The Cubs finally know who their opponent is for the National League Championship series and that opponent is the New York Mets. New York defeated the LA Dodgers Thursday evening 3-2 in the decisive game 5 of the National League Division series. In the hours before knowing their opponent, there was much debate of which team the Cubs would prefer to play but catcher David Ross said other than a shorter trip to the big apple, they did not have much preference.
It was announced on Thursday that one key player will not be playing during the NLCS.
An MRI revealed that Russell suffered a moderate strain in his left hamstring after stretching out a double into a triple on Monday vs. the St. Louis Cardinals. Russell hit .242 with 13 home runs and 54 RBI’s in 142 games played during the regular season.
“He’s not going to necessarily push it right now,” Cubs manager Joe Maddon said. “Let’s go on more of a normal pace with the training staff and not test it to the point where he could re-injure it again too soon by trying to be too aggressive.”
Replacing Russell is Javier Baez who is more of a polished hitter but has had issues with defense in the past. Baez played 28 games in the regular season after being called up on September 1 and had a batting average of .289.
The schedule for the series has been released.
All times ET, all games broadcast on TBS
Game 1: Sat., Oct. 17 at Citi Field, 8:07 p.m.
Game 2: Sun., Oct. 18 at Citi Field, 8:07 p.m.
Game 3: Tues., Oct. 20 at Wrigley Field, TBD
Game 4: Wed., Oct. 21 at Wrigley Field, TBD
Game 5: Thurs., Oct. 22 at Wrigley Field, TBD *
Game 6: Sat., Oct. 24 at Citi Field, TBD *
Game 7: Sun., Oct. 25 at Citi Field, TBD *
*if necessary
During the regular season, the Mets won 90 games and won the NL East easily over a slumping Washington Nationals team. While the Cubs won 7 more games than New York, they play in a division that saw the Cardinals win 100 games.
After July 25, New York led the league in runs, home runs and slugging percentage. A big part of those numbers can be attributed to the acquisition of outfielder Yoenis Cespedes from the Detroit Tigers in late July and third baseman David Wright coming back from the disabled list in August. He was put on the 15-day disabled list on April 14 after suffering from a strained right hamstring after stealing second base. Weeks later he was diagnosed with spinal stenosis and there was concern that he would not come back at all. However, those concerns were not warranted as he returned to the big league team and hit a home run on his first at-bat since his injury on August 24.
This will be the first time the Mets have been to the championship series since 2006 when they eventually lost to the St. Louis Cardinals in 7 games while the Cubs are in their first championship series since 2003 when they lost in 7 to the then Florida Marlins. Game 6 of that series was known as the infamous Bartman game.
MY PREDICTION: as mentioned above the Mets are an entirely different team since the trade deadline. Their batting order is more potent than it was when the Cubs last saw them in early July. During the regular season, the Cubs won all 7 games against New York but as Cubs TV play-by-play man Len Kasper said on Twitter shortly after the Cubs knew their opponent that any Cubs fan who thinks this series will be a cake walk are wrong.
Bleacher Report featured columnist Joel Reuter believes that Jake Arrieta will be in the position to pitch the Cubs to their first world series appearance since 1945 in game 6 and predicts that he will continue his dominance Cub fans saw in most of the regular season and in the playoffs.
I predict that the Cubs will continue their momentum gained from games 2, 3, 4 of the division series even though they haven’t played since Tuesday, thus there could be some rust early on. On the other side, the Mets had a game on Thursday night in southern California and had to travel cross country on Friday back to the big apple. With everything said, this will be a well pitched series but at the end of the day, the Cubs offensive starting lineup will be a little too much to handle for the Mets. It will be a close series half way through but the Cubs will show they are the better team at the end, Cubs 4 Mets 2.
ryanhackman1026 