PLAYOFF PERTUZ

Fabian Pertuz Looks For Another South Bend Cubs Ring While Having His Eyes Set On Wrigley Field

By: Brendan King

Every championship team in any given sport can always point for specific moments in their season that acted as turning points in the quest to the top. For the South Bend Cubs and their 2022 Midwest League Championship, you can point to multiple highlight memories.

Owen Caissie’s walk-off grand slam comes to mind, or all those comeback wins at Four Winds Field. But a late June of 2022 summer night is what started the true belief. South Bend had been in a battle against the Cedar Rapids Kernels that final week of June in Downtown South Bend. Coincidentally, the Kernels would be the team the Cubs would meet in the first round of the Midwest League postseason.

On June 25, Fabian Pertuz ripped a walk-off RBI single to beat Cedar Rapids. That was the point in the year that the South Bend roster was really morphing into what it would ultimately become; Championship level. Pertuz was the guy that had been there all along though. He hit the first home run of the year on Opening Day, and that walk-off rifled the Cubs up the standings in their pursuit of the postseason.

After the game, Pertuz spoke on the field with Max Thoma for the postgame interview. In an answer that has resonated since last

June with the team and media, Pertuz said simply, “I want to go to the playoffs.”

It was from that moment that things changed. The playoffs became the obsession of that team, and they in turn reached their goal. Not just appearing, but dominating to a championship.

Since then, Pertuz is the same easy-going, confident, and genuine personality that South Bend Cubs fans got to know on an everyday basis last year. He’s back with South Bend to start 2023,and since last September, he’s gone through multiple new life experiences on the diamond.

Credit: Langston Johnson.

What’s the same? The goal. The only thing that Pertuz has his eyes locked in on is winning.

“Our goal is to do it again,” Pertuz said. “The guys on this team came here to play hard not just today, but everyday. I believe in this team and these guys. Whether they are players here right now, or if they come from Myrtle Beach or the ACL (Arizona Complex League), I believe that with this coaching staff we can go to the championship again.”