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Clash of titans: Can Nats slow Majors-leading Cubs?
- Updated: May 4, 2016
CHICAGO — Sometimes everything works out just right, even the timing.
Bryce Harper is bringing the Nationals to Wrigley Field on Thursday. Jake Arrieta’s Cubs are going to be there and waiting.
When the Nats roll out to smash some batting-practice fastballs over the ivy-covered walls, they’ll carry the swagger that goes with a 19-8 start. The Cubs will smile politely and ride the confidence that comes with their 20-6 record and season-long history of pounding opponents.
Not only are they the only team in the Major Leagues that hasn’t lost back-to-back games, but they’ve also outscored their opponents by 93, the most over the first 26 games of a season since Christy Mathewson’s Giants dominated out of the gate in 1905.
Yes, 1905, three years before the Cubs won their last championship.
These are special times, and this four-game affair figures to be one of those special regular-season series, the kind that people will still be talking about in October, especially if the teams happen to meet in the postseason.
Among the matchups to watch:
Dusty vs. Joe
There may be managers as cool as Dusty Baker and Joe Maddon, but none who are cooler. Both are philosophical savants who work to empower their players, not manipulate them like chess pieces.
They’re perfect fits for the teams they inherited, with Maddon in his second year with the Cubs while Baker still learns his way around Washington after replacing Matt Williams. Between them, they’ve managed 4,900 regular-season games, but none of their teams have won the World Series. Both continue the quest for that bucket-list item as their careers wind down, although who knows how long they’ll manage.
Maddon, 62, proclaimed “60 is the new 40” when the Cubs hired him. That same math would make Baker 46, as the calendar says he’s due to turn 67 next month.
Another thing Maddon said when the Cubs hired him three seasons into Theo Epstein’s rebuilding process was that “the heavy lifting has already been done” for the franchise. That’s true for Baker as well. He takes over a team that seemed destined for championships when a 23-year-old Stephen Strasburg led the club to a 98-win campaign in 2012, but the Nationals have yet to win a postseason …
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