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White Knuckles, Iffy Moves, and, Finally, a Cubs World Series Win

Game 7 was tense and dramatic, and both teams were changing everything on the fly. Then Ben Zobrist came up to the plate.
Photo by Patrick Gorski-USA TODAY Sports

Watching them mill around happily on the field in the moments after defeating the Cleveland Indians in Game 7 of the World Series Wednesday night, you might have wondered why the Chicago Cubs had such a hard time with it. After all, there was Kris Bryant, the presumptive MVP who can turn any pitch into a visually stunning long-range projectile, and there was Anthony Rizzo, who stands on top of the plate and hits doubles all over the yard. There was Javy Baez, with his magician's hands and 450-foot blasts, and there were the accredited pitchers: Jon Lester, Jake Arrieta, Kyle Hendricks, Aroldis Chapman. There was the string-pulling manager, Joe Maddon, who needed only a championship to cement an impressive legacy, and there, rushing down from the stands, was Theo Epstein, who the moment the final out was recorded transformed from a very smart builder of teams into a kind of baseball deity, doubtless bound for Cooperstown.

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The Cubs had been the best team in baseball all year, but the postseason has a way of wrinkling such clear quality, asking something proved over 162 games to be re-proved over five, and seven, and seven more. October and November have an equalizing effect; with off-days and short series, they let a game but injury-hampered team like Cleveland hang in with a juggernaut like Chicago. What's more, this particular postseason seemed to prey on players and managers' desires to compensate for the randomness with sheer will, to swing bigger and throw harder and make more moves, to tinker their way to certainty.

In Game 7, almost everybody did this, to wild effect. Maddon lifted a cruising Hendricks after four and a third innings for a short-rest Lester, who let two runs score but pitched well after that. Francona turned early to his security blanket, Andrew Miller, who gave up two runs, double what he'd allowed all postseason. Baez booted a routine grounder and smacked a ball to Pluto. Rajai Davis, choking damn near halfway up his bat, somehow hit an eighth-inning game-tying homer off Chapman.

Everyone was trying too hard, until the game came down to the player who can't. Ben Zobrist plays every game like it's a Wednesday afternoon in July, aware and unhurried, and when he stepped to the plate in the tenth with two men on, he did what he always does with a fastball away: put his flat swing on it and rapped it down the line. The go-ahead Chicago run scored, and moments later, a Miguel Montero single doubled the margin. Three tense outs in the bottom of the frame, and the Cubs were champions.

"He probably exemplifies exactly how we want to play the game," Maddon said of Series MVP Zobrist in the champagne-soaked moments after the win, but Zobrist was more exception than template. The last baseball of the year is always the strangest, and the Cubs stressed their way through it with white knuckles and iffy moves. They rearranged their lineup, stretched out their closer, and brought starters on in relief. Then they won, in large part because a very good player didn't change a thing.