The Next Series Has Actual Importance and Other Bullets

There are just nine games left in the season, which ends October 3. The wind down of the season has been bittersweet the last few years: while it feels like the end – finally – of months of agony, it’s also the last few times we get to see the Cubs play until March (or April, if you don’t count Spring Training).

  • The Cubs are off today for the last time this year, while the Rockies play the Diamondbacks. That is of note, of course, because the Rockies are currently a half-game worse than the Cubs (in the win column), and hold the second worst record in baseball. The next two teams behind the Cubs are the Twins and Indians, 5 and 4 games worse than the Cubs, respectively.
  • With a win today, the Rockies could be tied with the Cubs when the two teams start a three-game set in Colorado on Tuesday. I think it’s fair to debate the extent of the difference between picking second and picking third in the 2013 Draft, but you can’t debate that picking second is *some* amount better than picking third. Does that mean that, in the limited context of the series against the Rockies, Cubs fans should be rooting AGAINST the Cubs? Can you even bring yourself to do that? To shift your mindset that way? I’m not sure I can. But the rational part of my mind tells me two things: (1) whether the Cubs sweep the Rockies or are swept, nothing is changing the fact that this team is going to have had a miserable, playoff-less season; and (2) losing to the Rockies could help the Cubs, even if only a minuscule amount, in the future. From there, my mind takes me places I’d rather not confess in print.
  • Dale Sveum admits that now that his team is out of the playoff race, he watches the scoreboard in a different way. “You’re watching the scoreboard all the time to see what somebody’s doing – or not doing,” Sveum said. “If we play a day game, you’re like, ‘Oh, I’m going to get home and watch that.’ It’s just part of the game now.” You gotta take what you can from the game these days.
  • When discussing impressive young players this year, Sveum mentioned three relievers, for whatever it’s worth: Jaye Chapman, Rafael Dolis, and Alberto Cabrera.
  • The MLBullets at BCB check in on the playoff races around baseball.
  • written by

    Brett Taylor is the Lead Cubs Writer at Bleacher Nation, and you can find him on Twitter at @BleacherNation and on LinkedIn here. Brett is also the founder of Bleacher Nation, which opened up shop in 2008 as an independent blog about the Chicago Cubs. Later growing to incorporate coverage of other Chicago sports, Bleacher Nation is now one of the largest regional sports blogs on the web.

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