NEWSLETTER
Although the 2017 Chicago Cubs season may not hold a candle to the year prior (ending a 108-year World Series drought with a bunch of kids will do that for ya), there were still a TON of amazing and memorable moments. Brett shared his five top moments here., but he was clearly missing the best of the best.
Because this one, in my opinion, stands out above the rest:
Alex-A, play “Go, Cubs, Go.” #TBTpic.twitter.com/0HkrvtBBdG
— Chicago Cubs (@Cubs) January 11, 2018
The moment, the meaning, the comeback, the playoff implications, the JAVY of it … this play/series of plays checks every box for most memorable moment of the 2017 regular season.
Consider, for a moment, that coming into the day, the Cubs – playing without Addison Russell and Willson Contreras – were hanging onto a mere two-game lead over the Milwaukee Brewers, who went on to win their game that day, which would’ve shrunk the Cubs’ lead to just 1.0 if they’d lost. And it sure looked like the Cubs were going to lose, after giving up two runs in the top of the 10th inning, when they mounted an improbable tenth inning comeback (FanGraphs had the Blue Jays win probability at 91%), which featured pretty much every weirdly wonderful thing a single inning can offer:
- Strikeout – wild pitch/drop third strike
- Single
- Wild pitch
- Ground out
- Strikeout – wild pitch/drop third strike
- Stolen base
- Hit-by-pitch
- Walk-off, two-run single
And what’s too often lost in the memory (because the GIF of Jayv sliding is usually what we see), is the sinking feeling I’m sure you all remember experiencing as the Blue Jays catcher, Rafael Lopez, squeezed the ball in his mitt and Javy Baez was nowhere to be found:
Dead-to-rights, right?
NOPE. It’s just Javy Time, baby:
#ElMago
(Photo by Stacy Revere/Getty Images)
