CHICAGO — Here it came. First the horns. Then the lush orchestral arrangement. Blaring straight from the manager's office late Sunday night at such a volume that the message was received loud and clear in the clubhouse.
The Cubs were gonna fly now. Fly high now. Fly toward climbing back into this National League Championship Series with the theme from Rocky pushing them toward Jacob deGrom and Game 3.
Veteran catcher David Ross chuckled and said he wouldn't be surprised if Rocky himself showed up on the Cubs' charter home. News bulletin: He didn't.
Monday was a brand-new day here at Wrigley Field. No, things didn't go exactly as the Cubs planned in New York over the weekend. But as Kyle Schwarber played air guitar and Jorge Soler danced, and the Cubs practiced bunting under a warm Chicago sun, you'd better believe the mood was every bit as bright as the day.
"Rocky did set a great example in 1976 for all of us," manager/therapist/guru Joe Maddon said. "So when you get behind the eight ball a little bit, sometimes you just go pound on some big slabs of beef in the cooler, and obviously you come back and you're fine.
"So listen, man. It's a game, and I'm really impressed with our players. I love the way they've handled everything to this moment. I anticipate that we'll continue to handle it well."
The next slab of beef the Cubs will attempt to tenderize is deGrom, whose season has been as epic as his hair. Though the Cubs have yet to discover an opening against the Mets in this series, they did beat deGrom twice during the regular season: 4-3 on May 11 (deGrom surrendered four earned runs, five hits and four walks in five innings) and 6-1 on July 2 (touching deGrom for three earned runs and seven hits in 5.1 innings).
"He throws hard," said Cubs outfielder Chris Coghlan, who went 1-for-4 with two walks against deGrom this season. "Cutter, slider, changeup, fastball.
"With any of these pitchers, it's all about getting in a zone. You've got to get in good counts."
So far, the Cubs have not. You could say they've been done in by both fire and ice.
Fire?
Ice?
Temperatures for Games 1 and 2 in New York were in the 40s with wind chills dipping into the 30s. Cold weather is not conducive to good hitting, and it can be especially damaging to a team that relies on the home run as much as the Cubs.
"I'm pumped the weather is so much better here," Coghlan said.
From Coghlan to Maddon to young slugger Kris Bryant and beyond, the Cubs have made no secret of the fact that they badly wanted "15 degrees more Fahrenheit," as the manager requested. They should get their wish: Chicago temperatures Tuesday are predicted to be in the upper 60s with a low of 57. Wednesday, the high is supposed to be 72 before dropping to a high of 61 on Thursday, the day of Game 5.
What that doesn't change is that the Cubs are finding it more and more difficult to locate a favorable pitching matchup in this series. Especially with indications that ace Jake Arrieta might be running on fumes after throwing a combined 248.2 innings this season—a whopping 92 more than his previous career high of 156.2 last year.
In Game 3, deGrom over Kyle Hendricks would seem a given on paper. And the Cubs' Jason Hammel over Mets rookie Steven Matz in Game 4 is far from a given.
And all of that is simply to get Arrieta and Jon Lester back on the mound one more time each.
"You know what I'm excited about?" Ross said. "Trying to give those guys another chance. We're going to fight tooth and nail to do it.
"Jon and Jake have the two losses. Those are our horses. We've relied on them all year long. I'm sure they want another chance to go out there."
As far as the less-than-favorable pitching matchups for Chicago, Maddon remembers when the Los Angeles Dodgers visited Wrigley Field in June.
"The first two games we ended up winning against Zack Greinke and Clayton Kershaw," Maddon said. "And we lost the next two. That happens.
"That's the thing about this game that's so insane. Everybody thinks you've got it figured out every once in a while. I promise you, we do not. It's your best guess on a nightly basis.
"Sometimes the reverse lock is in."
It was something to ponder Monday afternoon as the rock music played at Wrigley Field, the sun shone, the ivy rippled from a stiff breeze and the Cubs laughed and smiled while trying to game-plan a path toward their first World Series since 1945.
"Anything is possible in the playoffs," said that wise old sage Bryant, all of 23. "The Red Sox were down 3-0 [to the Yankees in the 2004 ALCS]. A guy could step up huge.
"There's no sense of desperation here."
Said Coghlan: "You saw our workout. It's as loose as it gets around here."
What Maddon wants is for the Cubs to put together "several one-game winning streaks. If we keep it one game at a time, we've got a good shot of doing it."
Oh, and one other thing: Yes, he is well aware that (spoiler alert for those not yet caught up on your 1970s movies)…Rocky lost in the end.
"I was thinking about the comeback component of that, the work that was necessary to get to that moment," Maddon said. "When it comes to real-time stuff, I guess I do read fiction more than I read nonfiction. I'm a fiction kind of guy."
At least, for now he is. Until this visualized Cubs comeback turns real.
Scott Miller covers Major League Baseball as a national columnist for Bleacher Report.
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