The Cubs Could Afford Their First Loss Monday Night. The Second Spells the End for Them.

[Matthew Trueblood]

At this time of year, an MLB season becomes a war of attrition. It's about staying healthy, and about how well (if at all) the guys who aren't healthy can play through stuff. The Cubs suffered a brutal combo punch on Labor Day, from one guy struggling to play through something and one who no longer could.

Image courtesy of © Patrick Gorski-USA TODAY Sports

It was, arguably, the cruelest hour in three years or more for the Cubs. Ahead 3-0 on Jared Jones and the Pirates after seven scintillating frames from Jameson Taillon on Labor Day, most of the team watched helplessly as Jorge López--a terrific story, a symbol of the team's resurgence, and a linchpin of their bullpen--blew the lead in a matter of moments in the top of the eighth inning. The team couldn't struggle back to level this time, the way they did against the lousy Pittsburgh bullpen last week on the road, and they suffered a crucial loss that looked like it would be a fairly easy win.

That one hurt, and badly, but it's the kind of thing you know is coming. You can foresee it, accept it, and survive it. The Cubs weren't going to be undefeated the rest of the season, and while they need absolutely every win they can get, it's easy to make the case that they outplayed Pittsburgh Monday night--that they're still playing a good enough brand of baseball to flush that frustrating defeat and get another winning streak going. Besides, López was due for a bit of regression, and he'd been sidelined for a few days recently by a nagging injury, so it shouldn't have shocked anyone to see him stumble, even amid a sterling second half.

No, the knockout punch came after the game. Right at the end of his postgame media availability, Craig Counsell revealed that Justin Steele will be scratched from his scheduled start Tuesday night against Paul Skenes, with elbow soreness. In his place, Kyle Hendricks will start opposite Skenes, for the third time this year. The baseball gods love their little, cruel jokes.

There's no silver lining on that cloud--or even the promise of a brighter morning ahead. The dropoff from Steele to Hendricks as a member of the rotation is massive. So is the lost opportunity to expand the rotation to include six pitchers at times the rest of the way, to keep the fading Shota Imanaga fresh. The team needs to finish something like 18-6 from here to make the playoffs. Without their ace, that's simply not possible.

Maybe Steele will bounce right back and make a start later this week. Early indications seem to be that the team isn't overwhelmingly concerned about this. On the other hand, this is a pitcher who was shelved with a lower back strain for the final month of 2022; spent a minimum stint on the injured list last summer with an elbow/forearm issue; and ran out of steam at the end of last season anyway. It's time to wonder whether he'll ever make it to the end of a season with his legs under him and his arm securely attached in all the right places. We have no reason to believe that this injury portends offseason surgery, or anything that severe, but the reality of the moment is sufficiently bleak: Steele isn't a true workhorse.

That has big implications even beyond 2024. It means the Cubs need to be more aggressive in the winter pitching market. It means they're further from being the kind of team they expected to be this season than it appears--a gap that was already considerable. This loss, much more than the one that ticked into the standings table after the game, spells big trouble and big changes ahead for the Cubs.

In the short term, though, it just affirms what most of us knew all along: they don't have it in them, this year. This team will finish just outside the postseason, for the second year in a row. They'll finish with a winning record in the second half for the third year in a row. All that means is that, for the third year in a row, they'll pick somewhere in the low teens in next year's Draft. That is a massive organizational failure, even in a season in which some very encouraging successes have also been in evidence.

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