I Am So Tired of This Road BS (Among Other Things) and Other Bullets

“I realized these were all the snapshots which our children would look at someday with wonder, thinking their parents had lived smooth, well-ordered lives and got up in the morning to walk proudly on the sidewalks of life, never dreaming the raggedy madness and riot of our actual lives, our actual night, the hell of it, the senseless emptiness.” ― Jack Kerouac, ‘On the Road’

  • Hey, so the Cubs lost another game on the road, dropping them to a nearly comical 23-36 away from Wrigley Field, and yielding a horrifying set of truths:
  • The series winless streak on the road would be remarkable at this point even in a bad season. It wouldn’t be shocking, but it’d be like, “wow, these guys are so bad they haven’t even won a series on the road in the last 12 tries!” I would totally write that! And yet this team is leading its division by a game. What a freaking miracle.
  • Part of what has spared them is at least not getting swept repeatedly on the road. In those previously 11 series losses or splits, the Cubs were swept just once – in St. Louis, all the way back on May 31 to June 2. So, I guess, good job doing the minimum non-awful thing?
  • Gotta admit, I’m dead tired of talking about the Cubs on the road thing. Want it to be over. I can’t imagine how the players feel having to think and talk about it constantly.
  • Also, kinda tired of seeing Albert Almora continue to draw any starts whatsoever (especially against reverse-split lefties … wtf). The guy is now hitting .243/.275/.397 (70 wRC+) on the year. Just stop. Maybe you still believe in him, which, whatever. But it ain’t just gonna click at this point after more than a calendar year of terrible. It’s going to take another offseason (if anything changes at all). Since he apparently will not be optioned to Iowa no matter what, then limit the damage. He can play defense late in the game, and pinch hit when the alternative is a pitcher. Regroup in the offseason. Lots of natural talent there, but stop acting like it’s all been bad luck or some switch is just magically going to flip.
  • (Photo by Mitchell Leff/Getty Images)

  • As for what the Brewers are probably tired of thinking about, it’s this, which happened again last night to Josh Hader:
  • https://twitter.com/Twins/status/1161478478467915776

  • I wanted to use this Getty image for the feature in this post, because the emotion is so perfect … but Nick Castellanos has been awesome, which kinda would have made it not make sense:
  • About the Phillies’ decision to fire John Mallee as hitting coach … yikes:
  • Probably about the hunger:
  • Whoops:
  • In conclusion:
  • 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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