Winning the Norm for Chicago Cubs, 2015 World Series Title Next?

Christmas could come early to Chicago this year. That is, if you are a Cubs fan. The lovable losers of yore are gone, replaced by the mad professor, a smooth fielding 1st baseman who is a superstar in the making, and, of course, a phenom rookie at 3rd base who has the knack for doing the dramatic. Winning has become the norm in 2015 on the corner of Addison and Vine. So will this be the year that the Chicago Cubs break the worst title drought in American sports history and win a World Series title?

Since August 2, the Chicago Cubs have gone from a possible playoff team to a, dare we say it, likely contender. In that time frame, they've gone 9-1 and have put some space between themselves and the chasing San Francisco Giants. An article on FoxSports sees the reason for the upturn, "Manager Joe Maddon's decision to insert rookie Kyle Schwarber's bat into the lineup stole the headlines (Schwarber has four homers, two doubles and 12 RBI in his past nine games). But right fielder Jorge Soler is hitting .314 with a .400 on-base percentage and nine RBI in his past 10 games and just had a 10-game hitting streak snapped Wednesday."

The Cubs now have the fourth most amount of wins in baseball and currently occupy the final wild card spot. The problem is that two of the teams with more wins than them reside in the National League Central. In its current guise, the Chicago Cubs face what many consider an uphill challenge. If Pittsburgh and Chicago remain the wild card entrance, the Cubs would have to go through division rivals twice just to get to the World Series. Of course, the same holds for Pittsburgh and St. Louis. Head to head records, according to Baseball Reference, the Cubs, as of August 15th, are 7-5 against the Pirates and 4-9 versus the Cardinals. If the standings remain the same, Chicago would have to travel to Pittsburgh for a one game playoff where they are 3-3 so far this year. The Pirates are 39-18 at home.

With only one game to play with, there is no tomorrow for the Cubs. No doubt, they would rather that one game be in Wrigley Field. However, that said the Cubs do have the most road wins in. Yet, if they do get past Pittsburgh, they will have to go to St. Louis where the Pirates and they are a combined 2-11 and historically don't play well anyway.

However, as everyone knows, those all those statistics are meaningless once the first pitch is thrown.