseman Adrian Gonzalez considered what he expects Wrigley Field to be like for Game 6 of the National League Championship Series against the Cubs. He unwittingly issued a challenge to Cubs fans. "The same (atmosphere) we had in Game 1 and 2," Gonzalez said. "They can't put any more people in the stands. They can only put in so many people." A reporter pointed out that the stakes will be a little higher after the Cubs took a 3-2 series lead with an 8-4 victory Thursday night at Dodger Stadium. After all, the Cubs will try to clinch their first World Series berth since 1945 on Saturday. "They can't cheer any louder," Gonzalez said. "It's not like it's a loud stadium to begin with. They're going to try their best, and we're going to tune them out like we always do." Tuning out the outside world will have to be the Dodgers' strategy as they make their way to an undoubtedly frenzied weekend in Wrigleyville. Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said he has talked all season about dealing with "the noise" that surrounds a major-league team, and he wants his team to do more of the same, even as the Cubs continue to build on a story that has captured the nation's attention. "It would be a discredit to our guys to use any of that as motivation, to spite the media, the public or that narrative," Roberts said. "We're trying to win baseball games to advance, and that's our only focus." Roberts said simply Thursday night that his team "got beat" in Games 4 and 5 at Dodger Stadium. But if there's a reason for Dodgers hope, it's that they have ace Clayton Kershaw on the mound Saturday in Game 6 and Rich Hill waiting for a potential Game 7. That duo led the Dodgers to pitch back-to-back shutouts for the first time in their team's playoff history. And the Dodgers also have had practice for this situation, coming back from two games down to the Nationals in the division series to advance on the road. "We're resilient," shortstop Corey Seager said. "We've battled adversity all year. We're up for the task."

An extra benefit of a Kershaw outing is the Dodgers might be able to sit a stumbling bullpen that pitched 10 2/3 innings in the last two games in L.A. thanks to Roberts' quick hooks of his starting pitchers. Dodgers relievers gave up 13 runs in the two games as the Cubs broke out off a 21-inning scoreless streak. "It has been a battle," Roberts said of his bullpen. "(The Cubs) compete and they don't give many at-bats away. They spoil pitches. They run counts. When you do make a mistake, these guys can slug. "These (relievers) are the guys who got us here. I'm not going to shy away from any of these guys. But obviously you look at going into Game 6, (closer Kenley Jansen) is going to have a few days off, and we have our ace going. So it will give our guys a chance to reset." -- Chicago Sun-Times Cubs’ Hendricks rides power of change against Kershaw in Game 6 By Gordon Wittenmyer Give him a polo shirt, khakis and a black backpack with a Cubs logo, and Kyle Hendricks could walk into the Cubs’ front office and claim a cubicle without raising an eyebrow. That is, until manager Joe Maddon or pitching coach Chris Bosio noticed he wasn’t around to beat Zack Greinke, or to earn the Cubs’ 100th victory, or to finish off a league ERA title – or on Saturday night at Wrigley Field to take the mound against Clayton Kershaw trying to pitch the Cubs to their first World Series in 71 years. The man Pedro Strop calls “El Profesor” may look on the street like a guy from Maddon’s analytics “geek department,” with the kind of Ivy League education to put him on a Theo Epstein management track. But on the mound this year Hendricks is brute force with a changeup, sheer power of mind and vision, a significant part of the Cubs’ historic success so far. And if he beats Kershaw in a rematch of Game 2 of this National League Championship Series (won 1-0 by the Dodgers), he might actually start to get recognized in public when hanging out with teammates. “I’m excited to get another crack at it,” said Hendricks, who allowed only an Adrian Gonzalez, opposite-field home run in his Game 2 loss. “It’s obviously going to be fun. It should be a close game. It’s definitely going to be important, but in order to approach that game, you have to have simple thoughts, and take the same approach as you would any other game.” By now, most know that Hendricks went from fifth starter on the Cubs’ staff to Cy Young contender with a breakout 2016 built on greater use of a four-seam, almost-90-mph fastball to complement the two-seam cutter he plays off the best changeup on the staff. “You thought he was going to be very good, but it would be hard to imagine him being as good as he turned out to be this year,” said Maddon, who often has referred to “different kinds of dominant” when describing Hendricks’ methods. “It was pretty impressive.” And rarer, it seems, with every new crop of young power arms in the game. “Hendricks is a component that baseball’s missing out on,” said Hall of Fame pitcher John Smoltz. “In a starved era of miles per hour, this kid is a pitcher. We’re bypassing them. We’re not even looking at them anymore. Scouts aren’t even given the opportunity to draft those guys.” Not when 95- and 100-mph prospects seem to lurk around every first-round corner of the draft these days.

Just ask Kershaw, the reputed best pitcher on the planet with the 95-plus fastball and power breaking stuff, who was selected seventh overall in the 2006 draft. “He’s kind of like the Greg Maddux of this generation,” said Kershaw, who must beat Hendricks Saturday or go home, “with his ability to sink the ball, cut the ball and put him in spots where hitters are enticed to swing at it, but can’t put a barrel on it. He’s really good at mixing speeds, changing it up. He’s a tough guy to go against.” It’s tempting to wonder how long Hendricks can keep the success rolling when watching him change speeds, locate 89-mph fastballs and induce some of the weakest contact among any pitchers in the game. But it’s also no fluke. He has had success in the majors since a 13-start debut in 2014 in which he went 7-2 with a 2.46 ERA for a last-place Cubs team. In fact, the Dartmouth graduate who used to build his own scouting reports and attack plans on hitters in the minors, was able to quickly take advantage of the more detailed and sophisticated plans put together by Cubs coach Mike Borzello and former big-league pitcher Tommy Hottovy in the majors. If it goes without saying Hendricks is one of the most intelligent pitchers in the game, he also is certainly one of the most self-aware. Maddux, naturally, was his idol. But Hendricks is no poseur wannabe. He’s a student of his own game, incorporating such un-Maddux methods as yoga into his preparation, while constantly working on improving or trying to add pitches, and always keeping the emotions low to keep the focus high. “I love the no-emotion thing,” said teammate Joe Smith, the reliever who knew little about Hendricks until being traded from the Angels this summer. “No highs, no lows. that’s great, especially in the course of a game, in a big situation. I remember when I played with [Cy Young winner] Corey Kluber in Cleveland. He was the same way, stone-faced, the whole time.” Maybe part of it’s the path taken by an under-the-radar, Ivy League right-hander, who waited until the eighth round to be selected by the Rangers in 2011, then was traded as a minor-leaguer to the Cubs in the Ryan Dempster deal – the Cubs’ second choice after a deal with Atlanta for Randall Delgado fell apart. Or maybe it’s just who this nondescript-looking, ultra-competitive 26-year-old is. “That’s just how I go about my business,” said Hendricks, who has rediscovered a happy place with his mechanics this year, but describes a larger overall method to his mad success. “I definitely have to use my intelligence. I’m not a pure stuff guy. A lot of guys in the big leagues don’t have to rely on intelligence; they can get by on stuff. But to get to the next level in the big leagues, I have to have awareness, a feel of what hitters are trying to do to me.” Next level? Saturday’s chance to clinch a Cubs World Series berth certainly would qualify. “I really believe it’s about his confidence,” Maddon said. “His confidence is so high. I really feel good about him in that moment. “He’s earned this opportunity. He’s put himself in this position. He’s ready for the challenge.” -- Chicago Sun-Times Cubs’ Baez and Russell — Baessell? Russez? — a Bryzzo-like combo By Steve Greenberg We can all agree that Kris Bryant and Anthony Rizzo still have their names at the top of the marquee when it comes to this Cubs team. They are the co-stars of the show, MVP candidates this year and likely beyond, the corner-infield straws that stir the most intoxicating drink in all of Chicago.

Who doesn’t love Bryzzo Inc.? But something else has become clear in these playoffs, if it hadn’t already, and it’s that the Cubs’ middle-infield duo — second baseman Javy Baez and shortstop Addison Russell — is every bit as important as Bryant and Rizzo to the team’s hopes of capturing a World Series title. There’s just no way the Cubs would be one victory from winning the National League Championship Series without … Baessell? Russez? We may need a while to work on the nickname. “Those guys are incredible players,” Bryant said. “Anybody can see how much they do for our team.” Jon Lester sure sees it. After Russell homered in Game 5 — his second straight night with the biggest hit for the Cubs against the Dodgers — and Baez went off at the plate and made yet another spectacular defensive play, Lester didn’t want to talk about his own clutch pitching. “I don’t even know why I’m up here with these guys,” he said, flanked by the 23-year-old Baez and the 22-year-old Russell, in a postgame press conference. “These guys won the game for us tonight. I was just kind of along for the ride.” The public tip of the cap didn’t end there. Back home in Chicago on Friday afternoon, Lester tweeted similar praise of his young middle infielders. That’s leadership, not to mention a firm grasp of the obvious. All the home runs and RBIs and maybe even MVP awards to come for Bryant and Rizzo are exciting to think about. Yet how long a shadow is Russell — already an elite defender who topped 20 home runs and drove in nearly 100 in the regular season — eventually going to cast among the game’s shortstops? How many All-Star Games will there be for him? And how huge a name will Baez have by the time he’s done blowing up in these playoffs? Manager Joe Maddon actually compared him to Magic Johnson the other day. Baez’s preternatural feel for the game has become the coolest thing going in October. “Javy is a phenomenal player,” veteran David Ross said. “He’s on his way to being a superstar.” Baez’s latest did-you-see-that moment came in the bottom of the seventh inning of Game 5, with the Cubs in front 3-1. Many of us have watched a dozen replays by now of Baez charging from the outfield grass to barehand a hard-bunted ball and throw out Adrian Gonzalez, the leadoff batter of the inning, at first. It was an amazing play because no one else on either team — maybe no one else in the league — could’ve replicated it. But it also was a vital play, a clutch play, because it prevented the Dodgers from sparking a rally and kept Lester in the driver’s seat in his final inning. Coming one inning after Russell’s go-ahead home run, it left quite an impression: Bryant and Rizzo are a special pair, but they’re hardly the only one. -- Chicago Sun-Times Two chances at Wrigley Field — and two shots at history By Rick Morrissey We’re dealing in bulk here. Years. Decades. Generations. Lifetimes. Maybe even past lives.

Time suddenly has been condensed for Cubs fans, and all of the team’s failures are balled up, awaiting a date with the trashcan. Big dreams formerly spoken in whispers are in reach and talked about openly, brazenly by the masses. The opportunity has arrived for the Cubs to begin to cut history down to size. They are on the verge of something. Something tremendous. Or something so crushing as to change Cub blue from a color to a chronic mental-health condition. But something. Game 6 of the National League Championship Series will be played Saturday night at Wrigley Field, and all that means is that the Cubs can advance to the World Series for the first time since 1945. That makes this the 71st season since the last pennant. So, no pressure whatsoever. They lead the Dodgers 3-2 in the NLCS, but standing in the way of a trip to the Fall Classic is Clayton Kershaw, already one of the best pitchers in baseball history. If they can’t beat him, then they’ll get Rich Hill in a Game 7 that would test the structural integrity of Wrigley and the long-term emotional well-being of Cubs fans. And if they win? How do you describe what you’ve never seen? “Our guys will absolutely be ready for the moment,’’ Cubs manager Joe Maddon said. “I promise you that.’’ Two chances to get to the World Series, which they haven’t won since 1908. What could go wrong? Well, OK, plenty, but it should be noted that this team is much more talented than the one that was five outs away from winning the 2003 NLCS and gagged in Game 6. And it’s probably better than any Cubs team since 1908, but without the aid of time travel, it’s hard to say that for sure. Anyone who has been involved with and scarred by the Cubs has a stake in this, from the old-timers who have seen too many bad things to the youngsters who think that the franchise started when Anthony Rizzo arrived and that 39-year-old David Ross is more fossil than catcher. But first the Cubs have to take their best shot at Kershaw. He’ll face the same pitcher in Game 6, precision painter Kyle Hendricks, whom he faced in a 1-0 Dodgers victory in Game 2. “We’ve got Clayton going in Game 6,’’ Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “So that’s a game we expect to win.’’ A reporter asked Roberts after the Cubs’ Game 5 victory, their second straight win, whether he pondered how much “the media and the nation wants” the Cubs to win and whether he would use it to motivate his team. The reporter did not ask Roberts if he would accept the election results if his team lost. “I don’t think that has any bearing on the last two nights,” Roberts said. “That’s a good club over there. That’s a good club. I think it would be a discredit to our guys to use any of that as motivation, to spite the media, the public or whatever the narrative. “I think for us, we’re trying to win baseball games to advance, and that’s our only focus. So I think I talked a lot all season about the noise, and all that stuff has no bearing on the outcome of the game.’’ There is noise for the Cubs, too, but the decibel level is much, much higher. The Dodgers have actually won something since the dawn of civilization. All season, the Cubs have been very good at distancing themselves from the chatter outside their clubhouse. You might have heard that they’ve embraced the target on their backs — that of favorites — but the fact is that they cruised through the regular season without much stress. Now there’s a ton of it. Can they ignore it? “We all have kind of the same mindset,’’ said pitcher Jon Lester, who was excellent in the Cubs’ Game 5 victory. “We don’t really care. We’re out there just playing hard and trying to make it to tomorrow. I think that goes back to Day 1 with Joe, back to last year: Hey, let’s grind out every day and then see what happens, and then show up the next day and do the exact same thing.

“We have a lot of talent on this team, but we have a lot of guys that are dirt ballers that get down and get dirty and make a lot of plays and have some dirty at-bats for us too.’’ The two series the Cubs have played so far have been difficult, perhaps more difficult than most people had foreseen. But they’re also up 3-2 in the NLCS. A positive, by almost any measure. “It’s within our reach right now,’’ Maddon said. The manager is correct. It’s right there for the Cubs, waiting to be grabbed. Will they reach out a hand and squeeze? -- Chicago Sun-Times While rest of team hits, Heyward’s offensive drought continues By Rick Telander LOS ANGELES — In the wake of five National League Championship Series games that were as different as black cats and white rhinos, the Cubs have left us with a mystery. Was that the real Cubs team in the two shutout losses to the Dodgers in Games 2 and 3? Or was that our boys in the victories in Games 1, 4 and 5, when they cranked out 26 runs? ‘‘That was us,’’ manager Joe Maddon declared of the latter onslaught. The truth is probably somewhere in between because the Cubs are too good to lay goose eggs, but nobody can count on an average of almost nine runs. Obviously, a huge part of the difference is the pitching the Cubs are facing. Hello, supreme master lefty Clayton Kershaw and solid, reborn lefty Rich Hill. Those were the two Dodgers winners. They’re a far cry in veteran talent from, say, just-turned-20 Game 4 starter Julio Urias, whom the Cubs shelled. So let’s say the Cubs’ bats are back. Let’s say that Kris Bryant has never gone away, that Anthony Rizzo and Addison Russell are fine now, that Dexter Fowler and Javy Baez are doing their thing and that Ben Zobrist and the catchers will mosey along. That leaves us with one issue, one that so far has been covered up by the sheer wealth of talent: Jason Heyward. His shocking and continued failure at the plate is now unnerving. Heyward, 27, is a quiet, diligent worker much respected by his teammates. He’s a very large, lean and muscular man — 6-5, 240 — and his grace afield is mesmerizing. He runs down fly balls that lesser men would never get to, has a cannon arm and his length and athleticism make what he does in right field look easy. And making the difficult appear easy is the hallmark of all great athletes. But he can’t hit. This season has been a drop downward from his past performances. He batted just .230 with only seven home runs and 49 RBI this year, and he often looked completely overmatched. Being a left-handed hitter means he plays into the strength of the Dodgers, who have six lefty pitchers, including rookie Urias. Heyward went 0-for-5 in Game 4. He had an RBI, but he left three men on base. Meanwhile, his teammates were cranking out 13 hits and nine other runs.

Compare his stats this year to, say, 2012 with the Braves, when he batted .269 and had 27 homers and 82 RBI. Or his rookie year at age 20, when his first major-league at-bat was a monster three-run homer on Opening Day against — who else? — the Cubs. Even last year with the Cardinals, he batted .293 with 160 hits, 13 homers, 60 RBI and fewer strikeouts than he had this year. His youth and history and personality were precisely why Cubs execs Theo Epstein and Jed Hoyer pursued him relentlessly, getting into a bidding war with the Cardinals and coming away victorious, signing Heyward to an eight-year, $184 million guaranteed contract. That is, folks, more money than I, as a regular human, can comprehend. Heyward, basically, is guaranteed a $1.92 million check every month until 2023. No matter what he does. No, money is not the fair measure of a man. But it says something about the expectations. And an ‘‘out machine’’ is not what the Cubs had in mind. For now, Heyward has been tucked away, batting down in the sixth position or lower. Maybe you don’t notice him much, but baseball is a game in which everyone must contribute or the other team’s game plan starts to center around your weakness. Heyward’s average was .083 in the NLDS; it’s .063 so far in the NLCS. He is 2-for-28 in the postseason with a walk, one RBI and nothing else. Let’s say the Cubs make it past the Dodgers and face the Indians in the World Series. (Can’t believe I just wrote that.) Don’t you think the Indians will burn the midnight oil figuring a way to exploit Heyward’s impotence? Of course, they will. Should Maddon bench Heyward against certain pitchers (Jorge Soler started for Heyward in Game 3, but Heyward came in later). For now, no. It would send a bad message to the regulars who have been through this hand-in-hand. But a slump can’t go on forever or it becomes something else. Failure. “Any time you get shut out in back-to-back games, it’s not fun,” Bryant said. “But there wasn’t any panic. It was just a matter of time for guys to get it going and feel good about themselves.” It sure would be nice if Heyward could feel good about himself at the plate again. The Cubs’ success might depend on it. -- Chicago Sun-Times Cubs focused on Dodgers but impressed with A.L.-champ Cleveland By Gordon Wittenmyer LOS ANGELES – Whatever the results at Wrigley Field this weekend, the Cubs are well aware of what the Cleveland Indians have done this postseason and how their pitching steamrolled the Red Sox and Blue Jays to reach the World Series. “They’ve been outstanding. And who hits better than Toronto?” Cubs manager Joe Maddon said during the week as the Indians eliminated the Blue Jays in five games in the best-of-seven ALCS. “You see what their pitching has done,” he added. “That’s a classic example of this time of the year. You get a small window to [take advantage of], and you get a really hot pitching staff. They’ve been unbelievable.” Even after losing two of their top three or four starters (Carlos Carrasco and Danny Salazar) to injury before the playoffs began, the Indians won seven of eight playoffs games to reach the World Series for the first time since 1997.

“As young starting pitchers, they’re two of the best in baseball,” Maddon said of Carrasco and Salazar – both of whom were on the Cubs’ radar as trade targets in the last two years. Reports from Cleveland suggest Salazar could return to the roster in the World Series, as a reliever. Along the way, the pitching staff produced a 1.77 postseason ERA with three shutouts. The Red Sox and Jays combined to hit .206 against the Indians staff. “And you lose your starter in the first inning with a bloody hand, and you’re able to piece it together like that,” Maddon said, referring to Cleveland’s Trevor Bauer, whose cut finger forced him out of a Game 3 ALDS start that the Indians won 4-2, using six relievers. “That just speaks to what they’re doing. I know that Toronto group, and those boys can hit, and they really hit in that [Toronto] ballpark,” Maddon said. “That’s pretty impressive what the Indians are doing.” Until the last two games, the Cubs had struggled against Giants and Dodgers pitching, hitting .185 and averaging 3.6 runs in seven games (four wins). Contereras, umpires ‘cool’ After Thursday’s game in Los Angeles, Maddon and home plate umpire Alfonso Marquez met on the field for a “nice conversation” about catcher Willson Contreras’ demeanor and, uh, youthful exuberance. “There was just a little bit of controversy regarding Willson,” Maddon said. “Willson tends to be temperamental. We talk about you don’t want to coach the aggressiveness out of somebody or the instinct. With him, you just have to continue to speak with him, because he’s passionate. He’s passionate about everything he does,” Maddon said. “He’s passionate about his morning cup of coffee. That’s all that was. I had a nice conversation. Everything was cool.” Notes: Cubs closer Aroldis Chapman is 3-for-3 with five strikeouts, no walks, one hit and no runs allowed in three ninth-inning save chances this postseason. In his four other appearances: 3 1/3 innings, three runs, four hits, two walks, three strikeouts. … Left-hander Jon Lester on Thursday became the first pitcher in history to win his first three starts when pitching Game 5 of a postseason series tied 2-2 (all best-of-seven series). -- Daily Herald Chicago Cubs right on target By Bruce Miles From Day 1 of spring training until today, the Chicago Cubs have "embraced the target." They've embraced the target of chasing a World Series championship, and they've embraced being the target that other teams want to beat. Here is something else for them to embrace: Game 6. Yes, Game 6. The mere mention of the words still can cause Cubs fans to shudder, given the disastrous developments in Game 6 of the 2003 National League championship series, when the Cubs were five outs away from the World Series with a 3-0 lead, only to see the Florida Marlins explode for 8 runs in the eighth inning to win that game and also Game 7 at Wrigley Field.

That year the Cubs frittered away a 3-1 series lead, having lost Game 5 in Florida before dropping the final, fateful two at Wrigley. The 2016 Cubs have battled back from a 2-1 deficit in this year's NLCS against the Dodgers and come home to Wrigley Field for Game 6 leading three games to two. A victory Saturday night -- no small order against Dodgers ace Clayton Kershaw -- will punch a ticket to the World Series for the Cubs for the first time since 1945. True to form, Cubs manager Joe Maddon did not shy away from the talk of clinching when I put the question to him after Thursday night's 8-4 victory at Dodger Stadium. "Of course," he said. "That's been our goal all year, and now that we're very close to it, I want us to go out and play the same game, like you saw (Thursday night). "I anticipate our guy (Kyle Hendricks) is going to pitch well. I anticipate their guy is, too. We need to catch the baseball. "So, yeah, we're not going to run away from anything. It's within our reach right now. But I do want us to go after it as though it's -- again, hate to say it, but, Saturday. Let's just go play our Saturday game and see how it falls." The Cubs do have some things going for them. They have veteran leaders such as pitcher Jon Lester, who has World Series-winning experience and who has pitched like an ace this October. They also have young players such as infielder Javier Baez and catcher Willson Contreras, who don't seem to know it's crunchtime. Shortstop Addison Russell, all of 22, has found his stroke after a rough start to the playoffs, with home runs in each of the past two games. Lester said he doesn't need to give the kids any advice. "They don't need anything, man," he said. "These guys have been doing this all year. I don't even know why I'm up here (on the interview stand) with these guys (Baez and Russell). These guys won the game for us tonight. I was just kind of along for the ride. "So, obviously, we all know what we have in front of us with Kershaw going into Game 6. And we're going to do the same thing all year: show up on -- what is it? -- I don't even know what day today is. Show up on Saturday and be ready to play and give it our best. "Hopefully he's not the good Kershaw, and we get kind of the mediocre guy that gives up a few runs and we're able to hold them where they're at." Along with Russell, first baseman Anthony Rizzo got off to a poor playoff start, but he had good at-bats in Games 4 and 5, hitting a homer and 2 singles in Game 4 and an RBI double in Game 5. If the Cubs can get what they've been getting out of Baez, and Rizzo and Russell stay hot, they might be able to get to Kershaw before they would have to face lefty Rich Hill in a Game 7. MVP candidate Kris Bryant is 6-for-19 with 3 doubles in the NLCS, and he's not to be forgotten. "I think anybody in our lineup can turn the game our way," Baez said. "When Riz and Addy didn't start hot, everybody was asking about them. They're both hot now, and we scored a lot of runs for our pitchers." Indeed they did, with 10 in Game 4 and 8 in Game 5 after being shut out in the second and third games of the series.

Speaking of numbers, age seems to be only that for the Cubs, according to the 32-year-old Lester. "I think, really, at this point in time, if you played a full season, we all kind of feel the same, regardless of age," he said. "I think the biggest thing for us, a lot of us, is that we have kind of the same mindset. We don't really care. We're out there just playing hard and trying to make it to tomorrow." For that mindset, Lester credits the manager. "I think that goes back to Day 1 with Joe, back last year: 'Hey, let's grind it out every day and then see what happens, and then show up the next day and do the exact same thing,' " Lester said. "We have a lot of talent on this team, but we have a lot of guys that are dirt ballers that get down and dirty and make a lot of plays and have dirty at-bats for us, too." -- Daily Herald Cubs Lester has been lights out in postseason By Bruce Miles How good has Chicago Cubs pitcher Jon Lester been this postseason? He's been really good. He's been good enough to be called the ace of the starting rotation. During the regular season, Lester went 19-5 with a 2.44 ERA, making him one of the leading candidates for the Cy Young Award. In three playoff starts this October -- one in the National League division series and two in the championship series -- Lester is 2-0 with an 0.86 ERA and a WHIP of 0.76. In 21 innings, he has given up 14 hits and 2 runs while walking two and striking out 14. Lester's win Thursday in Game 5 of the NLCS made him 3-0 lifetime in Game 5 starts. He has a 1.80 ERA in those starts, and the first 2 gave his team a 3-2 lead in series they eventually won in six games. The first was the 2013 American League championship series with Boston against Detroit, and the second was 11 days later in the World Series against the Cardinals. Like Thursday, those starts were on the road. According to the Elias Sports Bureau, among pitchers with multiple Game 5 starts in a series tied at 2-2 (best of seven only), Lester is the only pitcher in major-league history to go 3-0. Livan Hernandez, Jerry Reuss and Justin Verlander are all 2-0 in 2 starts in that scenario, and David Wells is 2-0 in 3 starts. Going to bat for his guy: Cubs manager Joe Maddon had to intervene with home-plate umpire Alfonso Marquez on behalf of catcher Willson Contreras, who may have been a little too animated for Marquez's liking at the end of Thursday's 8-4 victory over the Dodgers in Game 5 of the NLCS. "There was just a little bit of controversy, yeah, regarding Willson," Maddon said. "Willson tends to be temperamental. And again, we talk about you don't want to coach the aggressiveness out of somebody, or the instinct. "With him, you just have to continue to speak to him because he's passionate. He's passionate about everything he does. He's passionate about his morning cup of coffee. This guy's just all about it. "So that's all that was. I had a nice conversation (with Marquez). Everything was cool." Stats and stuff:

Addison Russell homered for the second straight game Thursday. He is the ninth player in Cubs history to homer in two or more consecutive postseason games. The record is three, set in 2003 by Alex Gonzalez and matched last year by Kyle Schwarber. Kris Bryant recorded his 10th career postseason extra-base hit Thursday, extending his Cubs record, which he set in Game 1. The Cubs are batting .313 with 17 RBI against the Dodgers bullpen in the NLCS, compared with .169 and 7 RBI against the starting pitchers. That is according to ESPN Stats and Info. -- Daily Herald Kershaw stands between Cubs and trip to World Series By Scot Gregor While regaining control of the National League championship series, the Chicago Cubs have piled up 18 runs in the past two games. That is a sure sign the offense has switched on the heat button, and the Cubs will need to stay hot to have a chance in Game 6 against the Los Angeles Dodgers. Up 3 games to 2 in the NLCS with a chance to punch their ticket to the World Series for the first time in 71 years, the Cubs get another shot at Los Angeles Dodgers ace Clayton Kershaw Saturday night at Wrigley Field. Kyle Hendricks starts for the Cubs. "It's going to be a formidable event," Cubs manager Joe Maddon said. "Our guys will absolutely be ready for the moment, I promise you that. It's great. The city of Chicago has got to be buzzing pretty much right now. It will be a lot of fun." Coming back just three days after pitching the ninth inning in the National League division series and closing out the Washington Nationals, Kershaw started Game 2 of NLCS at Wrigley Sunday night and silenced the Cubs' bats and crowd. In that 1-0 win for the Dodgers, Kershaw breezed through 7 innings, allowing only 2 singles while throwing 84 pitches. A great curveball pitcher, Kershaw had little or no feel for his off-speed pitch in Game 2 but was able to hold down the Cubs offense with precise fastball location. Should Kershaw find the curve in Game 6, it could spell more frustration for the Cubs. "If he's on top of his game, it's going to be another very close, low-scoring game," Maddon said. "We just have to do our best to eek out as many runs as we can." Not only are the Cubs lighting up the scoreboard after being shut out in Games 2-3, they get to see Kershaw for the second time in seven days. "Pitchers definitely don't have an advantage," Kershaw said of facing the same team twice in a postseason series. "I don't know if the hitters have an advantage. But pitchers, the more you see somebody, the more familiar you get with them, that's true for sure.

"I don't think there's anything that you can do to counteract it. I said this the other day, but there are no secrets, anyway, in the game right now. There's so much information. They know every pitch that I throw and every count and every situation. So it's just a matter of not really focusing on that and just trying to compete with every single pitch and execute every single pitch." The Cubs are expecting Kershaw to be sharp in Game 6, and they feel the same way about Hendricks, who had the lowest ERA (2.13) in the major leagues this season. The right-hander was also 9-2 with a 1.32 ERA at Wrigley Field. "It's going to be the same environment as last time," said Hendricks, who started against Kershaw in Game 2 and allowed 1 run on 3 hits and 4 walks in 5⅓ innings. "I'm looking forward to it. It's a good matchup. I'm excited in a sense to get another crack at it. It should be a close game. But in order to approach that game, you have to have simple thoughts, take the same approach as you would any other game." -- Daily Herald Rozner: Chicago Cubs won't allow narrative to engulf them By Barry Rozner Very early Friday, while flipping through the channels and searching for highlights from a particularly bad NFL game, the remote found its way to ESPN2. The focus on that channel at that moment was baseball, and the conversation was about the Cubs and Dodgers. But not about a great series. Not about the brilliance of players on both sides. Not about the managing decisions. Not about Jon Lester, Addison Russell, Javy Baez, Anthony Rizzo, Clayton Kershaw or Kenley Jansen. Not about the Cubs' season-long domination of the National League, or the incredible perseverance of the Dodgers, who long ago should have succumbed to pitching injuries. No, it was about a foul ball that occurred 13 years ago. Yup, the clowns are in town and it's going to get a lot worse over the next 10 days if the Cubs can win a game this weekend. Let's face it, there is an everlasting need to make this story bigger than it is. It's unrelenting, truly, a massive attack of hyperbole on the part of those charged with recording history, but insist on altering it. The desire to widen the lens and broaden the optics, to see a global picture, is baffling to those participating in the event. To maintain this approach is to deny the very existence of what Cubs players say about where they are and what they're doing. No, they're not fools. They know there's a lot at stake for the fan base. But they don't feel it during a game, during an at-bat. They don't throw pitches carrying the weight of 108 years. They are athletes playing a game, and during a game there are no thoughts of history or witchcraft. They have a job to do and a responsibility to their teammates, to execute and perform for them. They are, in that moment, simply competing. That's what athletes do. They compete. It's the best part of the job, to see if they can win that moment. That's what they live for. It's what they play for. But, apparently, this is a complicated concept.

"Yeah, it's part of this job, hearing that stuff. You kind of get used to that," said Cubs starter Jon Lester. "People kind of project what they think, but they might not really understand what it feels like. "We don't think about a lot of those things that people say we're thinking about." Lester laughed recently about that idea, that the Cubs are affected by these decades-old narratives. "It's kind of boring, really," Lester said. "We like playing baseball and we like being together and we want to win a title. But the focus has to be on one day. That day is today. Then, you move on to tomorrow. "That's how you play sports. You don't play with all that other stuff in your head." The search for a storyline that explains something larger -- that gives meaning to life, splits the atom or proves relativity -- is understandable. It's necessary, almost certainly, for most humans trying to get through a day. But in the case of a baseball team it's laughable, the attempt to make it more significant. For a fan waiting a lifetime, it's reasonable, but for breathless observers it's inexplicable when the very players in question have gone out of their way to politely explain that in the moment they have no concept or care for all of what's occurred in the last 108 years. When the Cubs went through a hitting slump at the worst possible time a few days ago, it was suddenly attributable to events that occurred in postseasons past. Little consideration was given to the fact that postseason pitchers are generally very good and that opposing teams have reached this point in October because of their pitching and defense. It's shameful and annoying and insulting -- and it's not going away any time soon. Just one more reason to hope that sometime in the next two weeks, this narrative finds the bottom of a very deep grave. -- Daily Herald Cubs build momentum on Zobrist's Game 4 spark By Scot Gregor So, the Cubs' offense is completely stagnant, and a third-straight shutout loss to Los Angeles is suddenly looking possible Wednesday night in Game 4 of the National League championship series at Dodger Stadium. Odd things always seem to happen in the postseason, good or bad. There was an odd moment for the Cubs in Game 4, and it turned out to be a great thing. With 21 straight scoreless innings hanging over their heads like a nest of termites, cleanup hitter Ben Zobrist led off the fourth and laid down a bunt that went for a single. Zobrist's unorthodox decision didn't seem to be much of factor at first, but don't be fooled. "It picked up the whole group," Cubs manager Joe Maddon said. "We needed something to get us going right there. It was kind of an unexpected play." While being held scoreless in Games 2-3, the Cubs were guilty of the same thing that happens to many teams in the postseason.

Pressure rapidly mounts when zero after zero go up on the scoreboard. Hitters that produced throughout the regular season go into panic mode and either try hitting the ball out of the stadium or wind up taking fastballs right down the middle. Zobrist, who is playing in his fifth postseason, has been guilty of trying to do too much and being uncomfortable at the plate like most other Cubs hitters. But simply squaring the bat in Game 4 and getting an easy hit to start a needed 4-run rally was a smart move by a wise veteran. "Any time you get a leadoff guy on in the playoffs, it adds a little extra energy," said Kyle Hendricks, who starts Game 6 Saturday against Los Angeles ace Clayton Kershaw. "You're hoping to get something going there and where our lineup had been, not putting a lot of hits and runners on, just to get the lead guy on was really good. And then the next guy, and the energy started picking up big time in that inning for sure." The Cubs wound up scoring 10 runs to win Game 4 going away, and the momentum carried right into Game 5 Thursday night when they took a 1-0 lead in the first inning. The bats went quiet after the first, but Addison Russell, who struggled in the NL division series and NLCS before hitting a 2-run homer in the fourth inning Wednesday, came through with another huge 2-run shot in Game 5 Thursday. "Zo did a great job on that bunt to get on," Russell said of Zobrist in Game 4. "We moved guys over. That's kind of what we've been working on the whole season. Then coming up to the plate I just wanted to get something to drive." --