Like a hopeful idiot, I pointed out that the Rockies are still kinda decent at home, and thus maybe the Cardinals wouldn’t have a cakewalk this week. I was right! But the idiot part was forgetting that it doesn’t matter in the least if the Cubs have no interest in winning games in San Diego.
Thus, the Cardinals lost again to the Rockies, but they get to party anyway, because the Cubs lost, too, thus dropping the Cardinals’ magic number.
And it gets worse, my friends! The Brewers beat the Marlins again (some teams take care of business against inferior competition, even when they are missing their MVP), thus pulling them back into a tie with the Cubs. Remember when the Cubs blew an opportunity to roast the Brewers’ season by just beating them a couple times? COOOOOOOOOOL.
So now we’ve got an NL Central that features both the Cubs and Brewers 4.0 games back of the Cardinals, and a Wild Card race that has seen the Cubs fall 3.5 games behind the WC1 Nationals, and into a tie with the Brewers for WC2. WHO’S READY FOR ANOTHER GAME 163 AGAINST THE BREWERS, BABY!?!?
Meanwhile, the Mets (2.0), Phillies (2.0), and Diamondbacks (2.5) are all lurking, too. If the Cubs don’t get on one of their “oh wow they figured it out lol” streaks soon, they could be passed by a variety of clubs before the end of the season.
I suppose I’m grateful that, at this point, we know what the Cubs are, which means we don’t have to keep thinking the talent is going to take over and translate to wins. It might! It might do so enough for them to make the playoffs! But it sure as hell isn’t some expectation, because this is a club that is simply going to underperform its talent. They’ve told us for nearly six months who they are as a unit.
Man. I’m on one this morning. Go get some coffee, Bert …