The Cubs and their sleepy bats have to beat Madison Bumgarner

Monday’s NLDS Game 3 between the Chicago Cubs and the San Francisco Giants is a big one. With the Cubs up 2-0 on the Giants, both teams need to win this game — but for very different reasons. The Cubs can lock up an NLDS sweep, put a stop to the Giants’ even-year magic, and get ready for the NLCS against either the Los Angeles Dodgers or the Washington Nationals. The Giants, though, are trying not to be eliminated. Winning this game is the only way they can continue in the postseason.

In order for the Cubs to win, they’ll have to beat one of the most dominant postseason pitchers of all time. Madison Bumgarner will start for the Giants on Monday, and he’s coming off of a legendary complete-game shutout that won his team the wild-card game last Wednesday. Now with their backs against the wall and their even-year magic running low, Bumgarner will take the mound again.

The Cubs might have the momentum, but history isn’t on their side. The Giants have won nine straight elimination games, which is an absolutely insane streak. Plus, Bumgarner hasn’t allowed a run in 23 postseason innings. Add those things together and the Cubs have a tall mountain to climb.

Jake Arrieta, the Cubs’ Game 3 starter, has said about Bumgarner “He’s really good, but he’s beatable.” That’s true, and not just in some weird parallel universe. But Bumgarner won’t be beatable if the Cubs’ bats don’t wake up. Through the first two games of the series, they’ve been cold and sleepy, tallying just a .200 average. Anthony Rizzo, Ben Zobrist, and Addison Russell are currently 1-for-21, which isn’t great for the heart of the team’s batting order. And of the six runs the Cubs have scored against the Giants, half of them have come off the bat of a pitcher: both Kyle Hendricks and Travis Wood drove in runs on Saturday. The Cubs will take runs no matter how they come, but that’s not how it’s supposed to happen.

Of course, the Cubs’ 2-0 record shows that offense isn’t the only thing that can win you a baseball game. Their defense and pitching has been outstanding. But they’re going to have to score at least a run in order to win — that’s how baseball works, after all. And with Bumgarner on the mound, that’s going to be ridiculously hard. In fact, Bumgarner has already shown the Cubs how hard that’s going to be: he pitched against them twice in 2016. Bumgarner won both starts, the first a 1-0 win on May 22, and the second a 3-2 win on September 3. Over the two games, Bumgarner pitched a total of 13.2 innings, allowed just two runs, eight hits, and notched 16 strikeouts.

So the Cubs are very familiar with how hard Bumgarner is to beat. Buster Posey may have said that the Giants have their work cut out for them, but so do the Cubs. There is a silver lining: if they don’t manage to win today, they have two more tries to do it. But for the Giants, today is their last shot.