The Wrigley Field ivy peaked in the 2003 National League Championship Series, but the change of colors looks to be coming a little later this fall after the long, dry summer.
In a perfect world, the Chicago Cubs would be peaking at the same time.
“That would be the dream,” head groundskeeper Dan Kiermaier said before the start of the wild-card series between the Cubs and San Diego Padres. “We haven’t had it that color in a long time.
“We’ll see what Mother Nature throws at us this year. We’re hoping we have some good fall color and showing it off with playoff baseball. But the weather will drive that, so we’ll see.”
The Cubs tried to do their part by staying alive in the postseason long enough for Wrigley to show off its fall finest, and got through the first obstacle with flying colors.
A 3-1 win over the Padres on Thursday in the decisive Game 3 of the wild-card series advanced them to the National League Division Series against the Milwaukee Brewers.
Chicago Cubs beat San Diego Padres 3-1 for 1st postseason series win since 2017. Next up: Milwaukee Brewers.
Take a deep breath, Chicago. You deserve it after this series, where the Cubs made you sweat, scream and swear — sometimes in the same moment.
Pete Crow-Armstrong bounced off the mat with an RBI and a three-hit game, Michael Busch homered, and the Cubs pitchers came through on a perfectly imperfect day that featured one last scare.
Brad Keller served up a sky-high leadoff home run in the ninth to Jackson Merrill, then hit Ryan O’Hearn and Bryce Johnson with one out to ignite flashbacks of 1984. Manager Craig Counsell brought in Andrew Kittredge, the opener of Game 2, who got Jake Cronenworth to ground out on a nice play by Matt Shaw.
Manager Craig Counsell said he knew it would be a tough job for Keller to go two innings, and had Game 1 starter Matthew Boyd and Kittredge up.
“I thought it went the way we wanted it to go,” he said. “I thought Kit would have to get some outs there, and he did a hell of a job.”
The anxiety level shot up, just like it has in many playoffs of the past.
“When Merrill homered, I was fine,” President Jed Hoyer said. “A couple hit by pitches made me anxious. And then I knew (Freddy) Fermin was a really good contact hitter, so I knew the ball was going to be in play, and I said, ‘Hit it at somebody, please.’”
Fermin obliged and flew out to center with the tying runs in scoring position, and the party started again.
Chairman Tom Ricketts insisted he didn’t sweat, which could not be confirmed as he was drenched in champagne when I spoke to him.
“Yeah, we have a good team, we’re solid,” he said. “We put ourselves in a little more stressful situation than we wanted, but I knew we had Kittredge in the bullpen, so I was really confident we’d get out of it.”
A trip to the right-field bleachers was in order before Thursday’s make-or-break wild-card game to gauge the temperature of Cubs fans.
An old friend from a group I sat in the bleachers with in the early 1980s was visibly anxious an hour before Jameson Taillon’s first pitch. I tried to calm her fears by relaying some team-friendly stats — like the Cubs’ 23-6 record at Wrigley following a loss — and a little bit of history about the wild-card round, where 18 of the 20 teams that won the first game of the best-of-three series went on to advance.
The pep talk didn’t work. Like many others in attendance, the exhilaration from the Game 1 win over the San Diego Padres had morphed into panic after the Game 2 loss, and nerves were frayed as game time neared. She said this Cubs season has been particularly stressful from day one because you never knew which offense would show up.
It could be the lineup that was capable of hitting eight home runs, as they did against the St. Louis Cardinals on the Fourth of July, or the one that could strike out 14 times, as they did twice, including a recent game against the New York Mets on Sept. 25. The Cubs offense dominated in the first half, then hibernated much of the second half.
Which one would we see in Game 3 on a gorgeous, 79-degree fall afternoon in Chicago?
A little of both, as it turned out.
“We played three fun baseball games, man, emotional games,” Counsell said. “I love these October celebrations where you get to act like a 10-year-old. The feeling was electric today. It started in the first inning. We didn’t give them much to cheer about yesterday. But we gave them a lot more to cheer about today.”
The Cubs knocked out Padres starter Yu Darvish in the second inning, but couldn’t manage to pull away in a tense affair that naturally turned into a battle of the bullpens as day turned into night.
“Every single guy out there picked each other up,” pitching coach Tommy Hottovy said. “That’s what we’ve built upon all year. Brad carried us, had a great eighth inning, and then ‘Kit’ comes in and shuts it down. That’s what it’s all about.”
Hours before the game, Crow-Armstrong, who was hitless in the first two games, lauded the energy Cubs fans brought to Wrigley.
“We owe more playoff baseball to this fan base for sure, and hopefully we just use that energy today to our advantage,” Crow-Armstrong said.
That energy was apparent at the outset of Game 3 when Crow-Armstrong made a sliding catch of a Manny Machado liner in the bottom of the first inning, rising to the now-traditional chants of “PCA.”
“The great weather, all three games were really close, it was a fun series as a spectator,” Hoyer said. “And our fans were amazing. We talked after we clinched that we had to have home-field advantage, and I really think that helped us win this series.”
Crow-Armstrong put his money where his mouth is with a three-hit game, getting his groove back at a most appropriate time. A single by Kyle Tucker and a double by Seiya Suzuki started things off in the second inning, and Darvish hit Carson Kelly with a pitch to load the bases, bringing up Crow-Armstrong with a chance to be the hero again.
Crow-Armstrong delivered with a run-scoring single up the middle, prompting Padres manager Mike Shildt to make a lightning-quick hook of his starter. But Jeremiah Estrada walked Dansby Swanson to force in another run, and the Cubs had a 2-0 lead.
They couldn’t add on that inning and failed to score in the next five innings, keeping the Padres within shouting distance. But the pitching and defense carried them through, as daylight turned to dusk and groans turned to grins.
Taillon threw four scoreless innings before Counsell removed him. There was no chance the Cubs manager would risk making the same mistake he made in Game 2, when he let Shota Imanaga pitch to Machado instead of going by the book, and paid the price when Machado homered.
Caleb Thielbar, Daniel Palencia and Drew Pomeranz kept the Padres scoreless into the seventh, aided by some stellar defensive plays by Swanson and Nico Hoerner. It was Hoerner’s leaping grab of Gavin Sheets’ line drive in the seventh, with a runner on second and one out, that turned the sound level up to 11, with the ball peeking out of the top of his glove like a dove popping out of a magician’s hat.
“I’m more and more impressed by Nico every day,” Crow-Armstrong said. “The way he affects every one of us in here is so cool. I get the best view in the world of what they do so well.”
Pomeranz induced Cronenworth to fly out to center, stranding the runner.
“That’s a big reason why we’re a good baseball team, because of that defense up the middle, Dansby, Nico and Pete,” Counsell said.
When Busch led off the bottom of the seventh with a solo home run against Robert Suarez into the right-field bleachers, the ballpark heaved a sigh of relief. It wasn’t exactly a “homer in the gloamin,” like the famous Gabby Hartnett shot at Wrigley in 1938, but it would suffice.
Crow-Armstrong was being polite when he said the Cubs owed the fans more playoff games. In truth, the Cubs players really don’t owe fans anything but an honest effort. With some of the highest ticket prices in baseball, Cubs ownership owed fans a playoff-caliber team, and whether you like the Rickettses or not, they did deliver on that.
For years, Cubs fans said they’d be happy with one championship before they died. They lied.
“I don’t think anyone wants to win just one,” Ricketts said. “They always want to win every year and every game. We have great coaching, great hitting, great pitching. Anything can happen from here on out.”
Putting your heart into a sports team is optional, and just because the Cubs are considered a huggable franchise with their history and the special atmosphere surrounding their ancient, bandbox ballpark, it doesn’t mean the players have to win for you.
That’s the gamble you take as a sports fan. You support them through thick and thin, knowing they could break your heart. They might still happen with the 2025 Cubs, a team that has been impossible to predict since their opening trip to Tokyo last March.
But the journey continues for now, and who knows how far it will go?
The Cubs are doing their part on the field.
Maybe Mother Nature can help out with the turning of the ivy.