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The Chicago Cubs and their diehard fans enjoyed a celebration befitting the long-awaited end of the team’s 108-year championship drought early Thursday morning as the team completed a memorable World Series comeback by defeating the Cleveland Indians on the road in Game 7.

Michael Martinez made the final out as his slow chopper to third was picked off the slick grass by Kris Bryant and fired across the diamond to Anthony Rizzo, who slyly slipped the ball into his back pocket as the celebration erupted in both Cleveland and Chicago.

It’s a moment many Cubs fans have waited decades to witness. They endured a multitude of heartbreak few fanbases in the United States can even fathom along the way. In the end, however, all of that disappointment made the hard-fought triumph even more euphoric.

Of course, the moment of exaltation didn’t come until after some drama. The Cubs blew a 6-3 lead in the bottom of the eighth as Rajai Davis smoked a game-tying two-run homer to left field after Brandon Guyer had doubled home a run for Cleveland.

After a scoreless ninth, the umpiring crew decided to call for the tarp as a heavy rain shower passed through the area. But after waiting 108 years, a couple of extra minutes is nothing.

Chicago came right back out in the 10th and put two runs on the board courtesy of RBI hits by Ben Zobrist and Miguel Montero. Cleveland got one back thanks to another clutch hit by Davis, but it wasn’t enough as Mike Montgomery finally slammed the door shut on a terrific World Series.

Afterward, Cubs manager Joe Maddon discussed the championship from both a long-term and short-term perspective, per Bob Nightengale of USA Today.

“Historical,” Maddon said. “This carries more significance in the city of Chicago, the fanbase, just history. Obviously, the last time it was won was over a century ago. But for me, the significance is that this team, this group, wins a World Series.”

He added: “I wanted to attack the word ‘pressure’ and ‘expectation’ from day one, so that our guys would be used to hearing it, and also channel it in the proper direction. You’ve got to give our guys a lot of credit, because they’ve been hearing this from day one.”

Steve Keating of Reuters passed along comments from World Series MVP Zobrist, who likened the series and its epic Game 7 finale to a prize fight.

“It was like a heavyweight fight, man,” he said. “Just blow for blow, everybody played their heart out. The Indians never gave up either, and I can’t believe we’re finally standing, after 108 years, finally able to hoist the trophy.”

It’s a result that seemed like a long shot after the Cubs fell behind 3-1 in the series with the final two games looming at Progressive Field.

But perhaps in the end, the Indians’ injury issues finally caught up with them. They embarked on the playoff journey without outfielder Michael Brantley and starting pitcher Carlos Carrasco. Fellow starter Danny Salazar returned, but he was limited to a bullpen role.

While the offense remained formidable, the starting rotation got stretched thin, forcing Corey Kluber to pitch three World Series games. The Cubs stuck with a four-man rotation and looked fresher over the final three contests. If Carrasco and Salazar were available to start, maybe Cleveland closes it out.

That said, Chicago was the best team all year long. It won 103 games during the regular season, eight more than the next-closest team, and the club’s star-studded roster responded to adversity with seemingly unwavering confidence throughout the playoffs.

It set the stage for a night Cubs fans, who were tortured for so long and endured 464 losses in a five-year span starting in 2010 as the organization went through a complete rebuild, will never forget. Billy Witz of the New York Times provided the perfect remarks to sum it all up from Rizzo.

“We’re world champions,” Rizzo said. “The Chicago Cubs are world champions. Let that sink in.”

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Fact: The Chicago Cubs beat the Cleveland Indians 8-7 in 10 innings on Wednesday night, giving the franchise its first World Series title since 1908. 

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Source: B/R Insights

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The better team won.

After all the talk of curses and droughts, and all the angst about which manager shouldn’t have used which pitcher at which point, it came down to simple baseball logic. The Chicago Cubs had more dependable starting pitchers and more productive stars.

They have the World Series title they deserve, and they have a more-than-memorable Game 7 to talk about for the next 108 years.

And here at Bleacher Report, we have World Series awards I started working on Sunday, when the Cleveland Indians had a 3-1 series lead. As you might imagine, it looked a little different then.

It changed Sunday night when the Cubs won Game 5. It changed even more when they won Game 6 Tuesday. And it changed two or three more times over the course of a Game 7 that began Wednesday night and ended after midnight Cleveland time Thursday morning.

It won’t change again, because after a baseball season that went the distance and then some, the Cubs have ended a legendary drought that went the distance and then some.

It’s safe now, I think, so here are Bleacher Report’s 2016 World Series awards.

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You can exhale, Chicago Cubs fans. It finally happened.

After 108 years of waiting, you watched your team storm the field and hoist a trophy. You watched the Cubbies win the final game of the postseason 8-7 Wednesday night at Progressive Field.

You did not have to wait until next year.

It wasn’t easy. The Cleveland Indians kept pushing back. They came awfully close, in fact, to turning Cubs skipper Joe Maddon and closer Aroldis Chapman into a pair of goats, to invoke the Windy City’s least favorite barnyard creature.

In the end, Chicago’s heroics prevailed against the Tribe and Mother Nature. Just barely.

Things began on an auspicious note for the Cubbies, who led 1-0 after Dexter Fowler’s leadoff home run in the top of the first inning. 

The Indians tied it 1-1 in the third on a Carlos Santana single, but Chicago plated two in the fourth and two in the fifth to take a commanding 5-1 lead.

Shortstop Addison Russell, who tallied six RBI in Chicago’s 9-3 Game 6 win, notched a sacrifice fly. Willson Contreras and Anthony Rizzo knocked in runs with a double and a single, respectively. And brash second baseman Javier Baez launched a solo homer.

The Cubs, by all accounts, were in control. They’d gotten to noted postseason ace Corey Kluber and neutralized the threat of Cleveland’s shutdown bullpen, particularly Andrew Miller.

Then, in the fifth, with two outs, starter Kyle Hendricks walked Santana. Hendricks, MLB‘s reigning ERA king, had been mostly excellent, commanding his pitches and exhibiting a cool, collected demeanor on the hill.

Still, Maddon went to the pen and summoned Jon Lester, a proven postseason performer but by no means an experienced reliever, along with catcher David Ross, replacing Contreras.

Right on cue, a throwing error by Ross and a wild pitch by Lester plated two runs and made it 5-3.

Ross made it 6-3 in the sixth with a solo homer, temporarily easing the sting.

But Maddon‘s machinations weren’t over yet.  

With one on and two out in the eighth, the Cubs manager turned to Chapman. It made sense in a way. The Cubs acquired the fire-balling reliever at the trade deadline for precisely this moment. 

Maddon, however, used Chapman for 20 pitches in the Cubs’ relatively easy Game 6 win after asking him to get the final eight outs in Game 5. It was worth wondering how much the Cuban hurler had sloshing in the tank.

Chapman surrendered a run-scoring single to Brandon Guyer to make it 6-4. Then Rajai Davis launched a two-run homer, his first home run since August 30, to tie it at 6-6. 

That was the moment when the curse fog crept in, when long-suffering Cubs fans could be forgiven for curling up in the fetal position with visions of Steve Bartman dancing in their heads.

Their bullpen stud had failed them. Their manager, a noted chess master, had wandered into checkmate. The air smelled like defeat.

Instead, after a 17-minute rain delay that felt like a practical joke from above, the Cubs rallied.

Kyle Schwarber, who was supposed to be done for the season after busting his knee in early April, opened the 10th inning with a single. 

After a Kris Bryant flyout and an intentional walk to Rizzo, Ben Zobrist plated a run with a double. Miguel Montero added an RBI single to make it 8-6.

Davis made it 8-7 in the bottom of the frame with an RBI base hit. Ultimately, though, the Cubs pen locked it down. It wasn’t Chapman who recorded the final outs, but rather Carl Edwards Jr. and Mike Montgomery.

It was a true team effort. There were heroes up and down the roster. Maddon was saved from an offseason of brutal second-guessing. Chapman avoided becoming the latest symbol of the Cubs’ formerly inevitable futility.

It felt like the duo escaped as much as triumphed, as NBC Sports’ Craig Calcaterra noted:

Hindsight is 20/20. Maddon pulled many of the right levers this season, and Chapman was a necessary cog in Chicago’s curse-busting machine. 

In Game 7, however, it was the sheer force of the Cubbies‘ collective will that got them over the hump. A team accustomed to choking chewed up the moment and spit it out, victorious.

“It’s really great for our entire Cub-dom to get beyond that moment and continue to move forward,” Maddon said, per Jordan Bastian and Carrie Muskat of MLB.com. “Because now, based on the young players we have in this organization, we have an opportunity to be good for a long time, and without any constraints, without any of the negative dialogue.”

He’s right. The Cubs are just another squad now, talented and looking toward the future. They slayed the billy goat and kept it out of Maddon and Chapman’s lap.

You can exhale, Cubs fans. It finally happened. 

It finally happened.

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The Chicago Cubs won their first World Series since 1908, and it only feels appropriate that they put their dedicated fans through one of the most back-and-forth, stress-inducing baseball games in recent memory.

They prevailed, 8-7, against the Cleveland Indians in Wednesday’s Game 7 at Progressive Field in a 10-inning battle that saw a dramatic game-tying home run off Aroldis Chapman from Cleveland’s Rajai Davis in the eighth, a rain delay after the ninth and three combined runs in that extra inning.

Ben Zobrist notched an RBI double in the 10th and earned World Series MVP honors. The team shared him accepting his trophy:

The Cubs also passed along a clip of the final out with the potential winning run at the plate and captured manager Joe Maddon holding the Commissioner’s Trophy:

The players naturally reacted to the historic accomplishment, via the Cubs:

While the players made the headlines, the long-suffering fans were more than ready to join in on the fun. Wall to Wall Sports of 10TV in Columbus, Ohio, captured hundreds of those supporters singing in ecstasy after the championship victory.

The fans outside Wrigley Field also soaked in the moment:

The Cubs’ most famous fan reacted to the triumph, via SportsCenter: 

Bill Murray wasn’t the only celebrity pleased to see Chicago break the curse, as Kyle Griffin of MSNBC noted:

Snapping a 108-year championship drought didn’t happen by accident; this team won an MLB-best 103 games this season, the culmination of president of baseball operations Theo Epstein’s rebuilding plan that has been in motion since he took over in 2011. 

Dexter Fowler, Javier Baez and David Ross all hit home runs, Zobrist and Miguel Montero drove in crucial runs in the 10th inning, Jon Lester pitched three innings out of the bullpen after starting Game 5, starter Kyle Hendricks allowed one earned run in 4.2 innings and Mike Montgomery earned a cathartic save.

Sports Illustrated captured the deserving celebration:

Now attention will turn toward the 2017 season as the team that hadn’t won a title in over a century looks to defend its crown. Chicago is well-equipped to compete for years to come with a young core that includes Anthony Rizzo (27), Kris Bryant (24), Addison Russell (22), Baez (23) and Willson Contreras (24), among others. 

Even if the Cubs add a handful of titles in the coming years, their fans will never forget the one that ended the suffering. 

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Ben Zobrist has been named Most Valuable Player of the 2016 World Series while helping the Chicago Cubs secure their first title since 1908.

The outfielder had the game-winning RBI double in the 10th inning of the dramatic Game 7 victory over the Cleveland Indians.

Baseball Reference noted the historical importance of the game-winning hit:

He also finished the series batting .357 with a .419 on-base percentage, getting a hit in six of the seven games.  

Zobrist has now won back-to-back titles after winning the World Series with the Kansas City Royals last season.

ESPN Stats and Info provided an interesting note on the veteran player:

Per Odds Shark, the No. 4 hitter had 10-1 odds to win this award coming into the series, tied for second-best among Cubs players behind only Jake Arrieta. He lived up to expectations with a strong performance throughout the seven games.

He finished with a .250 batting average and five RBI in 17 postseason games.

His wife, Julianna, provided motivational words from her view of the big play:

Buster Olney of ESPN discussed the lack of pressure Zobrist had put on himself in these big games:

Of course, with a team like this, there were plenty of other options for MVP. Woody Paige of the Gazette noted the possible options:

Kyle Schwarber batted .412 in his appearances as a designated hitter after missing most of the season. Anthony Rizzo hit .360 with some clutch RBI, while Kris Bryant was responsible for some of the biggest moments in the series.

The pitching staff also had some big moments, although Justin Verlander was voting for a sentimental favorite:

David Ross hit a key home run in his last game before retiring.

Still, it was Zobrist who took home the hardware, helping break the longest championship drought in professional sports in his first season with the team.

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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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