For the first time since last July 28 — his final game with the Cubs before he was dealt to the Yankees — Anthony Rizzo faced the team with which he spent nine-and-a-half seasons and established himself first as a major leaguer and then as a star.
Rizzo could look across to the opposing dugout before Friday night’s 2-1 victory in 13 innings and see the same uniform, but not the same faces. Only Willson Contreras remains as a core member, with Javier Baez and Kris Bryant also traded away.
For a better look at the great Cubs teams he once played on, Rizzo thinks he just has to peer inside his own dugout.
The Yankees’ first baseman is getting flashbacks of the 2016, drought-ending World Series Cubs.
The 10-7 win Thursday at Minnesota was “a prime example,” Rizzo said, with the Yankees rallying after Gerrit Cole put them in a 7-3 hole through three innings.
They climbed out quickly.
“Our ace gives up a bunch of runs,” Rizzo said before going 0-for-4 with a walk on Friday. “In the dugout we’re just like, ‘All right, here we go.’ Not even like a let’s-go-get-’em. We all just gave each other the look.”
He remembers that look from April 7, 2016. With John Lackey on the mound against Arizona, the Cubs were down 3-0 after an inning and 6-4 after three.
The Cubs then ran off the game’s final 10 runs.
“Very similar. [Lackey] gave up a bunch of runs,” said Rizzo, who was typically the No. 3 hitter for those 2016 Cubs, who defeated Cleveland in seven games in the World Series. “We all just looked at each other and went, ‘Here we go.’
“It’s just that confidence [the Yankees have] built now that we know we can do something special.”
Rizzo caught up with former teammate and former manager David Ross as well as ex-teammates such as Jason Heyward before facing off with the team he led from 2012 until the trade deadline last year. He said it would be fun to play against them, if not as emotional as he expects any potential trip to Wrigley Field would be.
The 32-year-old said his time in Chicago was “some of the best years of my baseball career.” He has no complaints about where he landed — on a Yankees squad that made the postseason last season and has been the best team in MLB this year — but did not anticipate the teardown that was coming to his old team.
“I didn’t think that was going to happen the way it did,” Rizzo said of the Cubs, who were 50-53 when they shipped out Rizzo for prospects last year. “But in this game, it’s really hard to win.”
Rizzo was on a Cubs team that lost 100 games and the championship club that won 100 and the World Series. He watched the team load up, and he watched teammates who were used to losing become accustomed to winning.
He’s seeing that again.
“We have [Jose] Trevino and Isiah [Kiner-Falefa] and Joey [Gallo] winning now for the first time,” said Rizzo, who added Gallo was a part of the 2016, AL West-winning Rangers (but not on their playoff roster). “But just seeing how wide-eyed they are and how much fun they’re having — not that we’re all not having fun — but they’re seeing this for the first time.”
Rizzo hopes he’s seeing it for a second time.