Thud… that was the Cubs landing above the Pirates, right next to the Cardinals, behind both the Brewers and Reds in the standings as the All Star break begins. It wasn’t that long ago, the Cubs were riding high. In fact, they were in first place after the series opener in LA, celebrating the first combined no-hitter in Cubs history. I guess you could say that was the high moment of the first half… because from that point, it was all down hill. 11 straight losses hit like a ton of bricks; they only won 2 of the final 15 games. This derailing has completely changed things for this team. Well, I guess it lined up more with what the front office thought of this club before the season.
Trading Yu, including Caratini was a throw in, felt like an early white flag. Why cripple us in an area where we were already thin? The lack of starting pitching, that was promoted by this trade, would turn out to be our achilles heel. Kyle Hendricks rebounded from a slow start to be the Kyle we know and love, but… after that… I knew, during those first place days, that unless the Cubs addressed this, the Cubs would not last. I can’t say I saw an 11 game losing streak coming, but… with only 1 starting pitcher we could count on, on a consistent basis, our days at the top of the standings were numbered. I just didn’t know it would happen this quickly.
The offense tried to stop the streak a few times with outbursts, but too many times, 7 to be exact, the Cubs couldn’t muster more than 2 runs scored during “the streak”. Where were the big boys? KB was slumping; Baez the same. Rizzo was on the bench, hurt for a lot of this. Without them, with the depth that I thought the Cubs had earlier in the season injured, with having to rely on guys like Joc, Happ, and Heyward to get big hits… it was a formula for disaster, and played a big part in this storm that the Cubs just came out of. But are we completely out of it?
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So here I sit, explaining to my son that one of these guys will probably be gone. I told him remember when Jimmy Butler was traded, the first guy whose jersey he had that was dumped, the first Chicago superstar he loved, and how upset we were… get ready for round 2. The big issue I have is I don’t trust the front office any more. I guess I did trust Theo, but now that he’s gone… I know Jed was like his wingman… I don’t know. We’ll see what happens. It’d be nice to start off the 2nd half with some wins. Starting off in Arizona, you’d think that’s a good possibility… I also thought an 11 game losing streak would be impossible, but hey… here we are. Until Friday…
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