Cubs fans can now exhale -- the defending champions are back in the postseason.
After the team put fans through a much more stressful season compared to last year, the Cubs were finally able to punch their postseason ticket tonight after defeating the St. Louis Cardinals to clinch the NL Central.
This is the third straight postseason appearance for the Cubs and the first time since the 2007 and 2008 season that the team was able to win back-to-back division titles.
Although making the postseason this year doesn't seem all that impressive, history was not on the side of the Cubs going into this season. The Cubs are the first defending champions to play postseason baseball since the 2012 St. Louis Cardinals -- who went on to choke away a 3-1 lead in the NLDS versus the San Francisco Giants (who THEN went on to win the 2012 World Series.)
The 2017 Cubs season turned out to be a bit more stressful than any fan could have imagined when the season started in April. The team struggled through the first half of the season and never really found their groove. All of us (myself included) started to speculate as to what the team should do to fix their issues as the team hovered around the .500 mark.
Trade? Buy? Sell? Panic? Stay calm? At the Cubs low point, the team was 5.5 games behind in the division on July 9th and had fans believing in the bullshit "World Series hangover" excuse.
And then the All-Star break happened.
The Cubs stormed out of the gate going 14-3 and by August 1st, they found themselves 2.5 games up in the division and have not given up the division lead since.
I'd be lying if I said I was never nervous during the course of the season but I'm a relatively level-headed Cubs fan. Even at their lowest moments, something in me knew that the team would figure it out -- which is exactly what they did. Now fans can begin to prepare for hopefully another magical postseason run as the Cubs will attempt to become the first team to repeat as World Series champions since the 2000 New York Yankees.
Game 1 of the NLDS is scheduled for Friday, October 6th.
Buckle up.
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