We’ve seen it enough over the years with this Cubs group to know that the kinds of HUGE offensive explosions we’ve seen this week were always possible, but they don’t necessarily tell us all that much about what’s coming next. The only consistency has been inconsistency, and scoring 1, 3, and 14 runs over a three-game stretch is usually not as valuable as scoring 6, 6, and 6.
So, that is to say, when I sum up the state of the Cubs’ offense statistically, just know that there’s a lot of fun being had, and not necessarily a lot of prediction being had. The blowouts are massively fun, but I want to see what happens when the Cubs face some good pitching again.
OK. About the fun. The Cubs erupted for 15 runs yesterday, their second laugher output in three days, and a continuation of an offensive outburst we’ve seen overall since that game last Saturday against the Braves:
The Cubs came into the game with a team slash line of just .200/.300/.370, with an 87 wRC+, tied for 26th in baseball. After the game? The team slash is up to .215/.313/.407 with a 99 wRC+, tied for 12th in baseball. Oh, and remember, they’re an NL team in a year with no DH. Take out pitchers, and that wRC+ jumps to 107, tied for 9th in baseball. Third best in the National League. Yes, the Cubs right now have the third best offense in the National League.
They’ve scored the 12th most runs in baseball this year (89, of which 55 have come in the last six games, alone). And heck, they now even have a team batting average that’s better than five other teams. Remember that whole thing?!
Basically, as of this moment, the Cubs have a better than average offense, by the statistics. Remarkable, given that less than a week ago, they were the literal worst offense in baseball. Now the question that I hinted at up at the top – how much does this past week of explosion tell us? Versus how much did the three-ish weeks before that tell us?
Well, we’ll start to get an answer this weekend, given that the Cubs will face a couple starting pitchers in Freddy Peralta and Brandon Woodruf who have absolutely owned them already this year.