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For the baseball fan who appreciates the historical aspect of the game, the Chicago Cubs clinching the National League Championship Series on Saturday night with a 5-0 win over the Los Angeles Dodgers set up a dream World Series against the Cleveland Indians.

Before we get into the final teams remaining, here’s a look at the postseason bracket:

Odds To Win World Series

Odds relayed by Odds Shark

Cleveland Indians: 163-100

Chicago Cubs: 50-59

Predictions

Cubs defeat Indians in seven games for World Series title

These will be two teams with conflicting amounts of rest heading into the World Series. Come Tuesday, the Indians will have had over five days of rest while the Cubs will have had two. 

There are opposite views that come up about rest. Some believe a break is good for a weary team that has played over 170 games in a season. Others will say it quells the momentum gained through a busy October schedule. 

One thing that is certain is the dominant Indians pitching is coming into the Fall Classic fresh off resounding performances in the American League Division Series and American League Championship Series. 

In eight games, they went 7-1 with with a 1.77 ERA while allowing just 15 runs. Though it’s been a makeshift rotation of sorts behind Corey Kluber, Cleveland’s bullpen has been stellar behind Andrew Miller, who struck out 14 batters in 7.2 innings in the ALCS:

However, Cleveland’s offense has struggled in the postseason, batting just .208. They’ve relied on the long ball during October, launching 11 home runs compared to their 26 RBI. 

They’re going to be meeting a Cubs team that has allowed just four home runs in 10 postseason games, so that option could be in jeopardy in the World Series. 

On top of that, the Chicago offense has ignited to look like the one that led the majors with 4.99 runs per game during the regular season.

After being shut out twice in a row by the Dodgers in Games 2 and 3 of the NLCS, the Cubs scored 23 runs on 33 hits over their last three games. 

They’ve also scored 21 more runs than the Indians have this postseason, although the Cubs have played three more games.

But with their ability to get after Dodgers ace Clayton Kershaw on Saturday, Cubs bats look unstoppable:

Heading into the Fall Classic, the Chicago Cubs are playing a more well-rounded brand of baseball, which is why they’ll squeak out their first World Series title in 108 years in seven games. 

Stats courtesy of MLB.com.

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I went looking to see how Bleacher Report covered things the last time the Chicago Cubs went to the World Series. No luck.

I couldn’t find any of our stories about the last Cleveland Indians‘ World Series title, either.

We weren’t around in 1945 (the last time the Cubs made it) or in 1948 (the last time the Indians won it) or even in 1997 (the last time the Indians played in it).

So yeah, you’re going to be watching history when the 2016 World Series opens Tuesday night at Progressive Field. Cubs vs. Indians: Two teams that have been around forever; two teams that haven’t won in forever; two teams that won something pretty important this week.

Tuesday night will get here soon enough. First, let’s take a quick look back on how all of this happened, how and why the Cubs beat the Los Angeles Dodgers in the NLCS and the Indians beat the Toronto Blue Jays in the ALCS.

Catch your breath and enjoy the first Bleacher Report League Championship Series Awards to feature the Cubs and Indians.

Begin Slideshow

CHICAGO — So, 71 years later, this is what it looks like when the Chicago Cubs storm into the World Series…

Anthony Rizzo hitting everything Clayton Kershaw threw him on the screws: a double, a long ball, a fly ball in the first inning that Los Angeles Dodgers left fielder Andrew Toles plumb dropped. Was that a goat impeding his vision?

Kris Bryant hungrily taking a seven-decades-sized bite into Kershaw’s 95 mph cheese and looping an RBI single to right field just two batters into the bottom of the first, immediately flipping the switch from anxiety to anticipation.

Javier Baez alertly doing it again, letting a line drive skip in order to short-hop it, starting another double play and stamping another exclamation mark onto his postseason wizardry.

Kyle Hendricks, a 26-year-old right-hander acquired from Texas for Ryan Dempster four years ago, handling the Dodgers with the touch of a jeweler and the heart of a lion, mowing through 17 in a row after a rare error on Baez in the second.

Wrigley Field, stuffed with 42,386 for the game of their lives, those fans leaning into this 5-0 World Series-punching ticket like few other games in the park’s 102-year history, inhaling nervously, exhaling in relief, screaming, singing, dancing, pleading and, in many cases, shedding tears of joy.

No fear. No goats. No errors.

The Chicago Cubs, lovable winners.

“Perception,” Cubs manager Joe Maddon said when this historical event was finished, standing near the pitcher’s mound, thousands of fans still in their seats, hundreds of people on the field, addressing how life had permanently changed by evening’s end. “That’s the big part of it.

“The thing I was always hearing was that the Cubs are lovable losers. I never quite understood that. That’s not the way I was raised.”

It’s not the way he’s raising these young Cubbies, clearly.

“Listening to talk about superstition and all that nonsense, that dragged a lot of people down,” Maddon continued. “I think the perception changes.”

These Cubs are so cool, display so much grace under pressure, that Steve Bartman could have tossed out the ceremonial first pitch before Game 6 and it wouldn’t have fazed them one iota.

So this, too, is what it looks like when the Cubs charge into the World Series: Hall of Famer Billy Williams standing on the field amid the celebration, nearly swallowed by the roaring wall of sound in the minutes after the final out and practically being overcome with emotion.

“I think of all the fellas I played with like Ernie [Banks] and Ron Santo,” Williams said of his two departed teammates. “They’re not here to see it, but I’m thinking about them. Like Jackie Gleason said, ‘How sweet it is!’”

Williams continued: “They’re up there celebrating, too. This is similar to what I thought it would be. I look out at the fans, the full house, the people on the street. You might have 100,000 or 200,000 people out there.

“Everywhere I go in Chicago, people come up to me and say, ‘This is the year! This is the year!’…

“This is really, really great. I can’t hardly explain the feeling I have.”

On Tuesday in Cleveland, the Cubs will play in their first World Series game since Oct. 10, 1945. A Cubs lineup featuring Stan Hack and Peanuts Lowrey was beaten by Hal Newhouser and the Detroit Tigers in Game 7 that day. Two weeks later, the United Nations was founded. Shortly after that, the first ballpoint pens went on sale in New York.

Ballpoint pens?

“This is only the beginning, you know, for myself and for this squad,” shortstop Addison Russell promised. “I’m excited. I’m excited to see what more we can do and what limits we can push. If we can do this in two seasons…”

After winning 97 games last year before running into the wood chipper that was the New York Mets’ pitching staff in the NLCS, they blasted back this year with 103 more wins and raced to baseball’s best overall record.

They took to heart Maddon’s message from day one of spring training: Embrace the target, win every pitch, win every inning, buy into the team.

So this, too, is what it looks like when the Cubs crash the World Series after 71 years: Jason Heyward, who signed an eight-year, $184 million deal last winter, taking his place on the bench for Game 6 Saturday night as Maddon inserted into right field Albert Almora Jr., the first first-round draft pick (sixth overall) of president of baseball operations Theo Epstein and general manager Jed Hoyer after they took over in late 2011.

Heyward’s reaction?

“It’s about the team all season, but even more so in the postseason,” the outfielder said after what seemed like thousands of bottles of Blanc de Blancs champagne had been sprayed, poured, drank and saved. “It’s been that way all year, so many different players helping.

“Joe told us in spring training, if everyone on the roster does one thing positive every night, that’s 25 positive things every night. That’s a lot of positives.”

All of those positives over six weeks of spring training plus 162 regular-season games, then another four more against the San Francisco Giants in the Division Series and, well, six more against the Dodgers in this NLCS…hey, that’s a ton of positives. And at every turn when the Cubs had the chance to hit the skids, they turned it around.

There was the two-week slump just before the All-Star break. The nerves of Game 4 in San Francisco. Maddon reiterated late Saturday night how much he really, really wanted to avoid a Game 5 with the Giants because, even though it would have been in Wrigley Field, he was extremely angst-ridden about the prospect of what Johnny Cueto could do to them.

Hall of Fame manager Sparky Anderson always said that 1984 was his toughest season because of the way the Detroit Tigers raced out to the record-setting 35-5 start. By June, expectations were so high that all that was left for the Tigers to accomplish was to win the World Series. Sparky always said after that, the rest of that summer he feared being the manager to screw it all up.

If Maddon or the Cubs ever had any of that trepidation, they never let on. But when Dodgers pinch hitter Yasiel Puig bounced to into a 6-4-3 double play, Russell to Baez to Rizzo, with closer Aroldis Chapman on the mound, it was as if the lid popped straight off a pressure cooker.

Unleashed, Wrigley Field sent an emotional howl up to the heavens. Couples took selfies in the stands with the mob of celebrating Cubs on the field behind them. Sons high-fived fathers.

Catcher Willson Contreras hurled his glove up toward the stars, then raced to embrace Chapman.

“One more time!” Contreras shrieked to Chapman, referring to Cleveland and the World Series. “One more time! We’ve got to do this one more time!”

Thirty minutes after the game, Contreras, 24, and his glove had yet to be reunited.

“I don’t know where it’s at,” he said. “That was my first reaction when I saw the double play. It’s amazing.”

Everything about this night, this day, this summer in Wrigley Field was and is amazing.

So this, too, is what it looks like when the Chicago Cubs and the World Series meet again, 71 years later: Epstein walking his dog, a mutt named Winston, earlier in the day, through his Wrigleyville neighborhood, encountering all sorts of well-wishers.

“Yeah, walking the dog, people are very into it, as they should be,” said Epstein, who lives seven blocks from Wrigley Field, in those final, jittery hours before the night that will be remembered forever.

“I love being in a city that’s playing October baseball where you can just feel everyone captivated by the ballclub, everyone walking around tired from staying up late, prioritizing baseball above all else. It’s a great phenomenon.”

So, too, is Baez, and Rizzo, and Bryant. And Hendricks, and Russell, and Maddon.

“A lot of them are in their early 20s, and they’re not burdened by that stuff,” Epstein said of the curse.

Nor will they be, ever again.

No fear. No goats. No errors.

The Chicago Cubs, lovable winners.

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

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Kyle Schwarber’s powerful bat has been absent from the Chicago Cubs lineup since the third game of the 2016 season, when the outfielder suffered a torn ACL and LCL. His availability for the World Series has yet to be determined.

Continue for updates.

Latest on Schwarber’s Rehab

Monday, Oct. 24

Jonathan Mayo of MLB.com reported Schwarber will serve as a designated hitter in the Arizona Fall League on Monday and will fly to Cleveland to join the Cubs afterward.

Epstein Comments on Schwarber’s Status

Saturday, Oct. 22

“He’s made it to a best-case scenario after six months,” Cubs president Theo Epstein said to Jesse Rogers of ESPN.com regarding Schwarber’s recovery. “We’re not ruling anything in; we’re not ruling anything out. We’re not getting ahead of ourselves. We have a lot of work here before this becomes pertinent.”

Schwarber Has Missed Most of Cubs’ Historic Season

The second-year outfielder suffered the injury when he collided with teammate Dexter Fowler while pursuing a fly ball during an April 7 game against the Arizona Diamondbacks:

Schwarber underwent surgery April 19 and missed the remainder of the regular season.

But Epstein suggested the outfielder is on the cusp of making an unlikely return if the Cubs win one more game thanks to his hard work during rehabilitation, per Rogers:

It was a pleasant surprise. We got news that was better than expected. …

He asked for a chance to do this. With as hard as Kyle has worked and as much as this means to him — and potentially us — we wanted to give him that opportunity. …

We’re going to evaluate him day to day from a medical standpoint and a baseball standpoint.

With the Cubs having made it to the World Series for the first time since 1945, they could add a bat that hit 16 home runs with 43 RBI in just 69 games last season as they try and clinch their first title since 1908.

Stats courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com.

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The Chicago Cubs acquired Aroldis Chapman because he’s a flamethrower.

In the 2016 postseason, he’s ignited a disconcerting number of fires.

Yes, Chapman can melt the radar gun with his triple-digit heater, and he’s impersonated his unhittable self in stretches.

The recent numbers, however, paint a less flattering picture.

In 6.1 playoff innings with the Cubs, Chapman has allowed six hits, three walks and three earned runs and has converted only three of five save opportunities.

Chicago is up 3-2 to the Los Angeles Dodgers in the National League Championship Series, so it’s not as if Chapman is destined to become a footnote in the franchise’s futile October saga.

Still, this is a troubling development for the Cubs, who acquired Chapman as a rental from the New York Yankees at the trade deadline with the sole purpose of shoring up the back end of their bullpen.

They wanted a stopper, no hand-wringing added.

So far, it’s been hit-and-miss.

Take Game 1 of the NLCS. Chapman yielded a two-run single to Dodgers first baseman Adrian Gonzalez. It tied the game.

Granted, Chapman entered in the eighth inning with the bases loaded, no outs and the Cubs clinging to a 3-1 lead. He got two-thirds of the way to his destination, fanning Corey Seager and Yasiel Puig. 

Gonzalez, however, enjoyed the last laugh.

“We talk about baseball, you know he’s got the best fastball in the game,” Gonzalez said afterward, per Evan Drellich of the Boston Herald. “But you know, you just throw fastballs. It’s going to get hit. Doesn’t mean it’s going to get hit all the time, but eventually it’s going to get hit.” 

Gonzalez is a reputable swinger. And the Cubs went on to win that game, 8-4.

Chapman, however, has coughed up other key knocks this October, including this one in Game 3 of the division series against the San Francisco Giants to implausible autumn hero Conor Gillaspie:

Chapman can make hitters look like they’re swinging a wet noodle blindfolded underwater. He’s struck out 15.2 hitters per nine innings in his career, if that does anything for you.

But while the Cleveland Indians‘ Andrew Miller has been the Platonic Ideal of a no-doubt fireman since the conclusion of Game 162, the Cubs closer has been mercurial.

That’s never a word you want associated with any postseason player, especially a reliever.

Whenever we analyze playoff results, we tread knee-deep into the small-sample swamp. There’s your caveat.

Chapman’s issue appears to be getting ahead in the count, as ESPN.com’s Sam Miller outlined:

When Chapman is ahead in a count and he throws a pitch down the middle, batters’ isolated power—slugging percentage minus batting average—is .036; when batters are ahead, it’s .300. When he’s ahead and he throws a pitch down the middle, batters hit .270 on balls in play; when he’s behind, it’s .444. His home run rate goes up by a factor of four. …

The difference is that when he’s behind in counts, he throws fastballs 93 percent of the time, which might as well be 100 percent of the time for a batter trying to guess what’s coming. Batters can ignore his slider and sit on the heater, take a big swing and connect enough to do damage.

The thing, then, is for Chapman to throw an effective slider and to get batters behind. When he does that, he’s a baseball wizard sent from the future.

When he doesn’t, he learns that MLB hitters—including the Gillaspies of the world—can punish even the most blinding fastballs.

It doesn’t help that Chapman’s most recent hiccup came in Thursday’s Game 5 against Los Angeles, as he allowed two hits, a walk and two runs. The Cubs once again won 8-4, but Chapman’s struggles were magnified.

The Cubbies are headed home for Game 6 on Saturday and Game 7 on Sunday if necessary. They’ll lean on Kyle Hendricks and, maybe, Jake Arrieta. They’ll surely depend on their young, versatile lineup.

This curse can’t be busted by any single player.

Chapman, however, will matter. He’s a southpaw, and L.A. was the worst offense against left-handers in the regular season.

More than that, he’s the man they summon when the game—and possibly the whole kit and caboodle—hangs in the balance.

There’s also no immediate heir apparent.

Righties Pedro Strop and Hector Rondon sport identical 4.91 postseason ERAs, and overall Chicago’s bullpen owns the seventh-highest ERA (3.71) of the 10 postseason qualifiers. 

If he keeps nudging his velocity into the mesosphere and harnesses his slider, he could get back to being quasi-unhittable. In fact, we’ll bank on that, because stuff like Chapman’s doesn’t come around often.

For the title-starved Cubs, however, the risk of more fires is real.

Can you feel the heat? Here’s betting Chapman can.

All statistics current as of Friday and courtesy of MLB.com unless otherwise noted.

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The Chicago Cubs are one win away from the World Series, and Jon Lester is back among the pantheon of postseason studs.

On Thursday, the Cubs defeated the Los Angeles Dodgers 8-4 at Chavez Ravine to grab a 3-2 lead in the National League Championship Series. Game 6 will be played Saturday at Wrigley Field.

For his part, Lester twirled seven innings of five-hit, one-run ball with one walk and six strikeouts. He got the win, moving his 2016 playoff record to 2-0 and his ERA to 0.86.

Nothing is over until the Cubs bust their century-plus championship drought, as Lester himself noted.

“This season isn’t anything unless we do what we showed up at spring training to do—win a World Series,” Lester said in early October, per ESPN.com’s Jesse Rogers.

Still, in his pivotal Game 5 outing, Lester was every bit the crafty, nasty, unflappable ace the Cubs thought they were getting when they inked him to a six-year, $155 million deal in December 2014.

At the time, Lester was coming off a disappointing postseason outing with the Oakland A’s.

Oakland acquired Lester from the Boston Red Sox at the trade deadline in 2014, only to watch him allow eight hits and six earned runs in a heartbreaking Wild Card Game loss to the Kansas City Royals.

It was only one game, the mother of all small samples. But in 2015, Lester was again mediocre in the playoffs, yielding seven earned runs and 13 hits in 14 innings as the Cubs fell in an NLCS sweep to the New York Mets.

Suddenly, the veteran southpaw’s clutch credentials were in doubt.

Sure, Lester won a pair of rings with the Red Sox, in 2007 and 2013. Yes, he’s gone a spotless 3-0 in three World Series starts, allowing a single run in 21 innings. Granted, he’ll never buy another drink in Beantown.

Reputations, however, last only so long. At a certain point, the query inevitably creeps in: What have you done for us lately?

Now, Lester can offer this answer to the title-starved Cubs faithful: Pitched you one essential step closer to a Commissioner’s Trophy, that’s what.

The Dodgers tested Lester on Thursday, seeking to exploit his well-documented difficulties throwing to first base. They stretched their leadoffs beyond credulity. They bunted. They stole.

“This isn’t some WikiLeaks bombshell: Jon Lester has the yips,” CSN Chicago’s Patrick Mooney noted. “It must be in every scouting report by now, the reminder to get inside his head and make him feel uncomfortable, forcing him to field his position, throw to first base and become distracted with the running game.”

L.A. did. Lester was not amused.

“It gets him pissed off,” catcher David Ross said, per 670 The Score. 

That can mean rattled, or it can mean laser-focused. On Thursday in Southern California, it meant the latter. 

Lester pushed through. He pitched like a guy who has been on this stage many times before. He wasn’t flawless, but he was more than good enough.

It can’t be overstated how huge this win was for the Cubs. In Game 6, they’ll face Clayton Kershaw, who has cast aside his playoff demons and is still the best pitcher on the planet. Had they lost Game 5, that would have been a do-or-die situation. 

Now, thanks to Lester, it’s a game they’d very much like to win, but not one they have to win.

Oh, we should toss some praise at the Cubs offense, which has plated 18 runs in the last two contests after scoring one in the previous two.

If Chicago is going to slay the billy goat once and for all, it will be a team effort spearheaded by the lineup, the bullpen and the full complement of starters.

Lester doing Lester things, however, is a welcome addition. President of Baseball Operations Theo Epstein remembers this guy from his days in the Boston front office. And while Epstein rarely smiles when the cameras catch him, surely he’s grinning behind closed doors.

The Chicago Cubs are five wins away from a champagne bath that’s been on ice since Theodore Roosevelt occupied the Oval Office.

And Jon Lester, not coincidentally, is back in vintage autumn form.

All statistics current as of Thursday and courtesy of MLB.com and Baseball-Reference.com.

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Chicago Cubs reliever Carl Edwards Jr. was removed from Game 4 of the National League Championship Series with hamstring tightness, per Carrie Muskat of MLB.com.

Continue for updates.

Cubs Lose Key Bullpen Piece

Thursday, Oct. 20

The 25-year-old pitcher came in for the seventh inning but only faced three batters, earning two outs before walking Corey Seager. After the walk, he was replaced by Travis Wood.

Edwards has pitched three innings so far in the postseason, allowing zero runs and only one hit.

In his first real work at the major league level this season, the young pitcher posted a 3.75 ERA in 36 innings. More impressively, he had a 0.81 WHIP to go with 52 strikeouts in this span for a rate of 13 per nine innings.

He had a couple of bad games down the stretch, leading to a 6.00 ERA in August and 5.79 ERA in September, but he has turned things around in the playoffs, becoming one of the most reliable relievers in the Cubs bullpen.

If he is forced to miss time, it creates more question marks for a unit that already featured plenty of doubts.

Aroldis Chapman will still be asked to close out games, but pitchers like Pedro Strop, Justin Grimm and Hector Rondon will likely have to take on bigger roles for the remainder of the series.

While the Cubs have one of the better starting rotations in baseball, they will need the bullpen to step up to beat the Los Angeles Dodgers.

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

Fact: The Cubs were shut out for the second straight game on Tuesday night, losing to the Dodgers 6-0. This is the first time in Cubs history that they have been shut out twice in a single postseason. 

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CHICAGO — The Chicago Cubs led the league this year in, among other things, wins, winning percentage, run differential and multitasking.

Yes, that’s right. Multitasking.

Do you feel pretty accomplished when you knock off three things at once? Look at Javier Baez, who this year became just the fourth Cubs player since 1913 with at least 20 starts at second base, third base and shortstop. He also started twice at first base, vacuumed the Cubs clubhouse after each game and refilled the team’s Gatorade supply daily.

Well, those last couple of things might be a bit of an exaggeration, but the way Baez is stealing hearts (and home plates) this postseason, it’s at least believable.

“He’s probably the most exciting player in baseball right now,” Cubs catcher David Ross raves. “He’s energetic. He’s not scared of the moment. And the flair he has…he’s very, very exciting to watch.”

Meantime…feel like a world-beater when you can text, email and watch your favorite television show all at the same time? Look at Kris Bryant, who probably is on his way to the NL MVP award this season because of the one-of-a-kind combination of his bat and versatility. Bryant in 2016 became only the second player in history to smash at least 35 homers while playing at least 10 games at third base, left field and right field in the same season. Albert Pujols (2001) was the first.

Yes, these Cubs are a postmodern team for a postmodern age. Led by Bryant and Baez, they tweet, they laugh, they win. Every day is Casual Friday.

What’s especially unique is their unselfish, team-first attitude that allows manager Joe Maddon to move them all over the diamond while constructing a lineup that gives the Cubs the best chance to win on that particular night.

Ben Zobrist, who signed a four-year, $56 million free-agent deal last winter, was one of Maddon’s original Swiss Army knives back in Tampa Bay in 2008. From second base to shortstop to the outfield, he changed positions more often than Beyonce changes outfits.

And yet, Bryant absolutely does not remind Zobrist of himself.

“No,” Zobrist says. “Because when I started doing it, it was out of necessity to get into the lineup. The guys who were the stars of the team, like Kris Bryant, wouldn’t do that. So it’s a different situation.

“It’s basically just Joe taking a star and using all of the possible assets that that guy has. And that guy being willing to do that is extremely rare. Extremely rare. Most guys in his position would not do that. That just says the kind of person, the kind of team guy, he is.”

Excuses are available like low-hanging fruit for Bryant to pick if he wanted to play the superstar card: Changing positions every other day, or even in the middle of a game, is too much of a distraction. He might not be comfortable. He could embarrass himself. It could ruin his concentration at the plate.

Instead, Bryant embraces it.

“I’ve played all over the field my whole life so it wasn’t too uncomfortable for me,” he says. “It’s just getting used to the perspectives from each position. Each outfield spot is different for me. But I’ve never felt uncomfortable.”

Even at the major league level, where the stadiums come with three decks and the lights are brighter than Broadway?

“Honestly, I feel like at times at this level it’s easier because you have the better lights, the better visual backdrops, that sort of thing,” Bryant says.

“Obviously, I’ve played third base, but moving around might add a little more of that fresher element.”

That can-do attitude is a lot of what allowed Maddon to create space for Baez. When the season started, Bryant was the third baseman, Addison Russell the shortstop, Zobrist the second baseman and Anthony Rizzo at first. Baez, the Cubs’ first-round draft pick in 2011 (ninth overall), came up through the minors as a shortstop. Any reservations he had about taking new positions out for a test drive were overcome by this realization: Would he rather be playing shortstop at Triple-A Iowa, or a variety of positions in the big leagues?

Baez is immensely popular within the clubhouse, and as if there weren’t a big enough soft spot for him from the beginning, it’s only grown since his sister, Noely, tragically passed away in April 2015. Born with Spina bifida, doctors didn’t think Noely would survive the day she was born. Instead, she lived until she was 21, teaching her brother a thing or two about fighting and living along the way.

Though Noely was able to travel to Denver along with the entire Baez family for his major league debut Aug. 5, 2014, she died the following spring. Baez, who was extremely close with her and has a large tattoo picturing her on his right shoulder, was playing in Triple-A Iowa at the time. He took two weeks away from baseball before he came back.

“From the time we showed up in 2012, we saw how incredibly close Javier was to his sister,” Jason McLeod, the Cubs’ senior vice president of scouting and player development, says. “She was at a lot of his minor league games, right there in the front row in her wheelchair. After the game, he’d go over and give her a kiss.

“It was really fun and special to see how much he cared about her. When she died, we wanted to support him as much as we could. We wanted to be there with open arms when he came back, but first give him the space he needed.”

Baez’s incredible versatility, and eagerness to imitate a disc jockey taking requests, allowed Maddon to deploy a stunning array of lineups this summer. Baez made 38 starts at second base, 36 at third base, 21 at shortstop and even two at first base. Whatever the skipper asked.

Maddon leaned especially hard on Baez’s glove as a weapon with Jon Lester on the mound. Baez was in the starting lineup for 27 of the left-hander’s 32 starts this year, including 18 times at third base, five at shortstop and four at second base. In collaboration with the Cubs’ internal analytics department, Maddon’s method is crystal clear: He wants to place Baez where the Cubs think the most action will be on a given night.

“It makes them tough to game-plan for,” Andy Green, the San Diego Padres manager, says. “You look up on a given day and Javy Baez is playing third base, you immediately know you’re not bunting that day, you immediately know you can’t delay-steal third base, you immediately know he’s going to shut things down because that’s the kind of athlete he is.

“So moving those guys around the diamond changes the context of the game.”

It is this versatility and strategizing that positioned the Cubs to lead the majors with 82 defensive runs saved this summer, according to FanGraphs’ calculation. And it wasn’t even close. Houston was a distant second at 51 runs saved.

Maddon, or a member of his staff, texts the players on the morning of a game so that there are no surprises when they walk into the clubhouse later that day. Bryant’s cellphone will buzz and tell him he’s playing third base tonight, or left field. Same for Baez.

The results speak volumes for what has become a vibrant, energetic and creative culture created under Maddon, president of baseball operations Theo Epstein, general manager Jed Hoyer and the rest of the gang.

“We have guys who are able to understand the overall goal and are willing to get out of their comfort zone for a little bit and try something,” Zobrist says. “It also says Joe believes in players. He believes that if you’re an athlete, you can do it. Even if at first you’re like, ‘Uh, I don’t know.’ He believes you’re capable of doing things you haven’t even thought of before.”

As for the conventional wisdom that suggests changing positions might make a player less effective at the plate because he has so much on his mind, Maddon, the man who preaches that batting practice is overrated anyway, thinks that’s rubbish. Look at Baez this year: He’s significantly reduced his strikeouts. Might frequent position changes actually do the opposite of what some think and free up a player’s mind?

“I totally believe it does work opposite,” Maddon says. “I never believed that by moving them around it [could hurt them at the plate]. I believe that by moving them around it helps them at the plate because you focus so much on your defense you’re not worried so much about your offense.

“I totally believe that by bringing a young guy up, i.e. a Zobrist back in the day, even B.J. Upton…B.J. came up when I was in Tampa and was established as a shortstop. He wasn’t doing that well, so we started moving him around, put him at second base, and I thought he was almost an All-Star candidate before he hurt his leg running to first base in Miami. But he hit.

“He hit by playing different positions. We had him working out at different positions everyday pregame and I thought that would de-emphasize all this work in the cage. Hitters swing too much, they think too much. If all it took was X number of swings in a day or X number of hours of hitting, then everybody would be a .300 hitter. Because everybody puts that time in, and I think it’s counterproductive. I think it works absolutely in reverse. I think there’s a point of diminishing returns that sets in, guys become arm-weary, mentally weary, by swinging the bat too much.

“I wish they’d play with their gloves a little more often. I think there is this residual effect in a positive way offensively by not swinging so much. I do, I believe playing more defense and playing different positions can help a young player become a better offensive player.”

Even before he became a manager and created the “Zorilla” phenomenon with Zobrist in Tampa, as a coach in Anaheim, Maddon’s fingerprints were all over the versatility of Tony Phillips, Mark McLemore and Chone Figgins.

“The players have to be able to do those things,” Maddon says. “Not everybody can play those positions well. I think that’s the greater requirement as opposed to worrying about their hitting, it’s can they do that on defense? If they can’t, then you don’t do that.”

As Maddon points out, from a manager’s perspective, it is far easier to do this with a younger player on the way up than with a veteran. It becomes difficult to teach an old dog new tricks, right? In this vein, Bryant, 24, and Baez, 23, are perfect. To them, maintaining an array of broken-in gloves for different positions is a perfectly normal way to live an MLB life.

“If you try to get them to do that four years from now it might be difficult,” Maddon concedes. “But if they come in young doing this thing and get it to become part of their fabric and understand how it helps the group, you’ve got something.”

You better believe that other clubs are taking notes. It’s a copycat sport, and who wouldn’t want to emulate the Cubs right now?

Maddon first laid eyes on Baez in Puerto Rico when he visited two winters ago after accepting the Chicago job. He watched Baez make some slick plays in the infield and immediately knew that the Cubs would be a better team with Baez around.

This October, everyone is seeing that. He smashed a key home run against San Francisco and made several highlight-reel plays in the field during the division series. Against the Dodgers in Game 1 of this NL Championship Series, he created a run all by himself with a hustle double, a dash to third on a wild pitch and then a breathtaking steal of home. In Game 2, he alertly let a line drive skip on the ground in front of him, instead of catching it, to start a double play.

“He’s just a unique talent,” Maddon says, noting that it is only a select few players who possess it in any sport, like Magic Johnson, one of the Dodgers’ owners and the former NBA great.

“Some of your greater running backs,” he continues. “They just have this vision. They see things. He sees things. And that’s why he’s so good.”

It’s also why it will be so difficult for rival clubs to duplicate what the Cubs have right now. It is an exquisitely rare mix of vision, talent, unselfishness and a willingness by all to do things for the good of the team.

“There are so many guys in the league who could do it if they put their mind to it,” says Zobrist, one of the pioneers of the trade. “But some guys don’t.” 

Among other things, Zobrist says, versatility not only helps the team, it can improve a player’s individual stock. Case in point: himself.

“Teams were looking at me not just as a second baseman or outfielder, but both,” says Zobrist, who emerged as one of the more desired players on the market last winter. “So several different teams were talking to me, saying we want you to do this or we want you to do this. They were putting offers on the table for various positions.

“If that opens up your opportunities, that’s what’s going to enable guys to make more money in free agency, too.”

So far, it has worked wonders for Bryant.

“I feel like it kind of keeps me on my toes in terms of moving around,” Bryant says. “It keeps you fresh at third base. I feel like this game is so monotonous, it’s the same thing over and over every day. So I feel like for me to move around to left field, third base, first base, right field, it kind of makes me wake up a little bit.”

“It’s a great model,” the Padres’ Green says. “Joe’s proven to be a trendsetter in the game in recent years. He was shifting before anybody else was shifting. You look back 20, 30 years at the way Tony La Russa managed the bullpen; now everybody is using their bullpen that way.

“Now, moving guys around the diamond, if you have the pieces to do that, it’s a concept I wouldn’t shy away from at all. But until you get that caliber of athlete all over the diamond where you’ve got a Javy Baez and a Ben Zobrist and a Kris Bryant, the rest of us are just pretending.”

Scott Miller covers Major League Baseball as a national columnist for Bleacher Report. Follow Scott on Twitter and talk baseball.

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The Chicago Cubs enter the National League Championship Series with as much confidence as a team battling a 108-year title drought could possibly have.

Late Tuesday night, it looked like Chicago would be headed home to Wrigley Field to play a pivotal Game 5 against the San Francisco Giants. The Cubbies trailed 5-2 in Game 4 and were just three outs away from dropping their second straight game to the Giants. 

Instead, Chicago tacked four runs on the Giants bullpen to take a 6-5 lead, and then closer Aroldis Chapman struck out the side in the bottom half of the inning with a flurry of 100-plus mph fastballs. The win propelled the Cubs to their second trip to the NLCS in as many years—they fell to the New York Mets in the 2015 championship series. 

The Cubs will host Game 1 on Saturday night—first pitch is scheduled for 8:08 p.m ET—on the strength of their 103-win regular season, welcoming the Los Angeles Dodgers to town. Los Angeles fought off a late Game 5 surge from the Washington Nationals on Thursday night at Nationals Park to set its date with Chicago. 

The Dodgers overcame the Nats’ 2-1 series lead to make the NLCS—the team’s first since its 2013 loss to the St. Louis Cardinals—and now face ostensibly their toughest test of the season: a locked-in Cubs team on a mission for a championship.

If Los Angeles hopes to progress to the World Series to take on the Toronto Blue Jays or Cleveland Indians, whichever team emerges from the American League, it will likely need to take at least one of the first two games in Chicago. With the momentum the Dodgers will maintain from Thursday’s victory, Game 1 is as good a time as any to snatch back home-field advantage.

But first, let’s take a look at what Chicago must do to keep its postseason freight train rolling. 

A Cubs triumph in Game 1 relies on performances from students of the old school and the new school.

One key to victory Saturday evening lies with the Cubs’ Game 1 starter, grizzled veteran and Cy Young candidate Jon Lester. He’s only 32, but Lester has pitched in seven postseasons, including 2016, with the Boston Red Sox, Oakland Athletics and Cubs. Lester attained a bulk of his playoff experience in 2013 with Boston, as it rumbled to a World Series title. That postseason, Lester surrendered just six earned runs in 34.2 innings. 

Three years later, Chicago manager Joe Maddon and the Cubs could hardly ask for a steadier Game 1 starter, and this is a team that also features 2015 NL Cy Young winner Jake Arrieta and Kyle Hendricks, who dealt to a dazzling 2.13 ERA in the regular season. As for Lester, he won 19 games in 2016 and surrendered only 2.44 runs per nine innings, which is the lowest ERA of his career. 

Lester also proved he has the mental fortitude to handle the pressures of being a Game 1 starter for a team pegged as the World Series favorites. He was magnificent in Chicago’s Game 1 victory at home in the division series. Facing the Giants, Lester tossed eight scoreless innings and gave up just five hits while walking none.

The Cubs needed every zero Lester was able to throw up on the scoreboard, as their offense didn’t break through until the 8th inning. In the eighth, Javier Baez blasted a solo home run to give Chicago the lead. Facing Los Angeles, Lester has the tough assignment of dealing with the likes of Corey Seager, Justin Turner and Adrian Gonzalez, all of whom homered against the Nationals. 

Now Chicago has made it to yet another NLCS, the expectations continue to rise and the ghosts of losing seasons past begin to creep into everyone’s minds. And since it’s only Game 1, we won’t mention the events of October 2003. 

Instead, it’s important to note the Cubs’ lack of offense in Game 1 of this year’s NLDS. Chicago’s lineup is stacked—it produced the third-most runs in Major League Baseball during the regular season. But based on what we saw in the Cubs’ first game against San Francisco, the impetus to get the offense going against the Dodgers on Saturday should fall squarely on Anthony Rizzo and Kris Bryant. 

To give their team the best chance of grabbing an immediate advantage in the series, Rizzo and Bryant need to drive in at least two runs between them in Game 1. They can’t bank on someone such as Baez, Jason Heyward or even Ben Zobrist to pick up the slack again. 

These corner infielders and NL MVP candidates were the biggest threats to opposing pitching during the 2016 campaign, and that continues to be the case into the postseason, even though Rizzo struggled mightily in the division series. He went just 1-for-15 against Giants pitching, but the guy smacked 32 homers and drove in 109 runs in the regular season. He needs to return to form early on in the series if the Cubs are going to make the Fall Classic. 

As for Bryant, he doesn’t have much adjusting to do since he hit .375 off of Giants pitching in the first round of the playoffs with three extra-base hits.

The Cubs hitters will take their hacks in Game 1 off Dodgers starter Kenta Maeda, who will take over the role the Dodgers would have liked to give to their ace, Clayton Kershaw, had he not had to record the final two outs against Washington. 

Pitching will be one of the most significant areas for the Dodgers in this series, but in Game 1, each pitcher who comes to the mound will have to do his job. Manager Dave Roberts used six pitchers to record 27 outs in Game 5 of the division series, but it was the one he had to use that ups the ante for Game 1.

In addition to starter Rich Hill, who lasted 2.2 innings despite giving up only one run, Roberts called on starters Julio Urias, the 20-year-old, to throw two innings and Kershaw to close it out. It would be no easy task to pick out a hurler on the Dodgers roster who’s well rested at this point in the postseason, so requiring any starters or relievers to pick up another’s slack could hamper Los Angeles’ chances of winning at Wrigley on Saturday night. 

So although the pitching duties need to be shared among L.A.’s staff, it all starts with Maeda. He registered solid numbers during the regular season—16 wins, 11 losses and a 3.48 ERA—but the 28-year-old struggled in his only postseason appearance.

In Game 3 of the NLDS, the Dodgers returned home to L.A. with the series tied at one, but Maeda lasted only three innings, giving up four runs on five hits. After his exit, Los Angeles went on to use seven more pitchers in the 8-3 loss. Although Roberts’ crew was able to climb back from that 2-1 series deficit, a short outing from their starter would put the Dodgers in an unfortunate position in Game 1, as well as for the rest of the championship series.

The second key for Los Angeles to take Game 1 has almost as much to do with its team as with the Cubs. Chicago has a stellar defensive squad thanks to the crew of fielding wizards assembled by team president Theo Epstein. However, the one area where the Cubs often struggle is preventing runners from creating anarchy on the basepaths since their pitchers have trouble holding runners on.

Unfortunately for the Dodgers, stealing bases was not something they excelled at doing—the club stole the fourth-fewest bases (45) of any team over the course of the regular season. In the postseason, though, throw out the stats (well, not completely). Still, Roberts knows the power a well-timed stolen base can have on a playoff game from his time with Boston. 

Since the Cubs make few errors and will not just give Los Angeles any extra bases, the Dodgers need to manufacture runs, especially against Chicago’s stellar pitching. Seager hit two home runs in the division series, but no other Dodger hit more than one.

As the playoffs move along, timely run-scoring hits tend to power offenses late in games even more than long balls do. If the Dodgers can come through in situations with runners in scoring position, they will seriously improve their chances of taking down Chicago.

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