The New York Mets have built their team on young pitching, but it was a new style of play that really gave them a leg up in the National League Championship Series.
In the regular season, the Mets were second to last in Major League Baseball (and last in the NL) in stolen bases, but they came out running on the Cubs and it was a huge reason for the series sweep.
The Cubs had issues all year in slowing down the running game, and it goes beyond just Jon Lester's "yips" in throwing to first base.
"We're always working diligently to become better at that," Cubs manager Joe Maddon said before Wednesday's Game 4 loss. "I can't disagree that we've not been the best at that. It's something we're always looking forward to getting better with.
"But it's just a work in progress. No, we don't just say don't worry about the runner. We don't say that at all. We have to get better at it."
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The Mets stole five bases in the first three games of series and then Curtis Granderson and Wilmer Flores both came out and swiped second in the first inning of Game 4.
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In the regular season, the Mets stole third base just five times total. In the NLCS, they stole third in each of the first three games and all three guys came around to score on a sacrifice fly, a groundout and a dropped third strike - ways they would not have scored from second base.
That's three runs in a series where the Cubs managed just five runs off the Mets' young pitching in the first three games
"In general, they just have played well," Maddon said. "They've played really well. They've done little things well and they've taken advantage of us in different moments. We've not been able to overcome because we're not hitting the ball like we normally can.
"This time of the year, everything does magnify a bit."
In Game 3 Tuesday, Cubs reliever Trevor Cahill lost track of Yoenis Cespedes on second base and the Mets outfielder stole third easily, eventually coming around to score the game-winning run on a wild pitch/dropped third strike.
That play had Cubs catcher Miguel Montero frustrated after the game.
"The guy was almost sliding into third when the pitcher still had the ball in his hand," Montero said. "That's what's been happening this year.
"We need to do a little better job holding the runners and changing the looks and things like that. But we really don't have time for that [now]."
Mets manager Terry Collins said before the NLCS started that his team would not change their style of play and change their identity, even if it meant taking advantage of the Cubs' weakness.
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Obviously, that was not the case.
"Well, we came in knowing that we had to be a little aggressive on the bases, something we don't normally do," Collins said. "We're not that kind of team. But we told the guys, look, if you get on and you think you can go, go.
"... We saw the numbers and teams steal bases against them, so we thought we could give it a shot. Even though we don't have perhaps the speed other teams have throughout the lineup, we've got a couple guys who can run, so we're doing - [first base coach Tom Goodwin] does a great job of investigating how and why teams are able to run.
"So we're trying to use a little bit of that in ourselves to see if we can set up some runs."
Mission accomplished.