NEWSLETTER
Like I said yesterday, you just can’t know the real low point when it’s happening. Maybe this is it for the Cubs. Maybe this is the middle of a much longer low point. Or maybe something even worse happens in the second half.
But I didn’t wake up feeling all that stuff today. Maybe it was the limited sleep or the good pitching performances yesterday or the fact that the Cubs were about 2 degrees on a Javy Baez deep fly ball away from actually winning that game last night. Whatever the reason, I woke up instead thinking about kinda resetting where things stand for the Cubs after this five-game losing streak.
First of all, the Cubs are now just 8 games over .500, with a .553 winning percentage, 4th best in the National League.
Despite losing five in a row, the Cubs have fallen only 2.5 games back of the Milwaukee Brewers, who are tied with the Braves for the best record in the NL. The Cubs have only two more losses than the Brewers, and are 1.5 games ahead of the Cardinals.
Those Brewers do not have the toughest schedule coming up in terms of the teams they play, but get this: they do not have an off-day between now and the break, and will play 21 games in 20 days. Moreover, 12 of those games are on the road, including the last eight. If they come out of that stretch with 12 or more wins, they will have definitely earned it.
The Cubs, meanwhile, have a similarly light schedule, but have three off-days before the break, and a more even split of home/road games.
(The Brewers, by the way, come out of the break against the Dodgers, Nationals, at Giants, at Dodgers.)
If you can divorce yourself for a moment from the very, very bad feelings of the past week, it’s not at all difficult to look at the black and white and see the Cubs leading the NL Central by the time teams break for the All-Star Game. Baseball is, of course, delightfully screwy, so the paper doesn’t always tell you much. Lots of things can happen. But the road ahead looks not too shabby, especially with the Cubs soon getting back some very key players.
And, hey, the Cubs are still leading the Wild Card pack!
So, anyway, a lot of this is to say that the Brewers might pull back a bit. But the more important questions remain about what you think of this Cubs team. Better than they’ve shown? Or doomed to disappoint?
Based on the talent on the roster and the track records involved, I still think the better estimate is that this is a team that will win many more games than they lose from here on out, and it will probably be enough to take this division. Although we’ve seen some pleasant surprises, by and large, the Cubs’ key players have underperformed. It’s possible they’ll underperform the whole way, but that’s generally not the wise bet when stacked against the weight of evidence.
