It is quite possible that silver spoon Todd Ricketts’ daddy, Joe Ricketts, never taught his son about being humble. Bold proclamations sometimes bite you back.
“We’re going to run into these guys in the playoffs,” Todd Ricketts said at a White House celebration at the end of June. “And you’ll come down and you’ll see them crumble.”
Last night the Ricketts’ Cubs team dropped 4-of-5 games in excruciating fashion and were bounced from the post-season after an 11-to-1 loss. The Cubs crumbled and never really put up much of a fight. The final score of the series was Dodgers 28 — Cubs 8.
“…The [Ricketts family] better be careful, they have a lot to hide!”, Trump once tweeted. Is that like saying people in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones?
Hopefully Ricketts is hiding. Be seen and not heard is usually good advice for a team owner’s son who sat in the front row at Wrigley and was often seen on camera with a beer in-hand. Then there is Anthony Rizzo, Mr. Respect-Me, who batted .059 in the NLCS series with no RBIs and 8 strikeouts out of 17 at-bats which is a 47.1% K rate. You must earn respect Anthony.
The gloating Cubs who barely escaped Washington, D.C. after they beat the Nationals in the NLDS were exposed by the Nationals pitching staff who gave the Dodgers the blueprint, but also the Cubs bullpen was sent reeling. The Dodgers systematically picked the Cubs apart piece by piece. Ben Zobrist went hit-less in the series and reigning-MVP Kris Bryant didn’t have an RBI or a run scored until he was grooved a pitch when his team was behind 9-to-0 last night. It was the Cubs starting pitchers who went a combined .375 in the NLCS as their hitting stars. The Cubs position players batted a combined .144 in the NLCS. In 304 at-bats in this post-season, the Cubs batted .168 managing just 51 hits.
“I know for a fact that [Kyle Hendricks] is going to be on,” reliever Carl Edwards Jr. said just before Game 5 and as it turned out Edwards couldn’t personally back up his own words and Hendricks didn’t pitch well but Edwards was correct about heading to L.A. “He’s just going to go out there, and we’re going to have fun, and we’ll see you guys in L.A.”
For their stellar play in the 2018 NLDS and NLCS, the Dodgers will cruise into the World Series as the 2018 NL representative and will host either the Yankees or Astros on Tuesday night. Since 1988 the big spending Dodgers will finally make it back to the World Series. They were 0-in-10 previously in the post-season in the 28 years since their 1988 win.
No Nats fan truly should be doing any gloating, but it is hard to envision the Nats would have played as poorly as the Cubs. The Nats did out-score the Cubs 20-to-17 in the NLDS if that meant anything — okay, not really.
Hard to envision a scenario in which Nats wouldn’t have made things much tougher on Dodgers. Hard to imagine that makes anyone feel better.
— Chelsea Janes (@chelsea_janes) October 18, 2017
The Nationals will have to wait until next year. Hopefully 2017 was another painful learning experience for the Nationals’ players and staff.
https://twitter.com/Marlins_Man/status/921165547986935808
In the meantime, 27 teams will watch from their couches.
