NEWSLETTER
Feel like it’s been a while since you’ve seen the Cubs knock in a runner from second or third with a solid single? It’s not your imagination! It’s been a full week!
To be sure, some of that is the fact that the Cubs had three off-days this past week. But it’s not like the empty number isn’t an enormous one:
Cubs are 0-40 with runners in scoring position since P.J. Higgins hit an RBI double in the eighth inning of last Sunday's game vs. St. Louis.
Cubs have scored a total of seven runs in their last four games after averaging 5.1 per game in their previous 27.
— Zach Zaidman (@ZachZaidman) June 12, 2022
The odds against having THAT MANY consecutive outs, even with a crummy lineup, are enormous. Consider a terrible, terrible batter at the plate with a runner in scoring position. Let’s say he hits just .150. You know how often you would expect that batter to randomly go 0 for his next 40 with runners in scoring position? 0.15% of the time. That’s 1.5 times in 1000. It basically almost never happens. AND THAT’S WITH A THEORETICAL BATTER WHO HITS .150! I mean, Andrelton Simmons is currently hitting .163, for crying out loud!
In other words, even if you’ve got a terrible lineup, it’s quite a mathematical oddity to go 0 for 40 with runners in scoring position.
Ladies and gentlemen, the 2022 Chicago Cubs: bad and also unlucky.
