Aug. 10--Matt Cain's pitch hung on the inside of the plate, and Kris Bryant mashed it. The crack of the bat was instantly telling. As was the roar inside a ballpark longing for sincere belief.
Left-center-field bleachers. Two-run bomb. Momentum swelling.
Just like that, in the third inning Saturday, the Cubs had taken the lead for good over the Giants. The 8-6 victory continued an impressive series against the defending World Series champions and further legitimized this hungry, ahead-of-schedule team as a 2015 playoff threat.
Exactly two weeks earlier, the Cubs had been dominated by Phillies lefty Cole Hamels, hitless and listless on a Saturday afternoon at Wrigley Field. And the next day, when they were swept by the National League bottom feeder, that familiar sense of Cubs anxiety swept across the fan base.
The tease and torment again seemed all too cruel.
But manager Joe Maddon and his players quickly gathered themselves. They won a series from the Rockies, swept the Brewers in Milwaukee, split a pair of games in Pittsburgh and completed a four-game sweep of the Giants on Sunday.
"I'm seeing us really starting to believe in ourselves," Maddon said after Saturday's win.
His confidence was just another cue, a nod of permission to believe in magic and to push those emotional scars of yesteryear into the back of the attic.
After Sunday's 2-0 win, 52 games remain. And if you can forget about Steve Bartman and Josh Beckett and those dream-crushing Marlins from a dozen years ago, the surge of this Cubs team should evoke the adrenaline rush of the 2003 squad.
You remember the group, right? The one that faced the late-season pressure with eagerness and moxie. The one that, before the horrific National League Championship Series collapse, roused the city by beating the rival Cardinals four times in the first five games of September. The one that won the division with a doubleheader sweep of the Pirates and landed a five-game playoff knockout of the Braves.
Sure, this franchise has lost its last nine playoff games, a sobering record that illuminates the suffocating tension that always lurks. But the Cubs of August 2015, with their own spirit and poise and a Joe Cool manager who keeps the boat steady, also have a unity worth investing in as the season heads for its energizing home stretch.
"The effort, the intensity, tenacity -- whatever you want to call it -- our guys show up to play every day," Maddon said Saturday. "I love it."
There's plenty to appreciate, if Cubs fans can again love like they've never been hurt.
dwiederer@tribpub.com
