It’s Tuesday evening here at BCB After Dark: the grooviest gathering of night owls, early risers, new parents and Cubs fans abroad. Come on in and join us. We’re going to stick together until the end. There’s no cover charge. We still have a couple of tables available. Bring your own beverage.
BCB After Dark is the place for you to talk baseball, music, movies, or anything else you need to get off your chest, as long as it is within the rules of the site. The late-nighters are encouraged to get the party
started, but everyone else is invited to join in as you wake up the next morning and into the afternoon.
The Cubs are off today as they lick their wounds and hope to find some way to win the next three elimination games against the Brewers. They’ve done that before. Meanwhile, the Mariners defeated the Tigers 8-4 to take a two games to one lead in theur series, and the Yankees led the Blue Jays 9-6 in the seventh inning at the time After Dark posted.
Last week, I asked you about Game 3 of the Wild Card Series. The Cubs did win that game and so I suppose the answers you gave are irrelevant now. But 26 percent of you predicted that Jameson Taillon would be the player of the game and 24 percent predicted Michael Busch. Those were good guesses.
On Tuesday night/Wednesday morning I don’t do a film essay. But I always have time for jazz so those of you who skip that can do so now.
I suppose it’s time to start putting some Halloween jazz in After Dark, so here is vocalist and pianist Kandace Springs performing the Screamin’ Jay Hawkins classic “I Put a Spell on You.”
This is from 2020.
Welcome back to those of you who skip all that jazz.
I’m not going to pretend like things are rosy at the moment for the Cubs. There is a very good chance that tomorrow’s game will be the final game of the season for them. Certainly there is an excellent chance that their final game of the season will be against the Brewers sometime before the end of this series.
But an “excellent” chance doesn’t mean that there is no chance the Cubs come back. The Cubs have faced a situation where they had to win three straight elimination games in our lifetimes and they won all three of them. None of the current Cubs were on that team, but one current Cub, Carlos Santana, can attest to that from the other side.
So let’s assume that the Cubs have a very small but very real chance to advance. I would say that between them and the Phillies, the Cubs have the better chance to advance. They have two games at home. They have Jameson Taillon going tomorrow and he’s been their best pitcher down the stretch—other than the injured Cade Horton. Matthew Boyd would get to start Game 4 on four days rest and then all hands would be on deck for a Game 5.
So it’s not a good chance, but 11 percent of teams down 2 games to 0 in a best-of-five series come back to win it. I’d say the Cubs chances are better than that—maybe 15 to 20 percent. Sure, that’s still an 80 to 85 percent chance that the Brewers advance to the Championship Series, but that’s better than no chance.
The Phillies are also down two games to none and have to go out to Los Angeles for Games 3 and 4. They have to face Yoshinobu Yamamoto who, after an up-and-down rookie season in MLB, is starting to look like the number-one starter that he was touted as coming out of Japan. And if the Phillies somehow beat Yamamoto, they’re facing Shohei Ohtani and Blake Snell in Games 4 and 5. Sure, the Dodgers bullpen is still terrible and no lead is safe for the Dodgers, but moving Roki Sasaki into the closer’s spot has at least stabilized the back end of the bullpen for LA.
So tonight’s question is “Who has the better chance of coming back and winning their series—Cubs or Phillies?” Unfortunately, I have to write tonight’s piece before the results of tonight’s Blue Jays/Yankees game and thus, I can’t include them in the poll. Should the Yankees win, then obviously they have the best chance of coming back because they would only need to win two more games. Should the Blue Jays win, then the Yankees have a zero percent chance of coming back because they will have been eliminated.
In case you were wondering, Fangraphs gives the Cubs a 13.8 percent chance of winning this series and the Phillies a 9.8 percent chance of overcoming the Dodgers. (The Yankees had a 15.2 percent chance of winning their series before Game 3, for the record.) So while Fangraphs thinks the Cubs are longshots, they do give them better odds than the Phillies.
Thank you for stopping by. We need to stick together in times like this. Please get home safely. Don’t forget anything you may have checked. Recycle any cans and bottles. Tip your waitstaff. And join us again tomorrow night for more BCB After Dark.
