Levine: Cubs' Kyle Schwarber Is All About The Next Round

By Bruce Levine--

CHICAGO (CBS) -- Cubs rookie slugger Kyle Schwarber is shaking off all the acclaim for for hitting a ball on top of the new right-field video board in Tuesday's NLDS-clinching win against the Cardinals. Though Schwarber admitted he told teammate Dexter Fowler that he would go deep in game 4, he's only looking ahead to the next round.

"We are going to approach this like any other ballgame," Schwarber said of the NLCS. "The same way we did against St. Louis and Pittsburgh. They have all been different. We had the one game against the Pirates and the (best-of) five-game series against the Cardinals. Now it is going to be the best-of-seven. We are going to have to pace ourselves."

Well, maybe not. Schwarber is right about the longer series, but this Cubs team has won 12 of its last 13 games. No pacing has been going on for this energy- and testosterone-driven Cub offensive unit.

Schwarber still insists that the longer series means a more grind-it-out approach for Chicago.

"This will be a longer series," he said. "It will be a hard-fought series. A lot of things will be going into this new series. We must be able to pace ourselves. Can't get too high or too low. We must stay the same ball team, and good things will happen."

The time off between series sometimes is bad for a hot team. The Cubs, to a man, felt they needed a time out to relax and recharge the mind and body.

"It has been good for us to have a few days off," Schwarber said. "We celebrated, and now it's time to put our focus towards our opponent. We will have ourselves ready for the weekend."

The slugging Cubs were all in awe of the ball Schwarber put on the video board, but it wasn't the first postseason heroics for him. The ball he hit in the river in Pittsburgh stunned the Pirates and their crowd in the wild-card game. Tuesday's bomb by Schwarber stunned his teammates.

"Unbelievable," infielder Starlin Castro said. "We thought the ball disappeared. Nobody was sure where it went. We have some guys who can do great things."

Schwarber was a bit shy about the long home runs he has become known for.

"Yes, it is pretty cool that it will stay up there," he said, referring to how the Cubs had the ball encased on top of the video board. "It's a good honor. I just look at it as another home run. It's cool, though. Really once you hit it, you know it's gone. You watch it a little bit and then you put your head down and run. You really don't know where it ends up."

Asking Schwarber who would be the home run king of the Cubs -- if the big boys on the team had their own home run derby -- brought out an interesting response.

"Jorgie (Soler) can hit the ball really far," he said.

But Schwarber isn't interested in that kind of contest. He has a more serious series on his mind.

Bruce Levine covers the Cubs and White Sox for 670 The Score and CBSChicago.com. Follow him on Twitter @MLBBruceLevine.