FanPost

How would a Cubs and Rays WS have gone down?

A long winter is ahead, so I may as well ask it now. I'm going to just have to get this off my chest, since the inevitable question comes up ..

What if somehow, the Cubs had played up to their potential in the postseason this year? What if It Did Happen?

What if the Cubs had engaged in a hard fought series of NL championship games in which no one got hurt, every starter went deep into their games and a brilliant combination of defensive/offensive team effort had brought them over the Dodgers and the Phillies to the doors of the 2008 World Series?

How would we have done? Assuming the Cubs didn't repeat the chokesterism from 2007 and played some decent, competitive and exciting baseball that this whole 2008 season prompted and set us up to expect from them and they actually took the NL pennant, what would have gone on in the 2008 World Series between the Cubs and the Rays?

Personally, watching the Cubs get basically owned by the Rays earlier this year was not particularly encouraging. I will have to drag the videos out to watch and try to pretend they're WS games.  If they were, admittedly, coaching and matchups would be different, but the play was still pretty decisive. The Rays just looked a whole lot better than we did .. even though we ended with almost identical records.

Engaging in "What If?" speculation is the lot of the Cubs fan so I guess I'll bite and send up the flag and see what you scholars, dreamers and fans say. You're Lou Pinella and you're coaching a team that was still on a roll - who's going to be in your lineup and rotation? Or you're an observer wondering how to hedge your bets. Or you're a fan just trying to figure out how to save a spot at the fence gate and watch even an inning or so of a WS game since you couldn't sell your kidney on Ebay to afford getting a ticket on StubHub. What would happen?

 

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