105-mph express to World Series? Chapman’s time arrives for Cubs

Everything starts Friday night. But the key to everything the Cubs plan to do this month could come down to how they finish.

That’s why the hardest-throwing pitcher in the game, Aroldis Chapman, is on the Cubs’ roster. That’s why lights-out closer Hector Rondon was bumped to a setup role. And that new-look, deeper bullpen is a big reason why the Cubs are every sports book’s favorites to win the World Series.

Certainly, for now, it’s also the biggest on-paper disparity that jumps off the page separating the Cubs from the October-tested Giants in the five-game National League Division Series that opens at 8:15 p.m. Friday at Wrigley Field.

The Cubs got within four wins of the World Series a year ago with a bullpen of young guys and castoffs.

This year they look more like the Kansas City Royals’ playoff prototype than the Royals’ own power bullpens from the last two World Series.

With Chapman – whose fastball has reached 105 mph this season – the Cubs open the postseason with a bullpen that can send a parade of 95-plus-mph pitchers into a game.

Two of them were a pair of the best-performing closers in the game (before 97-mph fastball-slider pitcher Rondon moved to the eighth inning).

One of them, Carl Edwards Jr., is a rookie who joins Pedro Strop and Justin Grimm in a powerful middle-setup crew.

“It just shortens the game for the other team, and they know that they only have so much time,” said Cubs second baseman Ben Zobrist, who watched the model work up close as a member of the Royals’ championship team last year.

“They know they only have so much time before the game is over in their minds, mentally. If we have the lead going into the sixth, or seventh inning, they’re in trouble, because they’re going to have to face some of the best relievers in the game the last few innings.”

With three championships in the last six years, the Giants aren’t bowing to mind games just yet. In fact, they’re the reasons the Royals don’t have back-to-back titles, having defeated Kansas City and its vaunted bullpen in the World Series two years ago.

On the other hand, the Giants have struggled to close games this season, especially during a miserable second half – leading the majors with 30 blown saves, including and MLB-high nine by since-demoted closer Santiago Casilla.

“It’s going to play a big part in every series,” Giants manager Bruce Bochy said of postseason bullpen work. “It’s kind of nice last night [in the wild-card game] it didn’t play a part in it, but these starters aren’t going to go nine every game. And you have to have your guys down there that you believe in, which we do.

“I think our bullpen has really settled down and done a much better job here recently,” said Bochy, who has returned former closer Sergio Romo to the ninth-inning role.

But it is Chapman who was acquired as a midseason mercenary to be the back-end difference in October.

The Cubs’ front office was more aggressive at the trade deadline than it had been in the regime’s four previous seasons combined, giving up the organization’s top prospect (shortstop Gleyber Torres) and choosing to deal with the heat of domestic-violence allegations in Chapman’s past in order to acquire the one piece of a championship puzzle that might have been missing.

“If not now, when?” team president Theo Epstein said of the baseball decision at the time.

First baseman Anthony Rizzo after the trade: “We’re making a statement here.”

They also kept Chapman from becoming a ninth-inning force against them in the playoffs – a pitcher the Giants briefly pursued as well.

“It was as different trade season for us because we were in first place; we felt like we had a really good chance to win the division,” general manager Jed Hoyer said. “I think it’s been shown [in postseason history], the Giantrs had those three playoff teams and those were great bullpens with [Javy] Lopez, and Romo and [Brian] Wilson and Casilla.

“And obviously the Royals the last two years with their bullpens.”

Since the July 25 trade from the Yankees, Chapman has the league’s best ERA (1.01) among pitchers with at least 20 innings, and he has 16 saves in 18 chances.

“We were certainly mindful of the postseason when we made that move,” team president Theo Epstein said.

“Your closer pitches to a much greater percentage of the hitters in the postseason than he does in the regular season because with the off days he can pitch every game, you’re more likely to use him for more than just three outs, and it’s the end of the year, and it’s the end of the year and everything’s on the line so you put the ball in the hands of your best pitcher.”

Not to mention what his addition does, in theory, for lengthening the depth and quality of the late-inning power crew.

“He takes our bullpen to that next level,” Zobrist said, “where the game is at least an inning shorter.”