A World Series between the two teams with the longest championship droughts comes with enough intrigue before the games start, but add a split set of games in the first two at Progressive Field, and that drama only grows. Last night, the bandage was pulled off quickly when Jon Lester gave up two first inning runs […]
Author: Jared Wyllys
Second City October: Game One Goes to Cleveland
The hope is that the experience of watching the Cubs in the World Series for the first time in 71 years isn’t marred by watching them picked apart in the first game of that series by the American League Cy Young winner of two seasons ago. Both teams came into the Fall Classic with long histories […]
Second City October: “30 Pitches of Hell”
“The Cubs put Clayton Kershaw through 30 pitches of hell in the first inning.” – Andy McCullough, Los Angeles Times There could not have been a more formidable opponent than Clayton Kershaw for the Cubs to have to get past on their way to their first World Series berth since pre-integration baseball. There’s a lot […]
Second City October: Blanked Again
This piece, written by BP Wrigleyville’s Jared Wyllys, forms part of our in-house coverage of the Cubs in the playoffs, “Second City October.” Additional Game Three coverage can be found here. “Just rearrange the deck chairs and see how it plays.” — Joe Maddon In hindsight, probably a poorly chosen allusion for Maddon, though it’s provided a […]
Second City October: NLCS Game Two Preview, Cubs (1-0) vs. Dodgers (0-1)
While baseball offers the great therapy of returning to action the very next day after a loss, that same quality allows little time for reveling in remarkable victories like Saturday night’s. All that needed to go well for the Cubs went well, and they overcame even issues such as small bullpen failures and cold bats […]
Second City October: NLCS Series Preview
This piece, written by BP Wrigleyville’s Jared Wyllys, forms part of our in-house coverage of the Cubs in the playoffs, “Second City October”. Additional NLDS coverage, written by Aaron Gleeman and originally run on the main site’s series “Playoff Prospectus,” can be found here. Fortune has not been kind to the Cubs when they travel to the west coast, and especially so in […]
Second City October: Mike Montgomery’s Brilliance Not To Be Missed
October makes everything about baseball feel big, and nothing more so than emotions. We live for the big moments—the emotional highs and lows—and so the playoffs can be a time during which quiet, sturdy performances get easily overlooked. They shouldn’t be. And left-handed long relievers and spot starters are not usually the glamour players, but Cubs lefty […]
Second City October: NLDS Game Three Preview, Cubs (2-0) at Giants (0-2)
It has become something of a perverse given to grant the Giants this game. Not because the numbers play out in San Francisco’s favor particularly heavily, but because the playoffs inspire such a concentrated focus on intangibles, so it is assumed that Madison Bumgarner will simply toss another complete game shutout and salvage his team’s season for at […]
Playoff Prospectus: Giants, In A Corner
The piece previewed here, written by BP Wrigleyville’s Jared Wyllys, forms part of the main site’s comprehensive coverage of the playoffs, “Playoff Prospectus.” Additional Game Two and NLDS coverage, exclusive to BP Wrigleyville, can be found here and here, under the name “Second City October”. For the observer, to be traded away from a team on the […]
Hot at the Right Time, Montero Ready for October
Success in the playoffs generally has as much to do with being hot at the right time as it does with fielding the best team on paper. The Cubs will certainly have the latter, but the former will be in question as the NLDS starts on Friday night. This “being hot” is a difficult thing to […]