Chicago Cubs: Giving the 2016 NLDS comeback another look

Chicago Cubs: Visions of Billy Goats and “BelEVEN” take hold

Lackey looked nice and settled in when the fourth inning came around. He began by striking out Brandon Crawford swinging on four pitches. Nice. Cub-killer Conor Gillaspie and Joe Panik both singled and Gregor Blanco walked and all of the sudden it was bases loaded and one out. Up came Moore…who pulled an 0-2 fastball into the hole to give the Giants a 2-1 lead.

The Giants lead would go to 3-1 with an RBI groundout by Span right afterwards. Lackey got the final out on a lineout off Brandon Belt‘s bat and the inning and his night ended. A 3-1 deficit would turn to a 3-2 deficit when Javier Baez got to third on an error and Ross knocked him in via sac fly…but things would only get worse in the bottom of the fifth when Gillaspie scored Hunter Pence on a single and Panik hit a sac fly. 5-2 Giants.

Moore made mincemeat of the Cubs batters as he cruised through the sixth, seventh and eighth innings giving up zero hits, one baserunner and striking out four. He would finish the night with a line of: 8 IP, 2 H, 1 ER, 2 BB, 10 K.

Three outs separated the Giants from forcing a pivotal Game 5. Six years of even year magic squaring off against 108 years of “curses” and misery. Seemed like fate for the Giants to erase an 0-2 series deficit and the old Cubbies to lose again. According to Baseball-Reference, the Cubs chances of winning right when the top of the ninth started were less than three percent.

These were the 2016 Chicago Cubs, they were different.