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Chicago Cubs shortstop Addison Russell smacked a bases-clearing long ball in the third inning of Tuesday’s Game 6 of the 2016 World Series, becoming the first-ever player at his position to hit a grand slam on baseball’s largest stage, per MLB Stat of the Day.

With the Cubs already nursing a 3-0 lead on the strength of a three-run first inning, Russell stepped up to the plate against Cleveland Indians reliever Dan Otero with the bases loaded and one out in the top of the third.

Russell was the first batter Otero faced upon replacing ineffective starting pitcher Josh Tomlin, who was charged with six runs on six hits and a walk while only lasting 2.1 innings.

The 22-year-old shortstop worked the count to 2-0 before driving an Otero sinker over the center field fence to open up a commanding 7-0 lead for Chicago.

Russell had already more than done his part in the contest, plating a pair of runs on a double in the first inning to cap off the aforementioned three-run rally.

While he made outs in his final three at-bats of the night, it was still one of the more memorable performances in recent World Series history, propelling the Cubs into Wednesday’s Game 7 in Cleveland.

Indians starter Corey Kluber will square off against Cubs starter Kyle Hendricks with the entire 2016 MLB season on the line.

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The Chicago Cubs have clawed back from the brink of elimination and are now one win away from their first World Series title in 108 years.

So, of course they’re the ones everyone is second-guessing at the moment.

After beating the Cleveland Indians in a 3-2 nail-biter at Wrigley Field in Game 5, the Cubs took control of Game 6 at Progressive Field with seven early runs en route to a 9-3 romp.

Like that, Cleveland’s 3-1 series lead is gone. All the Cubs need to complete their comeback is a few runs and 27 outs in Game 7 on Wednesday.

That leads us to the big question: How many of those outs can Aroldis Chapman get?

The answer might have been “As many as Joe Maddon asks him to get, duh” if Chicago’s manager had taken his club’s big lead in Game 6 as an excuse to rest his fire-balling closer. After all, Chapman was only a day removed from throwing 42 pitches and getting eight outs in Game 5.

Instead, Maddon brought Chapman in after Mike Montgomery had allowed two runners to reach in the seventh inning. He kept him in until a leadoff walk in the ninth inning. He threw another 20 pitches.

Maddon was asked to explain himself afterward. Here’s the key part of his answer (via MLB.com):

I mean, seventh inning there because they came up, the middle of the batting order was coming up, [Francisco] Lindor, [Mike] Napoli, [Jose] Ramirez possibly, all that stuff. So I thought the game could have been lost right there if we did not take care of it properly. Also there was a threat that we would score more runs, which we did, and just did not have enough time to get [Pedro Strop] warmed up after the two-run home run by [Anthony] Rizzo.

In short, Chapman came into the game to make sure the heart of Cleveland’s lineup didn’t make something of the rally that was brewing and stayed in the game because there hadn’t been enough time to adjust to the team’s recently increased lead.

The important context that’s missing is the Cubs already had a 7-2 lead before Rizzo put the game on ice with his two-run blast in the ninth. Cleveland’s rally was also with two outs, so the game was hardly hanging in the balance.

In fact, the win expectancy chart from FanGraphs shows the Cubs had about a 97 percent chance of winning even before Chapman entered the game:

On one hand, going to Chapman was Maddon’s abiding by the notion that closers shouldn’t be restricted to the last three outs. On the other hand, bringing in Chapman in that situation was like using a Howitzer to take out a bothersome house fly.

It was plausible at the time that Maddon only meant to use Chapman to get Lindor and would then turn the game over to Pedro Strop, Hector Rondon or whoever to get the last six outs. That seemed even more likely after Chapman came up favoring his right leg after beating—as instant replay would confirm—Lindor to the first-base bag on a grounder to Rizzo. The rally had been stifled, but Chapman’s limp seemed like a warning to Maddon not to tempt fate.

But Maddon wasn’t messing around. Chapman came back out for the eighth, and then there he was in the ninth.

Let’s get to the silver lining of all this: Just because Chapman pitched in Game 6 doesn’t mean he can’t pitch in Game 7. He will be available.

And for what it’s worth, that scare around the first-base bag might not be a clear and present danger. The man himself told Mark Gonzales of the Chicago Tribune he feels just fine:

So no, Game 7 is not over before it’s even begun just because Chapman pitched in Game 6. You know, just in case any of you straw men out there were actually thinking that.

The real fear, though, is the Cubs’ chances of winning Game 7 have been downgraded after Chapman’s outing in Game 6.

Had Maddon not used Chapman at all or maybe just used him to shut down that seventh-inning rally, he would have gotten plenty of rest following his taxing outing in Game 5. That might have allowed him to come in and get as many as eight outs again in Game 7.

But now, you wonder.

Jeff Passan of Yahoo Sports noted on Twitter that Chapman had only one bad outing in six tries this season the day after throwing 20-plus pitches in a game. However, one out of six is a lot less comforting in a World Series setting than in the regular season.

That 42-pitch effort in Game 5 also looms. That’s one of only three times Chapman has crossed the 40-pitch threshold.

He got two days of rest after one of them in September 2015 when he was with the Cincinnati Reds. That may have been because manager Bryan Price remembered when he didn’t let Chapman rest the day after a 40-pitch appearance in July and how three days later he allowed three hits and two walks in one inning.

This is imperfect precedent for the situation Chapman is in now. But it’s enough to raise questions about how many pitches he would have in him for Game 7 even on two healthy legs. And despite Chapman’s insistence on 100 percent health, any lingering soreness in his right leg Wednesday could be an issue.

Point being: Although Maddon will no doubt try to get two or three good innings out of Chapman anyway, he might not have two or three good innings to give.

Unlike in Game 6, the Cubs may not have the luxury of a big lead this time.

They’ll be facing Cleveland ace/possible T-800 from the future Corey Kluber. All he’s done in this series is allow one run in 12 innings, with 15 strikeouts and one walk. And while Maddon tasked Chapman with getting more than three outs for the second time in three days, Cleveland manager Terry Francona was resting his own relief aces: Andrew Miller and Cody Allen.

This doesn’t necessarily mean Cleveland has the edge. It depends on who you ask. The Indians are favored at FiveThirtyEight. The Cubs are favored at FanGraphs. It’s almost as if Game 7 is a would-be classic with all sorts of ins, outs and what-have-yous.

But when Game 7 begins, there may as well be a clock counting down to Chapman Time. We’re going to find out if all this hand-wringing is much ado about nothing or an excuse to say “I told you so.”

Stats courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com and FanGraphs unless otherwise noted/linked.

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The Chicago Cubs did their part to make this World Series look a lot more interesting.

By winning Game 5 at Wrigley Field, Chicago sent the series back to Cleveland for a pivotal Game 6. The Cleveland Indians lead the series 3-2.

It’s a series that has been largely defined by pitching, as both teams have played erratic offense at best. So many of the keys to Tuesday’s game lie at the plate.

But that’s not all that will determine whether or not this series goes a full seven games.

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It’s rare for the National League team in a World Series to be disadvantaged in the games it plays at home.

The theory, after all, is that an American League team, which uses a designated hitter throughout most of the year, is forced to sit one of its regulars. But in the case of Kyle Schwarber’s miraculous return to the Chicago Cubs lineup during the World Series—he tore his ACL and LCL on April 7 and was ruled out for the season—his team found itself in that AL-like conundrum.

Though Schwarber has been cleared to hit, doctors prohibited him from playing in the field. So, the left-handed slugger was relegated to duties as a pinch hitter in Games 3, 4 and 5, forced to watch his team struggle offensively at Wrigley Field.

But thanks to the Cubs’ Game 5 win Sunday night, the series heads back to AL champion Cleveland for the final two games, giving Schwarber the opportunity ignite Chicago’s offense.

Over those three home games, Schwarber played spectator while his team scored only four runs. Manager Joe Maddon tried every which way to spark the offense.

But aside from Anthony Rizzo—center fielder Dexter Fowler and outfielder Ben Zobrist are switch-hitters—Maddon couldn’t find capable left-handed hitting, which is of utmost importance against the right-handed-dominant Cleveland Indians pitching staff. Reliever Andrew Miller is the only southpaw among the Indians’ key pitchers.

It was as though Maddon walked into his kitchen intent on making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich only to find he was out of jelly.

Except there’s no running to the store in the World Series. The roster is set.

Left-handed-hitting outfielder Chris Coghlan is hitless in three at-bats this series. Right fielder Jason Heyward, another lefty, has struggled all year (.230/.306/.325 this season). He has three hits in this series, two of them seeing-eye singles that wouldn’t even make the NL’s worst-hitting pitchers jealous.

Maddon had nowhere to turn, except to try to adeptly pinch hit with Schwarber when it appeared advantageous.

That’s like telling Picasso to paint with only two primary colors.

Schwarber is hitting .375/.500/.500 in the World Series, which makes him a superhero among Cubs fans given that he only had five MLB plate appearances prior to starting as the team’s designated hitter in Game 1.

But the superhuman nature of Schwarber’s comeback will be judged after the series is over. And in a loss, it may not matter anyway.

As it pertains to Tuesday’s Game 6, another series-clinching opportunity for the Indians, he has a chance to give his team a boost.

It should be noted that in 10 plate appearances during the World Series, Schwarber has struck out four times. It’s irrelevant, though.

With his power, Schwarber can change the game with one swing. So if he strikes out four times, it doesn’t matter as long as he gets that timely hit.

But it’s not just the AL format that benefits Schwarber and the Cubs in Game 6.

According to ESPN’s “MLB Park Factors,” a statistical measure that determines which stadiums are friendly to hitters, Cleveland’s Progressive Field ranks third in runs, fourth in hits and fifth in home runs.

Those are the three most relevant categories for a hitter like Schwarber.

Furthermore, it’s 325 feet to right field in that stadium. By comparison, Wrigley Field is 353 feet to right field. Though the distance to Progressive Field’s left field is also 325 feet, there is a 19-foot-high wall. That makes it more difficult for right-handed hitters to homer.

For lefties, though, the right field fence is only nine feet high.

According to FanGraphs, Schwarber pulled the ball 46.8 percent of the time in 2015, which makes him, along with Rizzo, the likeliest on the Cubs roster to homer Tuesday and, if the Cubs should win, in Wednesday’s decisive Game 7.

With Schwarber in the lineup at Progressive Field, we should see the best of Chicago’s lineup.

Sure, the Indians also had to maneuver Wrigley Field’s NL rules. But it seemed through the last three games that Chicago’s offense was hurt more by them, as Cleveland scored 10 runs over that span.

The Cubs and their tortured fanbase are now embracing the most unpredictable of circumstances. Since 1945, fans have waited for a World Series to return to Chicago’s North Side.

Fans needed to write four-figure checks to get into the ballpark for one of the three games. Others gathered en masse outside Wrigley Field and packed the surrounding bars.

But now that the games are over and the World Series is leaving Wrigley for the 2016 season, those rooting for the Cubs to win this year might want to collectively wish the ballpark good riddance.

Because their home field didn’t turn out to be such an advantage.

Seth Gruen is a national baseball columnist for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter @SethGruen.

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HERZLIYA PITUACH, Israel — On Monday night, Dan Shapiro stood outside the American embassy in Tel Aviv and pressed a button that bathed the edifice in pink to mark Breast Cancer Awareness Month.

If Shapiro, who has served as the United States ambassador to Israel since 2011, had a say, the embassy might next be illuminated in blue and red to honor his beloved Chicago Cubs.

“It probably would have to come out of my pocket,” Shapiro joked at his home here during the wee hours of Thursday morning while watching a live broadcast of the Cubs’ 5–1 win over the Cleveland Indians that squared the 2016 World Series at a game apiece.

Or maybe he could seek a special budgetary allocation from his ultimate boss and fellow Chicago sports fan, President Barack Obama.

Obama, of course, touts his love of the White Sox, the Cubs’ intracity rivals, who broke their own World Series drought in 2005, just over a year before Shapiro began consulting on foreign policy for the then-Illinois senator’s presidential run.

Shapiro said that he and Obama both love their teams while harboring no animosity toward the other Windy City club.

When Obama tweeted congratulations to the Cubs for reaching the World Series, Shapiro retweeted it.

Still, while Shapiro said he appreciates that Obama “comes by his being a White Sox fan honestly,” he wonders if the First Fan sometimes goes too far. 

“When he threw out the first pitch at a [Washington] Nationals game with a White Sox hat, I thought: Really?”

The two men don’t often banter about sports, in person or long distance, and there’s been no Cubs-related smack talk this October.

Not that Shapiro, a Champaign, Illinois, native, is loath to dish some bull—or bear or cub—to everyone else when it comes to his favorite professional franchises.

Last spring, he posted congratulations on Facebook to the Golden State Warriors for breaking the NBA record for wins in a regular season. But it was accompanied by a picture of a T-shirt with the Chicago Bulls logo—the previous record holder—and the caution: “Don’t mean a thing without the ring.”

He’s posted remarks and photos on the Cubs all season long, including while attending two games in July at Wrigley Field. This spot-on comment following Chicago’s World Series Game 1 loss was among them: “One thing I know about [manager] Joe Maddon and these Cubs: They don’t get down over a loss, and they come right back fighting the next day. Jake [Arrieta] is on the mound in Game 2. I like our chances.”

For that game, Shapiro greeted me at 1:30 a.m., about a half-hour before Arrieta‘s first pitch. He sported a Cubs cap and wore the official jersey of Addison Russell, his daughter Merav’s favorite player, over a team T-shirt. Next to the big-screen television in his office, Cubs nesting dolls sat on a shelf, just above Obama’s book, Of Thee I Sing: A Letter to My Daughters.

Atop a lounge chair were arrayed two Cubs caps, a Cubs yarmulke and a Wrigley Field giveaway “W” towel for waving purposes. Shapiro’s wife, Julie Fisher, a Minnesotan, slept upstairs throughout the game but had thoughtfully placed yellow Post-it notes across the coffee table, one letter handwritten on each. The message?: GO CUBS. THIS IS THE YEAR.

By game’s end, just after 6 a.m. local time, Shapiro, too, was bushed—but giddily so. Indians catcher Roberto Perez grounded to Addison Russell to seal the Cubs’ first victory in 71 years in a World Series game.

Shapiro screamed, “Yes! Yes! Yes!” Meg Ryan-in-the deli-like, rushed over to high-five each of his three daughters and led them in an ear-splitting chant of “This. Is. The. Year.” that must have shaken Julie’s bed.

The dude is a regular fan working as an envoy in an important posting. He just happens to be living in a U.S. government-owned mansion in this upscale neighborhood as a result of that posting.

He shares some of those same qualities to the man signing his checks. Obama is “a normal person who happened to become president. Part of that was a guy who liked going to ballgames,” Shapiro said.

“What I have seen of him up close and as a more distant observer is that he is someone who, with all his responsibilities and all on his plate, follows sports. So when teams come to the White House [after winning championships], he’s probably followed the team.”

Shapiro said he has yet to be invited to the White House’s residential quarters to watch any games.

He’d also like to golf with him someday soon. Someone who has is Alan Solow, a longtime Obama donor and a fellow Chicagoan.

When they played in a foursome at Olympia Fields Country Club south of Chicago on Oct. 8, the Cubs-Giants National League Division Series was just getting underway, and sports, not politics, dominated the chatter.

“He was looking forward to watching,” Solow, a lawyer, said of Obama. “There was a lot of banter about what a good team the Cubs were this year and about the Dodgers‘ pitching. Part of the discussion was that baseball is probably more unpredictable in the playoffs than other sports are, because of the impact of pitching.”

Solow, who’s spent time with Obama both in the White House and on the golf course, said the president enjoys being in a sports environment, whether that means attending a playoff game, honoring championship teams at the White House or golfing.

“It was a much more relaxed setting for him, and it’s important to respect his decision to get away from the job and stay away from the hard subjects,” he added, speaking of the Oct. 8 outing.

Shapiro, too, has witnessed Obama’s passion for sports bubble up. Sometimes, that’s occurred in unexpected circumstances. He’s been in the Oval Office when Obama tossed around a football.

Then there was Obama’s visit to Israel in March 2013. Shapiro and other key personnel, including then-National Security Advisor Tom Donilon and Secretary of State John Kerry, were with the president in his hotel suite.

“ESPN was on, and he was tracking the games with his bracket,” Shapiro said of Obama’s March Madness fandom. “We were talking about his next meeting with [Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu…and he said, ‘Dan, I want to hear your view of this.’ I forget what the issue was, and I said, ‘Well, Mr. President, I think,’ and he said, ‘Oh, my God, what a dunk!’ And I lost my train of thought.”

If basketball wasn’t uppermost in Shapiro’s mind that March Madness day, it was front and center when he first heard he was on Obama’s radar in early 2007. Shapiro was on the staff of Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) when Mark Lippert, who worked for then-Sen. Obama (and now serves as U.S. ambassador to South Korea), recruited him to join the presidential campaign team.

Once the particulars of his advisory role on foreign policy were made clear, Shapiro, aware even then of Obama’s love of hoops, put in an early non-political request.

“I told Mark, ‘All I want is the chance to play basketball with him,'” Shapiro said, adding that the affirmative response “was easier said than done.” It wasn’t until 2010 that his opportunity arose. By then, Shapiro was the National Security Council’s senior director for the Middle East and North Africa. Obama had added a basketball court on the White House’s South Lawn, just a few steps from the NSC’s complex in the Dwight D. Eisenhower Executive Office Building, and Shapiro learned of Friday afternoon games David Axelrod, Obama’s senior advisor, arranged.   

“We were shooting around on a half court: me, Axelrod, Gene Sperling and [Michael] McFaul [then-Treasury Department official and then-NSC adviser on Russia, respectively], and on the other end, the president was shooting around with [aide] Reggie Love. Axelrod said to him, ‘Why don’t you run with us one game?’

“I ended up on [Obama’s] team. There’s an interesting dynamic that occurs: a deference to get him the ball. I didn’t embarrass myself. I hit a shot or two and acquitted myself acceptably. I think we won.” “I can say that I played with the president of the United States.”

All Shapiro wants now is for his beloved Cubbies to pull off a historic rebound from 3-1 down and earn an invitation to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. World Series champions traditionally drop by to be feted by the president when on a road trip to play the nearby Baltimore Orioles or Washington Nationals. 

But by next season, Obama will be an ex-president.

Don’t be surprised, then, if Air Force One is dispatched to swoop up the members of a curse-breaking, ‘comeback kid’ Chicago club and deliver them to the White House for a pre-January 20 visit.

Hillel Kuttler covers baseball for Bleacher Report. His work has previously appeared at the New York Times and the Washington Post. Follow Hillel on Twitter @HilleltheScribe.

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If the Chicago Cubs want to be a team of destiny, they better come up with a miracle.

If they don’t, a season in which they won 103 games on their way to their first World Series since 1945 could be over as soon as Sunday. The Cleveland Indians lead the series three games to one.

If the advantage feels even bigger than that, it may be because the latest entry in this Fall Classic was a thumping that only Cleveland fans had an easy time watching.

After winning a 1-0 squeaker in Game 4 on Friday, the Indians took Game 5 on Saturday by a 7-2 final. The Cubs could once again do nothing against Corey Kluber, who regressed to only six one-run innings from his six shutout innings in Game 1. John Lackey and a host of Chicago relievers served up 10 hits. Carlos Santana and Jason Kipnis sent two of those into the Wrigley Field bleachers.

And so, it’s down to this for the Cubs: One more loss, and their trip to the World Series will have proved powerless to stop their championship drought from turning 109 years old.

Oh, there are silver linings, of course.

There are the pitching matchups, for one. Jon Lester will get the ball against Trevor Bauer, who will be on three days’ rest, in Game 5. That’s a mismatch if there ever was one.

“To have a guy that’s [a] been-there, done-that kind of a guy, and been very successful, been a World Series champion, he knows what the feeling is like, he knows what it takes,” Cubs manager Joe Maddon said, via Jamal Collier of MLB.com. “It’s definitely comforting to the rest of the group for [Sunday].”

If there’s a Game 6, there will be another mismatch in Jake Arrieta against Josh Tomlin on short rest. If there’s a Game 7, major league ERA leader Kyle Hendricks will go against Kluber, who will be making his second straight start on short rest.

On the other side of the ball, Chicago’s vaunted offense showed more life in Game 4 than the box score suggested.

Dexter Fowler finally got the Cubs’ first home run of the series with his solo dinger off the previously untouchable Andrew Miller, but that could have been the team’s third home run of the night under better conditions. Ben Zobrist and Anthony Rizzo crushed balls that got knocked down by the wind.

And if there is indeed a Game 6, the Cubs know Kyle Schwarber will return to the lineup, as the designated hitter will be re-introduced to the series back at Progressive Field. He was Chicago’s best hitter in the first two games.

There are, however, two things standing in the way of the miracle the Cubs need: history and a team that is playing better baseball.

The easy reference to make in support of Chicago is to the last time a team from Cleveland was involved in a championship series with a 3-1 deficit. Just check Twitter. I’ll wait.

Easy jokes aside, though, 3-1 deficits are no laughing matter in the World Series. There have been 46 teams that have fallen behind 3-1. Only six of them have come back to win.

As Mike Puma of the New York Post noted, the last of those comebacks was three decades ago:

For the Cubs to break the streak, they need to figure out an Indians team that already has them figured out.

It’s not just the wind that’s keeping Chicago from living up to its reputation as one of baseball’s best power-hitting teams. Cleveland pitchers know that hitters have a hard time smacking breaking balls over the fence. Per Baseball Savant, they’ve gone from throwing 23.9 percent breaking balls in the regular season to 38 percent in the postseason. Cubs hitters have had no answer for that.

In what seems to be an offshoot of its struggles to hit the ball over the fence, Chicago has also lost its trademark discipline. Baseball Savant’s figures had it swinging outside the zone only 18.9 percent of the time in the regular season. That number is up to 22.4 percent in the World Series.

Cue Maddon saying this in his postgame press conference Saturday, via MLB.com: “We just need that offensive epiphany somehow to get us pushing in the right direction.”

As Cubs hitters struggle to be themselves, Indians hitters have largely been doing just fine.

They have a .248 team average to Chicago’s .204 and are out-homering the Cubs four to one. They’re taking more disciplined at-bats and benefiting from that with better contact, holding the average exit velocity advantage at 91.1 mph to 86.8 mph.

It helps that manager Terry Francona is pushing all the right buttons. Pinch-hitting Coco Crisp in Game 3 resulted in a game-winning RBI single. Santana rewarded Francona for starting him over Mike Napoli in Game 4 by hitting a game-tying home run.

Meanwhile, Francona’s button-pushing is another thing that’s made life difficult for Cubs hitters.

Whereas Maddon has leaned on relievers not named Pedro Strop, Hector Rondon or Aroldis Chapman, Francona has continued to ride Miller and Cody Allen as much as he can. When he hasn’t used them, he’s pushed the right buttons anyway. Take out Fowler’s dinger off Miller, and Zach McAllister is the only Cleveland reliever to allow an earned run in this series.

“I think our guys have done terrific,” Francona said after Game 4, via MLB.com. “But I think the people that are surprised don’t know our pitchers very well.”

All this is the long way of telling a shorter story. What the Indians are doing to the Cubs is basically the same thing they did to the Boston Red Sox and Toronto Blue Jays en route to the World Series. That led to seven wins in eight games. Lo and behold, more of the same has them one win from snapping a World Series drought that’s only 40 years younger than Chicago’s.

According to FiveThirtyEight, the odds the Cubs will reverse Cleveland’s stranglehold over this postseason stand at just 15 percent. That number is one of two things.

One: The start of a storybook comeback 108 years in the making—one that will be defined by Chicago taking advantage of favorable pitching matchups and finally finding its offense.

Or two: just another step down toward zero.

Anticlimactic? Maybe. But if it’s a team of destiny you want to see, you’re better off looking at the one from Cleveland.

Stats courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com and FanGraphs unless otherwise noted/linked.

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Kyle Hendricks might win the National League Cy Young Award. He’s MLB‘s reigning ERA king. By any measure, 2016 has been a very good year for the Chicago Cubs right-hander.

On Friday, he has a chance to cement his breakout season and go from very good to immortal by pitching the Cubbies to the championship brink.

Nothing will be decided in Game 3. But with the series knotted 1-1, it’s a pivotal contest. In World Series history, teams with a 2-1 advantage have won it all 56 times and lost just 27 times, per WhoWins.com.

It’s a big game symbolically, too. The North Side is hosting the Fall Classic for the first time since 1945. The ghosts of Wrigley Field will be out in force. A victory would quiet their groaning.

Momentum is fleeting and impossible to quantify. And nothing’s guaranteed, especially against a resilient Cleveland Indians club that hasn’t lost two games in a row since September 28.

Hendricks, however, has worked magic all season on the mound at 1060 W. Addison St.

In 95.1 innings at home in the regular season, Hendricks went 9-2 with a 1.32 ERA. He’s made all three of his postseason starts at Wrigley and posted a 1.65 ERA.

He twirled an absolute masterpiece in Game 6 of the National League Championship Series against the Los Angeles Dodgers, outdueling Clayton Kershaw and facing the minimum number of hitters over 7.1 shutout frames.

“Starts with maybe the clubhouse, the fans,” Hendricks said of his Wrigley mastery, per Mark Feinsand of the New York Daily News. “It just feels like I’m right at home, honestly.” 

That explains why manager Joe Maddon tinkered with his rotation, moving Jake Arrieta up to the No. 2 slot and bumping Hendricks down to No. 3. Arrieta—who wobbled in the second half and the postseason—made his manager look brilliant with a strong showing in Game 2 on Wednesday. 

Now, it’s Hendricks’ turn.

An eighth-round draft pick by the Texas Rangers in 2011, Hendricks was traded to the Cubs for pitcher Ryan Dempster in 2012. He posted a 2.46 ERA in 13 starts with Chicago in 2014, and in 2015 he logged a 3.95 ERA in 180 innings. 

This year, he took a Sonic the Hedgehog-sized leap forward.

He’ll never singe the radar gun; his fastball tops out in the low-90s. Instead, he relies on command—stealing strikes with his curveball, inducing ground balls with his sinker and keeping hitters off balance with his plus changeup.

CBS Chicago’s Chris Emma contrasted Hendricks’ numbers to those of his Cleveland counterpart:

Hendricks forced ground balls at a 48.4 percent rate this season, and has a home run-to-fly ball rate of just 9.3 percent, good for third in baseball. His Game 3 foe, Josh Tomlin, was third-worst in home runs per nine innings at 1.86 and fourth-worst in HR/FB at 17.7 percent.

One could think the Cubs have the edge on the mound for Game 3 of the World Series.

To be fair, Tomlin is 2-0 with a 2.53 ERA in 10.2 postseason innings and hasn’t allowed a homer yet.

It helps that Hendricks is backed by the best defense in baseball. But the Greg Maddux comparisons seem less outlandish with each superlative outing.

Just ask Greg Maddux.

“He does all those things usually better than the guys he’s facing,” Maddux said of Hendricks, per ESPN.com’s Jesse Rogers. “If it was a radar contest, then why play the game, right? Velocity is nice, but command and movement are better.”

Hendricks has next to zero history with the Indians. Among Cleveland hitters on the World Series roster, he’s faced only Coco Crisp, who has gone 0-for-3 against him.

A lack of familiarity often favors the pitcher, at least the first time through the lineup. Toss in Hendricks’ home dominance and the pent-up energy that’ll inevitably be behind him, and you’ve got all the ingredients for a legendary October showing.

If you think the enormity of the moment will speed things up for the 26-year-old, his skipper begs to differ.

“I’ve never seen him rush through anything,” Maddon said, per Paul Skrbina of the Chicago Tribune. “I’m sure he takes his time brushing his teeth. I would imagine his cup of coffee takes two hours to drink.”

A low pulse under pressure. A sparkling home record. A chance to propel the Cubs one step closer to a parade and confetti 108 years in the offing.

This is a Moment, capital “M.” Hendricks simply needs to seize it.

All statistics current as of Thursday and are courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com and FanGraphs unless otherwise noted.

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CHICAGO — The old girl is dressed to the nines. Wrigley Field, on deck to host her first World Series game Friday night since Oct. 10, 1945, is crackling with energy.

And when the Chicago Cubs take the field to face the Cleveland Indians in Game 3, this shrine of a ballpark, which has produced so many memorable afternoons and, later, evenings, will author a first: An African-American wearing a Cubs uniform will play in a World Series game in Wrigley Field.

The Cubs have not been here since Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in 1947.

Which means, well, gasp, yes.

It is amazing to even attempt to rationally wrap our minds around it. How we got here, how in the name of Martin Luther King Jr., or even Ernie Banks, this hasn’t happened before in Wrigley, is a testament to a century of futility for the Cubs.

“Ernie and I tried, but we didn’t get there,” Cubs Hall of Famer Billy Williams said.

Williams was standing in the visitors’ dugout at Cleveland’s Progressive Field as he spoke, beaming, looking at his beloved franchise in a real World Series, smiling at the thought of leadoff man Dexter Fowler, shortstop Addison Russell, outfielder Jason Heyward and reliever Carl Edwards Jr. becoming the first black men to play in a World Series wearing a Cubs uniform in any venue.

“The World Series itself is great, but when you look at all the things that have happened in baseball and then you look and see that four African-Americans are playing in a World Series for the Cubs for the first time in all those many years, it’s really something,” he continued.

“It gives you two thrills: To be here at the World Series, and to see those individuals play.”

That it comes at a time of more jagged racial tension in our country’s history, with the Black Lives Matter movement pushing for change and policemen under fire, might not make the debuts of these four Cubs any more significant. But it sure makes them more deeply felt.

“Just knowing Dex and J-Hey, and knowing C.J. [Edwards Jr.], we’ve always been the type of people to never settle for the everyday usual,” said Russell, who became the first African-American to collect a World Series RBI for the Cubs when he drew a bases-loaded walk to push across the fifth run in Chicago’s 5-1 Game 2 victory.

“I think that’s what has driven us. We didn’t have a choice to pick the ethnic background that we have, but it is what it is, and we are who we are, and we try to make the best of it that we can.

“Black Lives Matter is a huge movement. I think African-Americans need to be heard, for sure.”

Russell added that it is “nice on paper” to be able to say that he’s one of the first four African-Americans to play in a World Series for the Cubs. Fowler, who became the first black player to play for the Cubs in a Fall Classic when he led off Game 1 by taking a called third strike against Cleveland ace Corey Kluber, said it was “awesome” to play the role of a trailblazer.

Heyward, the free agent who signed an eight-year, $184 million deal but has lost his starting spot because of a prolonged slump, downplayed the racial angle while acknowledging the larger moment.

“I haven’t thought about it other than we come in every day and prepare as players to do what we can to help our team win,” Heyward said. “We go out there on a daily basis, representing our family name, representing our organization, representing our city, and that’s the bottom line.

“We were born African-Americans, and there’s nothing we can control there. It’s been that way our whole lives, so it’s not surprising to say it’s a first.

“It’s unique and cool and, I guess, humbling to be a part of it for the first time. But we’re just here by chance, you know? Everything happens for a reason.”

What is not by chance, and what is instructive about this particular group of Cubs, is how they’ve ascended racial boundaries all summer long.

Most of the team—black, white, Latin—gathered in Fowler’s Cincinnati hotel room in April to celebrate Jake Arrieta’s no-hitter earlier that day.

Heyward, in a classy pay-it-forward move thanking a veteran who had taken him under his wing when they both were with the Atlanta Braves organization, has footed the bill for David Ross to be upgraded to a hotel suite on every Cubs road trip this year. That has continued into the postseason, Ross said, a gesture that is especially meaningful now because Ross’ wife, children and parents have been traveling in October, and the suite gives them all a place to stay and spread out.

Ross spoke at length of Heyward’s generosity Thursday.

To Heyward, being kind and generous is the way everybody should behave, no matter their ethnicity.

“We’re in a World Series,” Heyward, 27 and a native of Georgia, said. “I know I’m an African-American, so I go represent the best way I can as a person with my teammates and my friends and in terms of the organization because you know you’ve got a lot of different things from a lot of different people and a lot of people are watching. That’s the bottom line. Just treat people how you want to be treated and go from there.”

For reliever Edwards, 25 and a native of Prosperity, South Carolina, his place in Cubs history is humbling.

“It’s pretty awesome,” he said. “We’ve seen Robinson come through, and I’m not saying we’re just like him, but…me and Dex and J-Hey and Addison—this is a great thing to have on our resume.”

Edwards is aware enough of the moment, both playing in his first World Series and understanding the social significance of it, that he plans to keep the cleats he wears whenever he makes his first appearance. In fact, he figures he’ll probably take a few other things home for his archives too because “this doesn’t happen to everybody.”

He’s thought about the timing of this moment and the social forces at work as a backdrop.

“Back home, of course, they put up the Black Lives Matter posts,” Edwards said. “But now everybody at home is putting up my picture on Facebook and social media because it’s something positive.

“Black Lives Matter—everybody is thinking that’s a negative. This is something positive that people can hang on to.”

He figures the kids back in his hometown can benefit from his experience because “if they see somebody from home doing it, it gives them more confidence.”

As Russell said: “It’s absolutely meaningful to us, to our families and, obviously, to our bloodline. I think our ethnicity, we wear it on our shoulders. Whenever you get around a group of people that come from so many different backgrounds, you have to be rooted a little bit, I think, whenever it comes to your ethnicity.”

And so as they step on to the Wrigley Field lawn and move just a bit deeper into Cubs lore, this is one of the most significant steps yet.

“Sports itself has a way of bringing a lot of injustices to the forefront,” Williams, 78, and a native of Whistler, Alabama said. “When you look on the field and you see African-Americans, you see whites, you see Italians, you see all races of people out on the baseball field, and that’s why it helps so much to bring about justice in this world.”

Recently, Williams said he watched the film 42, the biopic of Robinson’s life story. In it, there is a scene in Cincinnati in which Pee Wee Reese walks over and throws his arm around Robinson in a show of support as the fans showered him with racial taunts and other epithets.

It reminded him of his own Hall of Fame induction in 1987 and after, when, he said, “I used to go to the Hall of Fame, and I wanted to find Pee Wee Reese. And when I found him, I would put my arms around him just like he did to Jackie Robinson. And it gave me a great thrill.”

Yeah, as Williams said, it is great to see. Both the Cubs in the World Series and doing it in living, vivid color.

Scott Miller covers Major League Baseball as a national columnist for Bleacher Report.

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The World Series is returning to Chicago’s North Side for the first time since 1945. That’s the lead storyline ahead of Friday’s pivotal Game 3, which is scheduled to be aired at 8 p.m. ET on Fox.

Here’s an intriguing subplot: Unlikely Cubs offensive catalyst Kyle Schwarber will be on the bench.

Schwarber was not medically cleared to play the field Thursday, nearly seven months after tearing the ACL and LCL in his left knee, per the Cubs’ official Twitter feed. 

He served as the designated hitter in the first two games of the World Series, and he did so with distinction.

Specifically, Schwarber went 3-for-7 with a double, two walks and two RBI. If you want the small-sample slash line, that equates to .429/.556/.571.

Not bad for a man who hadn’t seen big league pitching since April 7 and had only a brief Arizona Fall League stint and reps in the cage to prepare.

After delivering an RBI single in Game 2, Schwarber delivered the expletive heard ’round the world (warning: link contains NSFW language). The dude is hot, plain and simple.

“He should just skip spring training next year,” Cubs third baseman Kris Bryant said, per the New York Times‘ Tyler Kepner. “He’ll be fine. Just jump right in the World Series and have success. No big deal.”

Naturally, there was noise about Schwarber’s strapping on a glove as the scene shifted to Chicago. He hasn’t been a plus outfield defender in his limited MLB experience, as his negative-0.3 ultimate zone rating attests. 

But slotting him in left field—particularly in Game 3 with ground-ball specialist Kyle Hendricks on the bump—seemed like a worthwhile trade-off. Factor in the five home runs he hit in the 2015 playoffs, and Schwarber is emerging as a nascent Mr. October.

Now, he’ll be glued to the pine, available only as a pinch hitter until and unless the series returns to Cleveland. 

It makes sense. This kid is 23 years old and a major piece of the Cubs’ long-term plans. They refused to move him at the trade deadline, even for top-shelf talent like Indians bullpen wizard Andrew Miller. Why would they jeopardize his future now?

Still, Schwarber’s presence was a literal game-changer for Chicago—one of those autumn miracles that defies explanation.

He’s moving the needle in the batter’s box and in the clubhouse, as Yahoo Sports’ Jeff Passan noted:

Does that mean his absence will dull the Cubs’ momentum?

Chicago has plenty of weapons. Bryant has just one hit in the World Series but boasts a combined .845 postseason OPS. Javier Baez is hitting .319 in the playoffs while flashing ludicrous leather at second base. After a slow start, first baseman Anthony Rizzo has six RBI and eight hits in his last five playoff games, including two home runs and three doubles. 

Overall, Chicago paces the postseason field with 53 runs scored. Cleveland, by contrast, has scored 34.

At the same time, this Cubs offense has been mercurial. They’ve been shut out three times in the playoffs, including in Game 1 against the Indians. 

Losing Schwarber’s power and plate discipline stings. Right fielder Jason Heyward is hitting a paltry .067 in the postseason. Chris Coghlan and Jorge Soler, who started in his stead in Games 1 and 2, are hitless.

With Schwarber out, the Cubs will roll with Ben Zobrist in left, Dexter Fowler in center and some combination of the Heyward/Coghlan/Soler troika in right.

Again, that doesn’t mean the Cubbies are doomed. They had the best home record in baseball during the regular season at 57-24. And if the Indians do win a game or more at Wrigley, Schwarber can DH for Games 6 and 7 if necessary.

This is the World Series, however, when every twist and wrinkle is magnified.

The Cubs got one of their best young hitters back in inspiring, dramatic fashion. Now, paradoxically, they’ll lose him on their home turf.

It may not swing the outcome. But it’s a subplot worth following.

All statistics current as of Thursday and courtesy of FanGraphs and Baseball-Reference.com unless otherwise noted.

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The 2016 World Series between the Chicago Cubs and Cleveland Indians shifts to Wrigley Field for Games 3-5 on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, and the North Siders will not have the luxury of starting one of their impact players from the first two games.

According to the team’s Twitter account, Kyle Schwarber was not medically cleared to play the outfield with the designated-hitter role no longer an option in the National League park:

Schwarber tore his ACL and LCL in April but worked his way back in time to DH in the first two games in Cleveland, which the teams split.

Cubs President of Baseball Operations Theo Epstein said Schwarber “pushed back” but ultimately understood the decision from the medical side of things, per Mark Gonzales of the Chicago Tribune. Epstein also said “I’m in awe of what he did” when discussing the power hitter’s comeback.

Schwarber talked about the decision, per Yahoo Sports’ Big League Stew: “It’s not disappointing at all. It was a long shot at the most. Facts are facts. I just couldn’t physically do it.”

Bruce Levine of 670 The Score in Chicago pointed out Schwarber said he would be ready to pinch hit if necessary.

Chicago will surely feel the loss in its lineup. Baseball Tonight put his postseason performance through the first two years of his career into historical perspective:

Schwarber went 3-for-7 in the first two games in Cleveland with a double off the wall, two RBI, two walks and a run scored. He also drilled five home runs in nine postseason games last year for a Chicago team that advanced to the National League Championship Series before losing to the New York Mets.

The numbers in the first two games this year would be impressive if he played the entire season. They are even more astounding considering he tallied a mere four at-bats all year before his injury.

While this is a setback for the Cubs on paper, they still won an MLB-best 103 games during the regular season and reached the World Series largely without Schwarber‘s presence on the field. Just having him as a potential pinch hitter is more of a boost than even the team’s most optimistic fan could have realistically expected following his injury.

Chicago has a plethora of options to use in left field, including the versatile Ben Zobrist, the powerful Jorge Soler, Willson Contreras, Albert Almora Jr. and Chris Coghlan.

They will also have Schwarber looming as one of the most dangerous pinch hitters in World Series history.

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