I don’t know what it was about yesterday’s doubleheader sweep. It came after a couple days off, and those days off came after a couple losses in St. Louis, so that was probably what did it.
Folks really started railing on the Cubs and the rebuild. To my mind, yesterday sucked for all of the reasons everyone is saying, but I have a hard time understanding how a crappy performance against two great pitchers and a good team by the 2014 Cubs says much of anything about the long-term rebuilding process. Like I’ve said before – and I get the sense I’ll be banging this drum all year – this kind of thing is what we expected. Sure, it was nice to dream about the surprise upside of a young and versatile roster (it is still those things), but there’s a reason that every projection you could find (including my own, if you pinned me down) had the Cubs barely squeaking out 70 wins this year.
Don’t lose your stuff over days like yesterday. That’s the kind of thing that’s going to happen a lot this year. It is “expected,” even if not “hoped” for.
Being that today’s an off-day, and the aforementioned struggles have parked the Cubs at a lousy 4-10 record so far this year, I thought it would be interesting (or depressing?) to look back on the Cubs’ 14-game record over the past several seasons. There’s no real lesson here – I was just curious.
2013: 5-9 Start, 66-96 Final Record
2012: 3-11 Start, 61-101 Final Record
2011: 7-7 Start, 71-91 Final Record
2010: 5-9 Start, 75-87 Final Record
2009: 8-6 Start, 83-78 Final Record
2008: 9-5 Start, 97-64 Final Record
2007: 5-9 Start, 85-77 Final Record
2006: 9-5 Start, 66-96 Final Record
2005: 7-7 Start, 79-83 Final Record
Man, Cubs fans haven’t had a lot of fun in the first few weeks of the season over the last decade. Just thrice in 10 season the Cubs started with a winning record over the first 14 games. One of those season wound up seeing the Cubs as one of the best teams in baseball; the other saw them as one of the worst. I guess you can’t always tell a lot from 14 games.
As for this season, I don’t think there’s a 2007-like turnaround in the cards. I doubt the Cubs will match their .286 winning percentage for the rest of the year, but it’s probably going to be another slog.