Kyle Schwarber is coming back for the Cubs in the World Series, and here’s what’s going to happen

Kyle Schwarber, possibly the world’s greatest DH-who-isn’t-a-DH, is returning to the Cubs just in time for the World Series to be their designated hitter. This is fun. This is very fun. And it might not work, or it might even end in disaster, but take a few minutes to appreciate the majesty of this all.

There might be dingers.

You should all enjoy the idea of Schwarber as a grand, unexpected World Series story. That’s probably because it combines two great, irresistible narratives into one great peanut-butter-and-narrative sandwich. The first great story is Injured Player Returns Just In Time. It’s a classic ‘50s movie, with a twist right before the third act that’s just cheesy enough to work.

The second great story is Schwarber existing in the first place. You can count the 100-percent-beef players on your hands, and one of them just retired. Baseball always does well when there are a few players who look like the personification of a long home run that destroys the windshield of a Mazda in the parking lot. There might not be a better player that fits that description in the game today than Schwarber.

It was absolutely dejecting when he went down for the season. We were robbed of so much. Do you know what this man is capable of?

Play the video, you moron.

Right, the video.

The other video, you moron.

Right, the other video.

The thumbnail for that video was not doctored. They actually had to use post-production to take the blue laser out of the footage. It was a 419-foot homer, which isn’t that special on the homer spectrum, but you can see why it was a big deal. It had the arc, the angle, the violence, the immediacy, and, perhaps most importantly, the beef.

There are downsides to Schwarber, of course. While looking for the search term “Kyle Schwarber catch” in the SB Nation photo tool, hoping to find a picture of him in catcher’s gear for a throwaway joke, these pictures came up:

He actually shows an underrated potential in left field, I promise! But it’s a reminder that he isn’t exactly Carlos Correa. He’s exciting because of one tool, not five.

But he’s not going to play in the outfield. He’s a designated hitter, the role he was born to play. As a WrestleMania emerge-from-the-dry-ice surprise, this will do. The Indians have to deal with Schwarber as a DH in the World Series, which seems like an unpleasant surprise, at best.

It will probably turn out in one of three ways:

Schwarber probably won’t do anything you remember, just because that’s the default likeliest scenario for everyone. Do you remember a big hit from Kendrys Morales for the Royals in the last World Series? What about Alex Rios? Eric Hosmer? Alex Gordon? OK, fine, maybe Gordon had one, but the point stands. A World Series can come and go without an individual player doing much more than keep a rally going that one time.

It’s far more likely for Schwarber to be the guy who takes a walk before the guy who singles before the guy who makes an out before the guy who hits the double that everyone remembers. And even that doesn’t have to happen. He might drop a couple of 0-for-4s in the first two games, pinch-hit a couple times at Wrigley, and the Cubs might win in five. He’s the story before the games begin, but baseball is a fickle dungeon master.

No one really knows how baseball-ready Schwarber is. Not the Cubs, not you, not Terry Francona. Intuitively, it shouldn’t be much different than a player coming back in July from a spring injury ... except that hypothetical player would have rehab time in the minors. At-bats against live, professional pitchers. Enough to feel comfortable, or at least a semblance of comfort.

Schwarber has a walk and three hitless at-bats worth of preparation. Now he’s going to face Corey Kluber. This seems bad.

And in the saddest scenario, Schwarber looks overmatched. Even worse, he’s overmatched in a way that directly affects the outcome of a game. Bases loaded, one out, a sac fly could tie the game in the ninth, and Schwarber rolls over a grounder to second. Because of course he did. He hasn’t seen a Cody Allen-quality pitch in almost a year. Here, you pretend you’re a batter who hasn’t seen a lot of live pitching for months:

If there’s a silver lining to this scenario, it’s that Schwarber will be insulated from a lot of the blame. The brain trust would take the brunt of it, but even that’s unfair. The Cubs have Schwarber available, so why wouldn’t they use him? Because he’s rusty? Maybe his bat is just un-tired. Probably didn’t think of that.

Clearly, Schwarber being a neo-Gibson to erase 108 years of sadness is the hero Cubs fans so desperately need in these troubled times. Imagine if the big World Series-deciding hit came from Schwarber, the player who was carried off the field in the first oh-no-we’re-doomed moment of 2016.

The Cubs had everything going for them — a young core, a bright front office, an ownership group that would spend to fill in the gaps — and before the first damned week is over, one of the pieces of that young core is out for the year. If you weren’t a Cubs fan who thought, “Oh. So this is how it happens. This is how the doom envelops us,” you weren’t paying attention.

The only thing that went unexpectedly awry for the Cubs in their historic season was Schwarber missing the season. Well, take a gander. He’s back. And if he gets the big hit that gives the Cubs their first title in over a century, it will be the biggest anti-curse the baseball gods have ever offered. What an olive branch that would be.

The unifying theory of all these scenarios? It’s what you would do. Rob Zastryzny has a fine future ahead of him, but the Cubs can make do without that extra pitcher. Especially when he’s exchanged for beef and thunder — a big, jagged lightning bolt of tenderloin coming out of the sky, scaring the hell out of the locals. This doesn’t have to work. It doesn’t have to be remembered.

But it has a chance to be absolutely perfect. Welcome back, Kyle Schwarber. My only regret is that the game couldn’t be 27 different at-bats between him and Danny Salazar.