Quick, any individual — anyone. If you’re wherever close to the Chicago Cubs, push the button.
Because simply two months into the season, the Cubs have fallen and so they can’t rise up.
Another 8-5 loss Sunday to the Cincinnati Reds — a workforce that was in final place as lately as Friday — ensured one other day of the Cubs lugging across the worst file within the National League.
And if getting swept at house for the primary time this season by a low-budget workforce that misplaced 100 video games a 12 months in the past didn’t ship sufficient sting to the 40,000-plus who had been requested to pay for the privilege of watching it, buckle up for a schedule between now and the All-Star break that begins with the best-in-baseball Tampa Bay Rays and finishes at Yankee Stadium.
“It’s pretty frustrating,” stated Drew Smyly, one of many Cubs’ finest starters this 12 months however who bought his ears boxed by the Reds for the second time this season. “It was an ugly weekend for us. The Reds came in and beat us up.”
It wasn’t simply this weekend. The Cubs are 5 weeks right into a multisystem breakdown that has followers filling social media with hashtags calling for the firing of everybody from supervisor David Ross and President Jed Hoyer to any of a half-dozen gamers and Clark the Cub.
The solely cause the Cubs don’t have a more in-depth controversy is as a result of they don’t have a more in-depth.
Even enterprise operations President Crane Kenney’s aspect of the group bought into the Memorial Day weekend embarrassment with what could be the symbolic low level of the season: signing off on Saturday’s distribution of hundreds of promotional bobbleheads of revered Hall of Famer Billy Williams — that someway had the fallacious uniform quantity on the figurine’s again.
The backside line for a workforce making an attempt to tug off a second full-blown, tank-job rebuild on Kenney’s watch is that it’s not even June, and even the blokes within the clubhouse know the trade-deadline watch is on for the third 12 months in a row.
“The reality of the business is it’s a bottom-line industry,” stated struggling starter Jameson Taillon, who signed a four-year, $68 million free-agent deal over the winter. “You don’t want to put the front office in a spot to make those decisions. You want to make it the other way around. You want to put them in a position to have to go out and add to the team.”
Taillon, the shedding pitcher Saturday, was a part of a $300 million offseason that was supposed to purchase a step ahead on this rebuild — which Hoyer refused to name a rebuild in the summertime of 2021 when he traded away many of the remaining 2016 championship core — if not purchase an opportunity to compete for a playoff spot in one of many two softest divisions within the majors.
Instead, Cody Bellinger’s one-year contract and .830 OPS seems much more like a way to amass younger expertise than a way to any October finish as soon as he’s again from his knee harm. Trey Mancini’s 2-for-3 Sunday will be seen by the same lens. Starting pitcher Marcus Stroman — with that 2.95 ERA and an opt-out clause on the finish of the 12 months — may very well be an particularly useful commerce piece within the coming weeks.
And if reliever Brad Boxberger will get wholesome quickly sufficient and reliever Michael Fulmer can regain some semblance of dependable type, properly, you get the thought.
“It’s our job to make it as tough on them going forward as possible,” Taillon stated. “Summer’s starting. It’s not necessarily what I would call early anymore in the season. So it is time to go out there and start putting wins in the win column.”
Players naturally say their confidence stays sturdy. Even in final place, the Cubs are simply 5½ video games (albeit 4 groups) from the highest of the division. And 4 months stay within the season — two earlier than the commerce deadline.
But because the good vibes rolled with their 12-7 begin, the Cubs are 10-23, together with 11 losses of their final 14 video games.
And did we point out who’s coming to city subsequent?
“Yeah, the Rays are the best team in baseball,” Smyly stated, “and we’re going to take an extended (West Coast) journey after that. But you can take a look at the schedule from right here on out and each workforce’s fairly good.
“I don’t think it matters who you play. You have to perform. You have to do your job. And right now we’re just not doing it.”
That’s the factor. The bullpen hasn’t been good all season. The lineup has had huge moments however usually comes up empty within the greatest conditions. The rotation has begun to indicate cracks.
“Our margin for error is not huge,” $177 million shortstop Dansby Swanson stated. “So we simply should do the little issues higher than what we’re doing.
Witness Sunday’s fifth inning, which started with the rating tied.
A five-week stretch of breakdowns that has appeared virtually laughable at instances went full slapstick for a half-inning. The Cubs allowed a stolen base on a routine pickoff throw, a foul pop-up to land harmlessly when first baseman Mancini collided with catcher Yan Gomes, and a runner to take third on one other Smyly pickoff strive that bounced into heart discipline.
All of which got here two innings after third baseman Patrick Wisdom banged into Gomes as he caught one other foul pop close to the plate — and which contributed to Smyly failing to finish the fifth.
It took all of three pitches for Smyly’s substitute, Jeremiah Estrada, to surrender a two-out, go-ahead double. Estrada adopted by strolling the subsequent two batters for one more run earlier than Ross introduced out his second hook of the inning.
“We’re not playing up to our caliber. I think everyone’s aware of that,” stated Wisdom, who snapped an 11-game homerless drought with two homers that drove in all 5 Cubs runs. “We still have a lot of belief in this clubhouse.”
Said Taillon: “I think the pieces are definitely there.”
The greatest query could be what number of will likely be left after the commerce deadline.
Gordon Wittenmyer is a contract reporter for the Chicago Tribune.
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Source: www.bostonherald.com