Javier Baez flipped his bat and dropped his head late Friday night, as if he knew something that the 42,148 fans jammed into Wrigley Field didn’t. Johnny Cueto had an idea, leaning his body and recoiling on the mound as he watched the ball drift out toward the left-field bleachers.

The San Francisco Giant with dreadlocks spilling out of his black hat had kept the entire Cubs lineup off-balance with his array of rocker-step, hurry-up, pause-button looks. It got to the point – zero-zero with one out in the eighth inning – where Baez actually walked up to the plate thinking bunt.

Instead, Baez reacted to Cueto’s 3-2 quick pitch and launched a 92-mph fastball that cut through the crosswind and landed in the basket beneath the small video-board ribbon. Giants outfielder Angel Pagan jumped helplessly, his back crashing into the brick wall. Just like that, a vicious Baez swing became the turning point in a 1-0 instant classic, the Cubs taking Game 1 and control of this best-of-five National League Division Series.

“I really thought I hit it really good – I thought it was way farther than that,” Baez said. “It barely went out, but I will still take it. Didn’t mean to show anybody up.”

The press box started shaking, the way it did last October when the Cubs eliminated the St. Louis Cardinals from the playoffs. Baez landed a knockout punch in that decisive Game 4, blasting a three-run homer off future Cub John Lackey. Cubs fans waited 352 days for this, going back to the moment the New York Mets swept their team out of the NL Championship Series, a surprise joyride that left everyone wanting more. Chairman Tom Ricketts and Theo Epstein’s baseball-operations crew slammed on the accelerator, investing almost $290 million in detail work on free agents who would help steer them toward 103 wins.

The stars came out for this, Eddie Vedder taking a selfie during batting practice, Mike Ditka hanging around the cage and Dwyane Wade shown on the big video board. A Fox Sports 1 camera cut to a fist-pumping Bill Murray just before and right after the Baez homer.

“Javy’s just Javy,” said Jason Heyward, the Gold Glove outfielder who defected from that St. Louis team, signing a $184 million contract and accepting the World Series-or-else mandate. “He’s going up there trying to get his pitch to hit. If it’s not there for him, he lays off. And if it’s there for him, he’s swinging.

“That’s how our lineup is as a whole. Whether we get out, or whether we get a hit, we’re going to go up there, have our at-bat and make you have to make your pitches. And (Cueto) was making his pitches.”

That’s not how you would have described Baez in 2014 – when he struck out 95 times during his first 52 games in The Show – but Epstein’s front office never traded him to address the organization’s pitching deficit and even hired Manny Ramirez to work with him.

An aggressive, sometimes out-of-control player began to mature, impacted by the death of his sister at the beginning of last season. That spring training, Joe Maddon – a manager who digs run prevention – came in with a set of fresh eyes and raved about the instincts and baseball IQ. Baez is now a Gold Glove-caliber defender without a set position, a slick middle infielder with natural power (14 homers in 450 plate appearances) and no everyday spot in this lineup this season.

“It’s a different guy every night,” catcher David Ross said. “It’s just nice for that to come true in the playoffs. It doesn’t always have to be the MVP candidates. It sometimes can be the guys that don’t play every day. And Javy’s been a superstar for us all year.”

On a different Cubs team in another generation, Baez would be treated that way. Now, at the age of 23, he is just another freakishly talented guy in the clubhouse and not the forced face of the franchise. That’s why – even during what promises to be a tense battle with the even-year Giants – Cubs fans won’t feel the anxiety of watching a one-off team trying to catch lightning in a bottle.

“That guy has a flair for the dramatic,” MVP frontrunner Kris Bryant said. “He’s kind of the X-factor, (even with all the) good players on this team. Just to look at his progression of when he first got called up, to last year, to this year, it’s night and day.

“He’s confident and that type of attitude is infectious. I don’t make the tags that he does – or make the plays that he does – but he does his thing. And that’s kind of what Joe has been preaching this whole time: Just be yourself.”

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So much for all the rust the Cubs were supposed to accumulate during the three weeks after they clinched the division title. Or all of San Francisco’s wild-card momentum after Madison Bumgarner beat the Mets. Jon Lester – another big-game lefty with two World Series rings of his own – shut down the Giants for eight innings before Aroldis Chapman notched the save.

This is exactly the type of playoff game the Giants won during their World Series runs in 2010, 2012 and 2014. The crowd chanting “CUE-TO! CUE-TO!” didn’t bother him. Cueto retired the first 10 hitters he faced, finished with 10 strikeouts, didn’t give up a walk and could only regret one of his 118 pitches. The Cubs used the Giants’ pitching-and-defense-and-just-enough-clutch-hitting formula against them. This was Javy Being Javy.

“I was just waiting for him to make a mistake,” Baez said. “And he finally did.”