Miggy Montero’s Jolt Affirms Last Year’s Proclamation

We are good. With or without the hashtag, it means the same.

While hope hadn’t yet been pronounced dead like on Tuesday night, it had certainly flatlined. Enter Miguel Montero with an AED and big honkin’ shot of adrenaline for good measure.

Joe Blanton’s 0-1 slider hung there like White Castle special, just begging to be gobbled up. But Montero went hungry and the count went to 0-2. With the bases loaded and the score tied at 3 in the 8th, facing a battered backstop whose back stopped him from being effective most of the year, Blanton came back with the slider. Only this time, he chucked a whole crave case toward the plate.

Miggy tucked in and turned on the pitch with no regard for human life, admiring his handiwork as it traced a 403-foot arc out to right center and effectively put the game out of reach.

And, lo, mirth rode in and my voice went hoarse as much celebration ensued. The warmth of the moment had only just begun to fade when Dexter Fowler threw little gas on the flame.

We are good.

It’s a tale as old as time, if time began in 1908. The Cubs are destined to be lovable losers who bumble around and never quite get it done. I guess time really is a relative concept, though, as we saw Saturday night. Like a tattered rubber band, reality seemed to stretch and fray at the edges as though dictated by the ineffective spin of Blanton’s cement mixer. Wait, is it a mini burger or a big truck? Either way, it feels about the same in your gut. The rubber band snapped as Miggy connected, senses and emotion rushing back as it did. Wrigley shook, the bar shook, the Dodgers were shook.

We are good.

Time’s raggedy rubber band wasn’t the only thing that has snapped this postseason, as we’ve already seen the Cubs’ never-dead mentality manifest itself a couple times. Just as tired and threadbare as that cheap Vandelay Industries product is the idea that this team is somehow unable to get it done. With each win, Joe Maddon’s squad is continuing to compress that narrative into suppositories that doubters and curse-mongers can stick up their ignorant assumptions.

This isn’t about being lucky or getting hot at the right time. It’s about being good, an observation Montero made last season with more than a small measure of good humor. But there was more truth to it, a simple statement of who and what the Cubs were. And still are. They’re good and they know it. They believe in themselves and not some bull**** curse or what some national media talking head tells his audience about the franchise’s history.

All that said, I’d just as soon they avoid further dramatic ending in favor of blowout wins. So if you find your faith weak and your confidence shaken, just remember…

We are good.