PITTSBURGH — The hot, young talent. The emerging ace with the electric stuff. The relentlessly upbeat manager. The giddy relief that comes with washing away years of futility.
Andrew McCutchen has seen this script before.
Two years ago, it was the star center fielder and the rest of the Pittsburgh Pirates who found themselves as baseball's new darlings when they crashed the playoffs for the first time in two decades.
Now it's the Chicago Cubs, whose rebuilding project hit warp speed somewhere between Joe Maddon's hire last winter and rookie slugger Kris Bryant's arrival in April.