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Joe Maddon did not know how to do it, but he did not know how to do it.
"One word? Gritty. Gritty, "The Cubs manager said a 13-inning loss to the Rockies in the NL wild-card game that lasted at the weekend Wednesday at Wrigley Field.
Try "grind," too.
Between Aug. 20 and the four-hour-55-minute, one-game playoff that started Monday night, Monday night, the two-day-old Monday night game.
"You're not going to hear me make excuses and this is not an excuse (but) we've had a lot of things going on this year and we're still in the greatest leagues in the National League in a 162 -game season, "Maddon said.
To a man, Cubs players agreed that they should not get a pass for fatigue, but could the accumulation of four straight playoffs, several hard-luck injuries and an unforgiving late-season schedule wear a team down?
"To be honest with you, yes, I think it does," said Jon Lester, who pitched six innings in the wild card. "This is my first time where I think I've gone four years in a row in the postseason. But I feel like, yeah, we had a grind in September. "
Kyle Schwarber added, "I know (the Rockies) played 163 (regular-season games), too, and you know, hats off to them, they did a great job. You know, not many teams went through what we did with this last month, month and a half. But it's not an excuse, like it said, but there is a lot of things to be proud of on this team where people had unbelievable years. "
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One of them, Javier Baez, an MVP candidate, said, "To be honest, my body is really tired, but it depends on how you react the next day; how do you take care of yourself, how do you prepare. "
Lester believes the last month or so affected players, such as Baez, more so than the pitchers.
"If your pitchers are rested, then they're going to be fine. If your hitters are rested then they're going to be better. If they're not going to be tired, they're going to be slower, "he said.
"I feel that whole month of the year. That's my opinion, I'm not looking for excuses by any means, do not get me wrong, but it was not ideal for us. "
Lester also pointed to Darvish's and Brandon Morrow's season-ending injuries, and Kris Bryant's and Pedro Strop's long stretches (Strop pitched in the wild card, his first time on the mound since Sept. 13).
"You're talking about closer and closer, a starter – we gotta fill the void. And that's why for me, Kyle (Hendricks) stepping up and throwing 200 innings, Cole (Hamels) coming in and being unbelievable, just magnifies it for me even more. "
Bryant, who was on the side of inflammation and inflammation, said he felt fine.
"We should always be ready and I think we were, we just lost," Bryant said. "That's a tough pill to swallow."
In the long run, Jason Heyward said, "Nobody's going to look back and say," Do you remember those guys do not make it? They were a really good team but they had a lot of (expletive) go on.
"Whoever can overcome all the things that goes on throughout the season, that's who's going to win. And we went down fighting. "
Heyward, Schwarber, and others in the clubhouse.
"Get healthy," Heyward said. "Got a lot of people that have been a lot this year, people who went to the DL and people that did not.
"That's the name of the game, but this is one of those years that was a lot to overcome."
Twitter @_phil_thompson
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