In the bedlam of the clubhouse, where Joe Maddon wore a wet suit and Theo Epstein wore athletic shorts drenched in a boozy mix of beer and champagne, there was order. Not in any OCD sense, with pressed uniforms neatly hung, spikes buffed, luggage packed. But with this baseball season, order is restored.

Just an hour before, the San Francisco Giants were threatening to hijack yet another October, which is what they do. But there is no disputing that for all the admirable qualities the Giants possess, and there are many, this year was about the Chicago Cubs when it began. That’s the way these playoffs were supposed to proceed. It is about the Cubs still.

It is about the Cubs because, when they faced a three-run, ninth-inning deficit against the franchise that is the October standard, they spit on it. It is about the Cubs because for once, a Giants’ weakness that surfaced during the regular season — in this case, a bullpen that was simply wretched when it was handed a lead — actually resurfaced again in the playoffs.

[Nationals get to Kershaw, but bullpen finally breaks as Dodgers force Game 5]

And it is about the Cubs because they beat the Giants 6-5 in Game 4 of this National League Division Series, staying alive for another round, staving off the dread the entire city of Chicago would have felt had there been a need for a fifth and decisive game Thursday night.

“Every group has to kind of find that identity,” infielder-outfielder Ben Zobrist said. “We did it during the season. But you still have to find that identity in the postseason as well.”

They are doing that. For the second straight year, the Cubs — the Cubs! — will play in the National League Championship Series, a series that will begin Saturday at Wrigley Field against either the Washington Nationals or the Los Angeles Dodgers. Their identity, when they arrive there, will not only be the best team in baseball — not only the team that defined the themes of the season by being labeled preseason favorites and delivering 103 wins — but as a group that is growing hardened in the postseason. The team they dismissed, the Giants, had won 10 straight playoff games in which they faced elimination. They had faced 11 postseason opponents going back to 2010, and ended all of their seasons.

[Boswell: Nationals head home with plenty of good omens on their side]

“They’re the October standard,” said Epstein, the Cubs president.

What a heady thought that his Cubs could someday become just that.

Let’s wait on that coronation, and consider the step Chicago took Tuesday night. When San Francisco lefty Matt Moore, a trade-deadline acquisition from Tampa Bay, somehow twirled eight innings of two-hit ball, and the Giants took a 5-2 lead into the ninth, the tension in Chicago was nearly palpable half a country away. Yes, the Cubs would have hosted the fifth game on Thursday, and yes, they would have had Cy Young contender Jon Lester going that night.

But at some point, a 107-year span without a World Series title creeps into a town’s psyche. And the specifics of that matchup — with the specter of San Francisco’s Johnny Cueto pitching against the Cubs, who he has fairly owned — crept into the minds of the most important actors in Chicago’s dugout.

“Johnny Cueto was etched all over my frontal lobe,” said Maddon, the manager. “And I didn’t like it.”

Before this series, Maddon met with his group. Baseball is not a rah-rah sport, and Maddon is not a rah-rah guy. But there are times to deliver messages, and before the postseason begins is one of them. Maddon’s group had pedigree, ranking in the top three in baseball in runs scored, on-base percentage, on-base-plus-slugging percentage, earned run average and the advanced fielding metric of defensive runs saved. Translated, for non-baseball nerds: they can hit, pitch and defend better than almost any team in the game.

Yet Maddon’s message addressed none of that. Rather, he spoke of the inevitability of a situation like Tuesday’s.

“I said that something bad’s going to happen and we have to stay in the moment and maintain our composure,” Maddon said in the clubhouse Tuesday night. “That was the exact message. Something bad’s going to happen. It always does. Whenever you look out in a postseason game, and when you’re closing somebody else out, you see a look in the other team’s face, in their eyes. I don’t want to be that group, ever.”

The Giants aren’t that group, by definition. They were the team that was down a run in the eighth inning of Game 3, already facing a two-games-to-none deficit, and took the lead. They were the team that absorbed a gut-punch of a tying ninth-inning home run and won in 13.

But this San Francisco team had a flaw, and it was its bullpen. Bruce Bochy, the Giants’ deft manager, used Moore to get the first 24 outs. He had a bevy of pitchers to try to get the final three.

“That has been a problem for us,” Bochy said.

So the particulars. Bochy went for matchups from the start, beginning with right-hander Derek Law to try to get Kris Bryant, going to lefty Javier Lopez on Anthony Rizzo, turning to his de facto closer Sergio Romo for the switch-hitting Zobrist. The results: single, walk, and Zobrist’s run-scoring double that left the tying runs in scoring position.

“That’s the big blow,” was Maddon’s estimation.

But it was still just 5-3, albeit with no outs. With that, Bochy turned to lefty Will Smith, who originally was supposed to face veteran left-handed hitter Chris Coghlan. But when Smith came in, Maddon turned to rookie catcher Willson Contreras as a pinch hitter. Smith delivered a 1-1 slider. Contreras delivered a two-run single that tied the game.

“Every little bit of postseason experience I think matters and makes you better,” Epstein said.

Contreras now has his. And after Jason Heyward laid down a poor bunt — but ended up on second anyway, because Giants shortstop Brandon Crawford threw away a potential double-play ball — Javier Baez came to the plate.

Baez is a mesmerizing player, but most often with his glove. On this October night, both a tag he made to catch Denard Span stealing and a throw he made as he tumbled away from first — failing to retire Span only on a replay overturn — would have registered among the best for that day. Here, he faced right-hander Hunter Strickland — Bochy’s fifth pitcher of the inning — and got a 99-mph, 0-2 fastball.

Baez sent it to center. Heyward scored the go-ahead run. The Cubs all but exploded out of the dugout, as if they had walked it off.

But they were in San Francisco, so there was the matter of finishing the Giants, which no one had done — ever, it would seem. Aroldis Chapman finished with a clean ninth, though, and AT&T Park felt odd.

“It’s a strange feeling,” Bochy said. “It kind of gives you an empty stomach, to go out like this.”

But step back on 2016. It was about the Cubs when it began, and it is about the Cubs still. In assessing it all, Maddon wore his wet suit, the only one in his collection, because by his own admission he is a “baby” when it comes to the champagne’s chill as it soaks into one’s clothes.

“The biggest thing is that it demonstrates, even if you get behind, you play nine innings hard the entire way, anything can possibly happen,” Maddon said. “It validates the concept. Everybody knows it’s true. But it’s always nice to get validation.”

Across the room, Lester snuck up behind Epstein and poured a beer on his head.

“It feels good, don’t it?” Lester said.

“When it hits the lips!” Epstein responded, trying to steal a sip.

These are the unimaginable scenes that 2016 was supposed to deliver, euphoric Cubs congratulating each other. They now have at least another week to see if they can keep baseball’s focus where it has been all season, squarely on them.