CLEVELAND -- The Chicago Cubs entered the World Series with 110 wins, including the postseason, so it’s safe to say there is no one formula for their success. Indeed, the ability to win games in almost any fashion is exactly what has defined the Cubs all season.
One method that has won them a number of games is the late-inning comeback, such as the National League Division Series-clincher over San Francisco when the Cubs rallied from a 5-1 deficit in the ninth inning. It’s a method that doesn't seem likely to work against the Cleveland Indians.
The Cubs have had a penchant for late-inning heroics. For the season, according to baseball-reference.com, the Cubs won 28.8 percent of games in which they trailed at the start of the sixth inning. The major league average is 18.9 percent. It makes sense. The Cubs are a patient team that seems to struggle the first time they see a pitcher, but they make him throw a lot of pitches and if they don’t get to him by the middle innings, they’ll get to his bullpen.
“We usually start pretty slow,” Javier Baez said after the Cubs’ Game 1 loss in the World Series. “But we don’t lose many series. Hopefully we’ll come out [Wednesday] stronger and get that win.”
The data doesn’t exactly bear all this out. The Cubs’ team OPS in the first three innings of games ranked third across baseball, while their OPS in the last three innings ranked sixth. In between they were eighth, so the overarching pattern is simply this: The Cubs were a very good offensive team this season, from bow to stern. But insofar as they were better at any particular juncture of games, it was at the beginning.
But there’s another way to look at it that bears out the general gets-better-as-it-goes hypothesis. The Cubs ranked sixth in the majors with a .731 OPS the first time they saw a pitcher in a game. They ranked third with an .822 OPS in subsequent trips against the same pitcher. The average team picks up 57 points of OPS against a pitcher after the first time they see him; the Cubs added 91 points. So, indeed, there is an overarching pattern of getting better with familiarity.
Here’s Baez talking about his battles with Indians ace Corey Kluber on Tuesday: “I saw a fastball that disappeared at the last second. The second at-bat I saw him a lot better. But he was really good [Tuesday].”
You hear that a lot from the Cubs. They talk about their ability to see the ball and how many pitches they’ve seen. Sometimes you feel like seeing pitches is more important to them than actually hitting them. But as we’ve seen so often, it’s the Cubs' deliberate, patient collective approach that plants seeds for the fruit that’s born later.
“They happened to have their three best pitchers [Tuesday],” Baez said. “Which is good for us because we’ve already seen them. We know what they have to offer.”
The problem with the Indians as a World Series opponent is that their bullpen explodes this kind of feel-them-out approach. The big number to emerge out of Game 1 was the fact that once the Indians grabbed a 3-0 lead in fourth inning, the Cubs were basically sunk. With the win, Cleveland has now won 70 of 71 games this season when they led by three runs or more. Their team OPS against ranked 11th in both the first three and middle three innings. In the final three innings, it ranked second.
Since the trade deadline, when they snagged Andrew Miller from the Yankees, the Indians have allowed a .504 OPS during the last three innings of games in which they have a lead, which was the best in the majors. Obviously, that pattern has held true in the playoffs. In fact, it’s why the Indians are in the World Series. It’s not just Miller -- in Cody Allen and Dan Otero, the Indians had three of the top 20 relievers in baseball by WAR. Miller ranked second behind Baltimore’s Zach Britton.
That leaves the Cubs needing a new path to get the World Series crown. First, they can simply get their offense started a little earlier, which may be easier when Kluber isn't on the mound. Chicago won 84.1 percent of its games this season when it had a lead of any kind after one inning, nearly 15 percent better than the average team. But due to that, they’ll have to overcome their penchant for feeling pitchers out early in games.
“It’s important for us to play our game,” Kyle Schwarber said. “We’re not going to go press, put all this pressure on us because we think we need to win ballgames. We’re a good baseball team. We’re here for a reason. So we’re going to go out and play our game.”
Luckily for the Cubs, the Indians don’t have another starter at the level of Game 1 winner Kluber, who has allowed just two runs in 24 1/3 innings this postseason. While the Cubs did make Miller work for his outs as much as any team this season, they still didn’t score on him, nor has any team in the postseason, ever. These kinds of streaks are made to be broken, but just to be safe the Cubs need to make hay in the early innings against Cleveland's other starters: Trevor Bauer and Josh Tomlin.
“I'm a believer,” manager Joe Maddon said after Game 1. “I know we're going to be fine. You're right, they pitched really, really well tonight. Kluber was outstanding. But up and down the lineup overall, I saw a lot of good things among a lot of our hitters.”
The Cubs could see Kluber two more times in the series if it goes the distance, a task that sounds daunting. But then again, they looked helpless against Clayton Kershaw in Game 2 of the National League Championship Series. When they saw him again in Game 6, they knocked him out of the game in five innings. It’s just an anecdote, but maybe a learn-on-the-fly team like the Cubs benefits from the compression of a postseason series.
The Cubs don’t want to play the Indians from behind, and the numbers show that they struggle against elite pitchers. But we keep coming back to those 110 wins. The Cubs repeatedly show the ability to learn, adapt and survive. They’ve done it since spring training. They always manage to find a way.
“I have no concerns,” Maddon said. “I thought we were ready to play. Our guys looked really good. They were great in the dugout today. It's the first game. I'm fine. We're fine.”