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Chicago Cubs: Despite the frustrations, it is time to embrace the journey
By Logan Whaley
Chicago Cubs: A stretch of unheralded success
Following a three-year stretch in which the Cubs won an average of 67 games per season, things changed in 2015. Chicago won a staggering 97 games, en route to their first NLCS appearance since 2003.
From 2015 to 2017, the Cubs have averaged 97 wins per season. Not a bad improvement for a team dubbed the ‘Lovable Losers’ for years and years. Chicago has found themselves enjoying tremendous success in each subsequent campaign, as well.
After a disastrous National League Championship Series in which the team got swept by the likes of an incredibly dominant New York Mets starting five, it was onward and upward from there on out.
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The 2016 club, one of the most dominant Cubs’ teams in the history of the franchise, crushed the regular season en route to 103 wins. The team’s comeback quality reigned throughout October, as well.
The Cubs staged comebacks in the ninth inning of Game 4 of the National League Division Series to clinch the series in San Francisco. Then, they overcame a deficit in the NLCS against the Los Angeles Dodgers to punch their ticket to the Fall Classic. And, of course, they defied the odds against a loaded Cleveland Indians squad in the World Series, winning their first title since 1908.
Last season, despite the dreaded “World Series hangover,” the Cubs still battled their way to their third consecutive National League Championship Series, losing to the Dodgers this time in five games. That being said, it was not without a fight. Granted, it wasn’t the end we’d all hoped for, but continued a very impressive stretch unmatched in Major League Baseball in the last decade.