It’s been a long time since we had playoffs to preview here, so forgive me if I’m a little rusty.  But here we are.  At least a year ahead of reason, our Chicago Cubs are back in the postseason.

They haven’t exactly slipped in the back door.  They won 97 games.  They won their spot by a cool 13 games over the defending World Champion San Francisco Giants and 14 over everybody’s preseason pick the Washington Nationals.

The Cubs come into the playoffs on an eight game winning streak.  They have the third best record in baseball.  Since the end of July the three best teams in the game have been the Cubs, the Toronto Blue Jays and the Pissburgh Pirates.

The Cubs reward for a season of unexpected excellence?  They have to go to Pissburgh for a one-game shot at staying alive in the playoffs.

You know what?  We’ll take it.

If it all goes tits up Wednesday in Pissburgh, this will still have been an incredible season.  At times, the Cubs played five rookies in their starting lineup.  They only really had two starting pitchers.  The bullpen is oftentimes a mystery.  They occasionally play defense like the object is to see how far you can kick a baseball.

And yet, if they win on Wednesday night…they might just win the pennant.  Same for Pissburgh.  These are, most likely, the two best teams in the National League.  The best part…the winners get the St. Louis Cardinals in the next round.

The Giants aren’t around to do the dirty work.  From now on it’s up to the Cubs to knock the Cardinals out of the playoffs.

It’s gonna be great.

But first, they have to beat Pissburgh.  So, let’s break it down scientifically.

First base
Cubs: Anthony Rizzo
Pirates: Pedro Alvarez or Mike Morse

Rizzo, the sage veteran leader of the Cubs (he’s 26) was an All-Star again this year.  He led the Cubs with 101 RBI and led the universe in being hit by pitches with ¹30.  He’s a plus defender, he’s a very effective baserunner and he’s the driving force behind the Cubs refusal to be overwhelmed by the moment.  Get used to him, he’s got another decade or so at first.

Pissburgh has to choose between the worst defensive first baseman of all-time in Alvarez, or a mongoloid like Morse.  Here’s how bad first base is for the Pirates.  Late in games they play Sean Rodriguez at first.  Rodriguez is listed as being six feet tall.  But he’s actually 5’4.  Alvarez is listed as 250 pounds.  Apparently he couldn’t get his right leg on the scale.

Second base
Cubs: Starlin Castro or Tommy LaStella
Pirates: Neil Walker

Our boy Starlin is likely to get the start, and why not? From the day the Cubs moved him to second base from shortstop to the end of the season Starlin hit .353/.374/.594 with 12 doubles, six homers and 23 RBI in 31 starts.  He’s also had success against Pissburgh starter Gerrit Cole, and it just feels like Starlin’s redemption becomes complete when he drives in the winning run in a playoff game.  But it’s not like the Cubs don’t have other options.  La Stella got hurt, in Pissburgh, early in the season and then disappeared for most of the season.  But since his return he’s been very productive.  In fact, over the last month, he’s hit .371/.425/.514.  So what if he looks more than a little bit like Mr. Peepers?

Did you know Neil Walker is from Pissburgh?  If you didn’t you’ll hear it about six dozen times on Wednesday night.  Let’s hope he dies of black lung during the first couple of innings.

Shortstop
Cubs: Addison Russell
Pissburgh: Jordy Mercer

The Cubs finally faced down the inevitable in August and moved Russell from second base to shortstop, and booted Starlin to the bench.  Thankfully, Russell had no problem reacquainting himself with his old spot and Starlin completely turned his season around after the switch.  Russell was so comfortable at short that he took a streak of 45 straight errorless games there late into the season.  And…if the move brought us nothing more than this, it would still have been worth it:

But he did so much more than that.

Mercer gets most of the time at short since Chris Coghlan tore up Jung Ho Kang’s knee on a slide last month.  He’s pretty shitty.

Third base
Cubs: Kris Bryant
Pirates: E-ramis Ramirez

Bryant was put in an impossible situation to start his career.  He was supposed to be a great player from day one, an All-Star, a cornerstone, and one of the faces of one of the most popular teams in all of sport.  Poor guy he didn’t meet those expectations.  He exceeded them.

He didn’t homer for…ever to start his career, but was an on base machine.  Then he added some power in May, and was good in June, but he hit a wall in July and hit only .168 with a .270 on base average for the month.  Poor guy was tired from trying to carry the Cubs on his back every day.

And then August came, and the Cubs became one of baseball’s best teams, and it was because Bryant was sick and tired of not being awesome.  He hit .330/.442/.620 for the month with 7 homers and 20 RBI.  He couldn’t keep that up, so in September we had to settle for “only” .316/.380/.521/.901 with five homers and 19 RBI.  He set a Cubs rookie record for homers in a season (26) and drove in 99 runs.  He also proved he could more than handle third base…and left field, and center field, and right field and first base.  Scientists have a phrase for someone like this.  He’s “fucking awesome.”  And he’s 23 years old and I’m going to pass out just thinking about how much better he’s going to get.

As for E-ramis, he’s only one of my all-time favorite Cubs.  The guy was the balls for nine years as a Cub.  He deserves a nice, long, postseason run to round out a terrific career.  Too bad his career ends on Wednesday.  It’s Doug Melvin’s fault.  He picked the wrong awesome NL Central team to trade E-ramis back to.

Left field
Cubs: Kyle Schwarber
Pirates: Starling Marte

To say these two players have opposite styles would be an understatement.  In fact, Kyle probably will play right field on Wednesday night because left is so friggin’ huge.  But I can’t do Kyle justice.  Let’s have him tell you how his rookie season has gone:

KYLE START SEASON IN TENNESSEE BUT NOT THE PART WITH RAYNA JAMES.  KYLE GET TO GO TO IOWA, BUT HAVE TO STOP IN CLEVELAND TO HIT SOME DINGERS FOR BIG CUBS.  KYLE GO TO IOWA THEN COME BACK TO BIG CUBS TO CATCH WHEN MIGGY GET BOO BOO ON HAND.  KYLE HIT MORE DINGERS IN CINCINNATI THEN MOVE TO OUTFIELD NEAR CUBS DUGOUT.  THROW MEN STOP THROWING KYLE LOW FASTBALLS AND KYLE STRIKE OUT SOME, BUT SOMETIMES THROW MEN DON’T THROW FASTBALL HIGH ENOUGH AND KYLE SMASH.  KYLE LIKE CUBS FANS.  CUBS FANS LIKE KYLE.  KYLE DON’T LIKE IT WHEN OTHER TEAMS PUT MIDFIELDER BEHIND SECOND BASE. THAT’S CHEATING.  KYLE WEAR HIS PJ’S IN LOS ANGELES AND DRESS UP LIKE GIRL ON WAY TO MILWAUKEE. KYLE GOING TO HIT ONE INTO LONG, SKINNY POND BEHIND BALLPARK IN PISSBURGH IN PLAYOFFS.

Starling Marte scares the shit out of me.  He’s pretty damned good.  And hey, Gary Jones…  Don’t run on Starling.

Centerfield
Cubs: Dexter Fowler
Pissburgh: Andrew McCutchen

Dexter was picked up in the offseason in a trade for future Hall of Famer Luis Valbuena, and Dexter made a good first impression with the Cubs, winning a game in Denver the first week with a homer.  But he struggled for most of the first half.  He didn’t get on base.  At least his defense was better than advertised (it would have been hard to have been worse), but that stupid upside down glove basket catch thing he does scares the shit out of me.  The last out on Wednesday is going to be a flyball to him and he’s going to do that thing, and I’m going to stop breathing.  But he’ll catch it.

He got on base at a .389 clip in the second half and scored 102 runs overall.  Not bad, Dexter.

McCutchen is a former NL MVP and he’s really good, and I don’t want to think about him anymore.

Rightfield
Cubs: Jorge Soler or Chris Coghlan
Pissburgh: Gregory Polanco

It’s entirely possible that neither of these guys will start on Wednesday.  If one does, it’s probably Coghlan and he’ll be in left field.  Joe Maddon could go with a lineup he used the other night with Schwarber in right, Bryant in left, LaStella at third and Starlin at second.  Coghlan has had some nice stretches this season, and to his credit he’s been willing and able to play left, right, first and second (well, kinda second).  I’m sure Pirates fans will be thrilled to see him after his takeout slide ended Kang’s season.  Jorge had the kind of rookie year that most rookies have. (Just not these Cubs rookies.)  He played well at times, and you could see just how gifted he really is, and he disappeared for long stretches and he got hurt, and then he came back and played well and then faded away again.  At times he’s an absolute monster, and at some point, he’ll be that way more often than not.

Polanco also struggled in his first full season, but also played really well at times.  But hey Gregory…let’s never forget this:

Catcher
Cubs: Miguel Montero
Pirates: Francisco Cervelli

Montero split time with the 77 year old David Ross, and lived up to his billing as a top notch pitch framer and receiver.  Though lately he’s been Damian Miller-level shaky at times behind the plate.  He’s got a screwed up thumb on his glove hand (same as Yadier Molina but with only 4% of the credit for being the greatest, guttiest leader, ever) and he’s boxed some pitches lately.  At the plate he’d be more useful if he didn’t swing from his ass every time a runner was on base.  All in all, he’s a pretty good guy to have back there, and if there was ever a time he earned a lot of credit it was when he coaxed Hector Rondon through a bases loaded nobody out spot against the Giants.  It took like 11 mound visits on the last 20 pitches and some emphatic shit behind the plate, but Miggy and Hector pulled it off.  And, Miggy came up with the #wearegood hashtag.

Cervelli had the unenviable task of replacing Russell Martin and has done a really good job.  He’s an underrated defender and hitter, and he looks like kind of a pretty-boy prick.

Starting pitcher
Cubs: Jake Arrieta
Pirates: Gerrit Cole

All Jake did was have the greatest second half of a season for a pitcher in baseball history.  That’s all.  The only game he lost during that span was when the Cubs got no-hit by Cole Hamels.  If the Cubs lose on Wednesday night it won’t be because Jake got out-pitched, it’ll be because his team kept striking out with runners on base and didn’t score for him.  But that’s not going to happen.

MLB Radio’s Jim Duquette said that an NL scout told him weeks ago that, “Jake Arrieta will not lose the wild card game.”  I’m holding Jim and Jake to it.

Gerrit Cole is really good, and there are few pitchers he could be up against who would overshadow him like Jake is.  He’s been nails against the Cubs this year (2-1, 2.13 ERA, four starts, one extra base hit allowed, 32 K’s, four walks, 25 innings.)  Holy shit.  How are the Cubs possibly going to beat that?

Well, against them, Jake is 3-1 with a 0.75 ERA in five starts with 33 K’s and five walks in 35 innings and the Pirates are SLUGGING .192 against him.

This is going to be epic.

Bullpens

The Cubs bullpen is better than people give it credit for.  Hector’s been nails at closer since he won the job back. Pedro Strop is awesome against anybody but St. Louis (and, if we get that far I’ll tell you how the Cardinals stupid ‘eye for an eye’ thing probably “fixed” Pedro’s struggles against them, anyway).  Fernando Rodney is a weapon if used correctly.  Tubby Trevor Cahill and the enormous Clayton Richard have been godsends.  Travis Wood finished the season on fire with a 0.56 ERA in September and October with–get this–23 K’s to 5 walks in sixteen innings.  He allowed an OPS of .329 over that span.

The Pirates do have a good bullpen, and Mark Melancon was a sparkling 51-53 in saves this year and they are 84-1 when they lead after eight.  These Cubs do not give a shit.

Benches

Because you only need a starter and an emergency guy in the wild card game, both teams will have a couple of extra guys on their bench.  For the Cubs that means Quintin Berry gets to trot out his Willie Mays Hayes act, and if the Cubs have a lead late both Austin Jackson and Chris Denorfia will be in the outfield chasing down flyballs.  Don’t be surprised if Javy Baez is on the infield at the end.

The Pirates have super-sub Josh Harrison and Rodriguez and Morse and former Giants pennant hero Travis Ishikawa.

Managers
Cubs: Joe Maddon
Pirates: Clin Turtle

These are two of the best in the business.  Joe has expertly brought along a team that quite frankly shouldn’t have been ready to do this yet.  Because they feel no pressure, they are especially dangerous.  Joe has created a culture where any player will do any crazy thing he asks them to, without question.

Turtle’s got a very talented team who think that this is their turn.  In reality, they probably realize that this might be their last best chance to finish ahead of the Cubs for a long time.  Clin won’t get out-managed by Joe.  He won’t out-manage Joe, either.  Chances are this game will turn on a shrewd move by one of them, there’s almost no chance it will turn on a bad one.

Overall

Despite all of the media love (and most of it is them rooting for the “story” or for ratings), the Cubs probably shouldn’t win this game.  Even with a great pitcher like Arrieta, they are young, they strike out too much, and he’s going up against another great starter.

But these Cubs also own the best road record in baseball.  Going to PNC is no big deal for them.  They’ll turn the “blackout” crowd and all that screaming into fuel for them.  And, if something goes wrong there won’t be 41,000 fans in full panic behind them.  Every time the Cubs have had to step up, they’ve done it.  And best of all, all season long they have never, ever, quit.  On the rare occasion you beat them, you have to do it to the 27th out or beyond.  They will find a way to claw their way back from anything.  It’s one of the many reasons we love them.

This one game or done scenario is perfect for the Cubs.  The Pirates are probably the one team in the NL they can’t beat in a five or seven game series.  Well guess what?  They don’t have to.  Send your ace to the mound.  Scratch out a run or two, and meet us in St. Louis.

It’s too soon for the Cubs.   They’re not ready.  You need to lose in the playoffs to learn to win in the playoffs.

The Cubs care not for your narratives.  If they did, they wouldn’t be here.

They are not a perfect team.  They have flaws you can drive a truck through.  But what they are good at, they are awesome at.  Ninety-seven times this year that’s been good enough.

What’s 12 more?

(Oh, and the little known tiebreaker in the wild card game is leadership.)

The Cubs cornered the market in that.

1. 30!