Well, I think the wildcard game is stupid (I know the Cubs benefitted from it last year)......so I think this would be OK by me and eliminate the 2nd WC. Either that or add a 3rd WC team and go 2-2-3 for all division winners.
I actually like Wood against this LH heavy lineup. He can give us 4 outs scoreless, I'll take our chances with the rest of the pen and the bats scoring more.
The Baez/Soler/Coghlan decision was always going to be interesting to me this series. Does Maddon play the hot hand or stick with whatever plan he might have had? Honestly, I think you need Javy's defense in this series. HR or not.
For those keeping score, Bears will now officially have a starter missing at: QB, RB, WR, NT, OLB, ILB (though sounds like Trevathan may be back), and CB maybe *2.
Part of me wants the Mets so the Cubs can exact some kind of revenge. Part of me wants the Giants because F their even year [expletive]. But either way, I'll be pretty confident going into this series. For all the talk about Cueto and Mad Bum 3 of 5 games, they have to face the Cubs pitchers too. The Giants best regular against the Cubs this season was Hunter Pence and his .640 OPS, thanks to 2 HRs in his 3 for 20.
Montero tweeted it, but I didn't realize......the Cubs catchers combined for exactly 30 HRs and 100 RBI this year, thanks to late inning heroics by Contreras and Montero. Granted, Contreras hit a HR, 6 RBI as a LF and had a pinch hit HR to account for those totals. But that's pretty good production from the C position.