Reporters eagerly inspected the broken Chicago Cubs bat rack Sunday morning at Wrigley Field, looking for clues like paleontologists digging for dinosaur bones.
Pieces of metallic both bent or ripped off, a damaged hand sanitizer with a bit of masking tape holding it collectively and a splintered chunk of wooden on the body had been telltale indicators that somebody — or maybe a number of folks — vented on the wood construction holding the gamers’ bats and helmets.
The beaten-up bat rack served as an ideal metaphor for the 2022 Cubs season, which reached the top of the primary half Sunday with a 3-2 comeback win over the New York Mets.
Nico Hoerner’s run-scoring single within the two-run eighth handed the Cubs their first win at Wrigley since July 2 towards the Boston Red Sox.
“When you lose a lot of games in a row, you almost forget what it feels like,” beginning pitcher Adrian Sampson stated. “When you win a lot of games … you just know how to win. This is a good reminder for guys that this game is hard. We’re in the major leagues, and wins are hard to come by.”
The Cubs averted their second 10-game dropping streak and moved out of a last-place tie with the Cincinnati Reds within the National League Central, bettering to 18-32 at Wrigley. They’re on tempo for 51 dwelling losses, which might eclipse their all-time worst mark of 31-50 in 2013.
Sampson’s pitching and a few late-inning heroics despatched the group of 34,424 dwelling in temper. The Mets scored their two runs off Sampson on a steal of dwelling by Starling Marte within the first after a botched pickoff play at first base and an RBI blooper by Pete Alonso within the fifth that first baseman Frank Schwindel misplayed briefly proper subject.
But Hoerner’s third single gave the Cubs the lead within the eighth, and David Robertson closed the door within the ninth.
After Saturday’s doubleheader loss to the Mets, supervisor David Ross lauded the crew’s effort towards “a first-place team with a $300 million payroll.” Actually it’s $259 million, however who’s counting?
Nevertheless, Ross appeared to recommend the Cubs are the little engine that would as a substitute of a big-market franchise valued by Forbes at $3.36 billion. The fact is Cubs Chairman Tom Ricketts selected this route and will compete with the Mets’ payroll if he wished to.
But you may’t blame Ross for feeling as if he’s being requested to win battle after battle with out sufficient weapons, at the same time as he knew what he was stepping into. The Cubs went 33-64 over their remaining 97 video games in 2021 and are 35-57 on the break, giving them a .360 successful share (68-121) beneath Ross since June 13, 2021. His predecessor, Joe Maddon, posted a .581 successful share in 5 years on the North Side earlier than being let go.
Before Sunday’s sport, Ross stated he welcomed the problem of bringing this group again to respectability.
“I think we all know we’re not where we want to be,” Ross stated. “But the difficult challenges we go through make us better every single day, myself included. The players, being in the environments we’re getting put in right now, we’re going to be able to handle those moments better in the long run, years to come. Playing good teams (and) competing deep into games, extra-inning games, those are all really good things. We’ve just got to figure out ways to win ballgames, and I think we will.”
Whether many of the gamers studying from the first-half struggles might be right here in “years to come” is uncertain. Some most likely received’t be right here after the Aug. 2 commerce deadline, together with All-Star catcher Willson Contreras, who was mired in a 1-for-36 droop earlier than his eighth-inning single Sunday.
Cubs President Jed Hoyer is anticipated to unload within the subsequent couple of weeks, although “unload” won’t be the right terminology. Back in 1997, when the Cubs misplaced their first 14 video games and got here out of the All-Star break with a win-or-else decree from the entrance workplace, supervisor Jim Riggleman corrected a reporter who used the time period.
“This is not cattle here,” Riggleman stated. “We don’t use words like ‘unload.’ It’s not a matter of unloading.”
Similarly, the Cubs would favor you not use the phrase “rebuild” 25 years later. It’s all the time one thing with this group. Perhaps they need to hand out a listing of forbidden phrases in spring coaching.
As dangerous as that ‘97 Cubs crew was, it took a 37-50 report into the break regardless of the 0-14 begin.
“You can’t get down and dislike each other because it can sure get nasty,” shortstop Shawon Dunston stated then. “This is a good team. But when you win, everybody loves you. And when you lose, no one does. We have to like each other, whether we like it or not.”
This 12 months’s crew will get alongside wonderful, and Hoerner stated there’s rather a lot to sit up for within the second half.
“Summer at Wrigley is always a positive to start with, so at least that’s guaranteed,” he stated. “Take it for what it is, whatever is next. The Cubs have always done a really good job of putting quality people in the clubhouse, even with the turnover we’ve had in the last three, four years. That’s something I’ve always been very grateful for. … At the very minimum we have good people that are are going to be competing hard the rest of the season.”
You by no means know what the long run will deliver. The ‘98 Cubs, one of the thrilling rides in franchise historical past, adopted the ‘97 debacle. Still, it may very well be a protracted climb to get again to the place this crew must be, and all it begins Friday in Philadelphia.
For now, take a deep breath and calm down.
The worst half is over, proper?
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Source: www.bostonherald.com