Baffoe: This Is The Weekend The Cubs Go To The World Series

By Tim Baffoe--

(CBS) Everybody's working for the weekend
Everybody wants a little romance
Everybody's goin' off the deep end
Everybody needs a second chance.

-- Loverboy, "Everybody's Working For The Weekend"

One away. One win. A stinking, measly instance of finishing with more runs than the Los Angeles Dodgers. That's all that remains before most of us can say for the first time in our lives, "The Chicago Cubs are in the World Series."

A hell of a lot of you didn't think we'd be here. The Cubs holding the power of home field in an upcoming game in which they can't be eliminated and the opponent can. Strange, ain't it?

That pesky reflexive fatal Cub-ism kept getting to you. After the only loss to the San Francisco Giants in the National League Divisional Series, and you were proved silly. During that series' fourth game while the Cubs were trailing, when you checked out early. When the Cubs lost Games 2 and 3 in the NLCS to begin this week, and the really over-the-top satire of your foolishness couldn't dent you.

Now I'm going to say what you're afraid to -- the NLCS is over. The Dodgers won't win two more games. Forget that they'll be trotting out the two starting pitchers that beat the Cubs in this series already. It won't repeat.

We got to the weekend. You went off the deep end. Now you get a second chance.

The Dodgers are a strong, pro's pro team with a great rookie manager in Dave Roberts, but they emptied their psychological arsenal against the Cubs on Thursday night and came up severely lacking. Their game plan against ace Jon Lester was simple and overt.

Everyone's watching, to see what you will do
Everyone's looking at you,
Everyone's wondering, will you come out tonight
Everyone's trying to get it right.

The Dodgers tried everything, from 30-foot leads to leaning on the lightning quick drunk-guy-racing-outside-the-bar-on-a-bet speed of Adrian Gonzalez down the line. It all came up woefully short.

"People have been doing it all year," Lester deadpanned after the game. "I'd prefer Adrian Gonzalez and Joc Pederson try to bunt. They're home run guys. They hit 30 homers, so I'd rather them put the ball on the ground and let these guys try to field it and take my chances that way."

Lester was steely out there, and his dominance on the mound was only matched by his ability to swallow the mania provided by his two opponents -- the Dodgers and the umpire's strike zone. After multiple huge inning-ending strikeouts that followed questionable calls, Lester stared down home plate ump Alfonso Marquez. The Dodgers and their game within the game didn't matter to him.

"We told him to concentrate on throwing the ball to home plate," Cubs manager Joe Maddon said. "That is the one thing I tried to convince Jon of from spring training on. I told him everybody is worried about you throwing to first base. So are you. Everybody is worried about a bunt, and so are you. I said to him, The one thing you do better than any pitcher is throw the ball to the plate. Let's concentrate on that.'"

Done and done. Lester scattered five hits and one run over seven innings and walked the first batter of the game and no one else. Those few baserunners tried to get in his head and failed. That was the Dodgers' best -- not the barrage of runs in Game 3. Thursday was doing whatever L.A. could to crack the ace and deflate the rest of the Cubs, and it didn't happen.

Lester took their crazy, his crazy, your crazy, and he flushed it.  

Sure, Dodgers ace Clayton Kershaw is probably the league's best and showed it in Game 2, but he was not and is not infallible as he takes the ball for Game 6. His counterpart, Cubs right-hander Kyle Hendricks, has shown nothing that would suggest he won't put his team in the best position to win.

If "momentum is tomorrow's starting pitcher," to quote Vin Scully, I'd say Saturday's two fairly negate one another. And even if the Dodgers squeak out a Game 6 win, reason suggests Rich Hill turns back into a pumpkin on Sunday while Jake Arrieta feels more comfortable at home and is less victimized by the long ball.

Which leads us to the bats. Some of you wanted either or both Addison Russell and Anthony Rizzo benched, admit it. Laugh at yourself. It's good for you.

Now the deathly silence of Russell and Rizzo for most of the postseason and the rest of the Cubs' hitters in Games 2 and 3 feels like a distant memory. And while we can forget about those games, we must remember -- as so many have repeatedly forgotten this season -- that the Cubs hitters may slump collectively, but it doesn't last and is at all times a bomb of runs is waiting to go off. As shown in Games 4 and 5, the offense's ability to suddenly appear is often monstrous. 

That is also with Jason Heyward in the lineup. My heart aches for the guy, truly, but I also don't think he necessarily needs benching. If that's the one constant drip left in the self-water-torture of Cubs fans, so be it. They've reached an elimination game with insurance on as much.

Everyone's hoping it'll all work out
Everyone's waiting, they're holding out.

You were irrational before. But as Loverboy says as we've reached the weekend in the second half of October, everybody needs a second chance.

Everything the Cubs have done from April to now has collectively worked. You heard it spoken and performed repeatedly.

Now the Cubs have two games to win just one. The World Series waits.

Tim Baffoe is a columnist for CBSChicago.com. Follow Tim on Twitter @TimBaffoe. The views expressed on this page are those of the author, not CBS Local Chicago or our affiliated television and radio stations.