Bernstein: Cubs Are Struggling Amid Expectations
By Dan Bernstein
CBSChicago.com senior columnist
(CBS) Nothing in July is a crisis.
Anything short of a mid-game alien invasion, a clubhouse Ebola outbreak or the team bus being swallowed by a sinkhole is just baseball – a few bad losses at home to a bad team during a difficult stretch.
That doesn't make the Cubs' recent play any better, this sweep at Wrigley Field by the Phillies, not with the crushing bullpen meltdown Friday followed by Cole Hamels's no-hit mastery and then Sunday's blowout that dropped Chicago to 51-46 -- but it's not the zombie apocalypse. Not yet.
It wasn't too long ago that losing a bunch of games in a row was business as usual, and the fact that it's now the exception is a positive sign. It means this team is good enough to have a serious setback and difficult questions to answer.
It's some cold comfort in the deep freeze that is the Cubs' recent offense, but it's undeniably true.
Over the last 28 days, the Cubs are hitting .210, getting on base at a .296 clip and slugging an anemic .314. That's not going to get it done, and manager Joe Maddon knows it. The engine that powers this machine is supposed to be the All-Star tandem of Anthony Rizzo and Kris Bryant, but the lefty/righty combo has fizzled since the break, with the former at .154/.261/.179 and the latter with a similarly eye-popping slash line of .125/.217/.250. That's a statistical representation of a 10-game heart stoppage.
Maddon has no easy answers, no defibrillator paddles juiced up to jolt his team back into proper rhythm. We knew that he preferred that his sluggers avoid the Home Run Derby, before he changed his mind and gave their participation a grudging blessing. Even though the data doesn't suggest the existence of any kind of hangover from the event, the correlation seems to be enough that Maddon is starting to wonder.
"We've got to get Anthony going," Maddon told reporters Sunday. "We've got to get KB … they didn't get the full benefit of the break. It'll come back to them."
Rizzo has a track record to suggest that's probably true, but the Bryant doesn't. Maddon's characteristic hopefulness must also be informed by the fact that such reliance on a rookie – even one with Bryant's obvious talent and maturity – carries inherent risk.
The two young bats are at the center of the current struggles, but another concern remains the Cubs' inability to produce runs during the day. As of right now, no team in the major leagues has a greater OPS discrepancy between night games and day games: .722/.621, a difference of -.101. As we have examined previously here, explanations for the inconsistency are elusive. Still, it's an issue worthy of consideration for a team that plays in the sun as often as they do and will.
Yet context is everything for the Cubs right now.
The non-wavier trade deadline looms Friday, with Theo Epstein currently engaged in conversations on multiple fronts to bolster his team's playoff chances without sacrificing longer-term possibilities. He could look to add a relief pitcher, a veteran starter, a versatile position player like Ben Zobrist or some combination thereof. Epstein declared that this season marked the start of the rebuilding plan's competitive phase, and indeed they're in the running for a wild-card spot, 2.5 games behind the Giants for the second slot after Sunday.
This is about as good as the team was supposed to be at this point, with both independent experts and statistical projection algorithms seeing the Cubs as around an 85-win team, with any roster additions potentially altering that number. At their current winning percentage of .526, that's indeed the total they would hit, though that's likely not enough for the postseason.
Still, it says something that they matter at all, here at the very outset of what is reasonably expected to be an era of winning baseball. Current choppiness isn't an indication that the larger picture has changed.
Maddon's managerial mantra is being tested at the moment -- to not let the pressure of the game exceed the pleasure. But the existence of both of those already this year is a good thing.
Dan Bernstein is a co-host of 670 The Score's "Boers and Bernstein Show" in afternoon drive. Follow him on Twitter @dan_bernstein and read more of his columns here.