Do You Believe in the Curse of the Chicago Cubs at Chase Field?

[Jason Ross]

Baseball is a 162-game slog that starts in March, ends in November, and allows for all sorts of odd outcomes and occurrences in between. For some reason, when it comes to the Cubs, regardless of the year, those odd things seem to happen in Arizona. It can't just be bad luck... can it?

Image courtesy of © Joe Rondone/The Republic / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

Entering the eighth inning Sunday with what felt like a fairly comfortable 6-2 lead, new Cubs reliever Eli Morgan imploded on the mound, surrendering the Cubs' hard-earned effort (and then some). Morgan ended up wasting home runs from Dansby Swanson, Seiya Suzuki and Kyle Tucker by giving up an impressive six runs in total. The cherry on top of his performance? Pitcher Ryne Nelson got a hit.

Yes, the Arizona Diamondbacks, who lost their ability to use a designated hitter when they moved Ketel Marte (the starting DH in a day game to close out their season-opening series) to second, had run out of bench players. This forced the rare event in which a pitcher has to hit in the era of the league wide DH. And of course, the pitcher picked up a base knock, and an RBI, to boot. You shouldn't have expected anything else. This is what happens when the Cubs play in Arizona. It explains that feeling of deja vu you probably feel right now, that you've seen this happen before; because you have. The Cubs have history with Arizona in this ballfield of horrors.

It's hard to pinpoint when exactly the mojo of the field changed, but perhaps it started during October 2007, when the Cubs visited Arizona for the NL Division Series. Those Cubs were a pretty fun team, winning 85 games. They had finally recovered from their historic 2004 collapse, with a bunch of new faces. Alfonso Soriano had signed a record deal; Ted Lilly and Mark DeRosa were more complementary but equally crucial free-agent additions. Rookie pitcher Rich Hill was a fun infusion of youth to the rotation. The Cubs were pretty good! Then the desert struck back; it won't allow the Cubs any happiness.

No, just when the Cubs were poised to take the lead in the sixth inning behind a strong performance from Carlos Zambrano, everything changed. With the bases loaded, Cubs shortstop Ryan Theriot laced a single that tied the game with two outs, but it was all the team could muster. It was time for heartbreak, as immediately after entering the game in the seventh, Cubs reliever Carlos Marmol served up a home run, and the Cubs would never tie the game. They went on to lose a second game in Arizona, all but sealing their fate in the 2007 playoffs. Along the way, they squandered an early lead when Lilly gave up a two-strike, two-out grand slam, and he immediately provided the lasting visual image of that era's playoff ineptitude.

After the disappointments of 2007 (and then in 2008, when the 97-win Cubs fell to the Dodgers in similar fashion), Chicago hoped that 2009 would be the year they finally won a World Series. As April came to a close, the 10-9 Cubs had scuffled a bit out of the gate, but it was still early. On April 29th, Chase Field would rear its ugly head once again. The Cubs sent Ryan Dempster to the hill against Doug Davis. If you looked just at their final numbers, you'd have thought that this was advantage Cubs. Dempster finished the year with a sparkling 2.96 ERA, while Doug Davis was merely "okay". Yet, the final score on April 29 did not reflect this at all. When the final out was recorded, the Cubs had lost 10-0, recording just two hits. The Cubs were the better team, but Chase Field was just too damn powerful.

The next competitive Cubs window was from 2015-2020, and the trouble would continue. In the first year of that window, the Cubs swept Arizona at Wrigley, but they lost a pair of one-run games in Phoenix. The standout in the set was on May 22nd. In a time before the ghost runner was a glimmer in Rob Manfred's eye, the game entered the 10th inning tied 2-2. Kris Bryant and Starlin Castro both singled to give the Cubs a two-run lead. Cubs closer Héctor Rondón quickly got two outs, and the game looked all but won. Then, like the strike and snap of a rattlesnake: an AJ Pollock single, followed by a Paul Goldschmidt home run. The game was back to being tied.

In the top of the 13th, the Cubs once again threatened, only to come up short Miguel Montero flied out with two on, and a Jorge Soler groundout let the Snakes off the hook. Chase Field then summoned an unlikely hero; to drive the dagger home: career 29 wRC+ hitter, Tuffy Gosewisch. Gosewisch wangled a double (one of just 23 career extra-base hits, in 447 trips to the plate), putting the Cubs in danger. Nick Ahmed, who in all but this scenario would be among the weakest hitters in the game, brought Gosewisch home to steal the game. Chase Field works in mysterious ways,

The following year, the Cubs had an early-season trip to Arizona, but this time, the team was even stronger. After adding Ben Zobrist, Jason Heyward and other big free agents, the Cubs were favorites to win the division and were poised to maybe even win an elusive World Series. They would go on to do just that, winning 103 games in the regular season on their way. Arizona, conversely, would only win 69 games. April 8th, 2016, would be on one of the 69.

The Cubs built an early two-run lead that Friday, as new addition Heyward walked with the bases loaded and Zobrist hit into a fielder's choice that brought Cubs starter Jason Hammel home. Hammel would keep the Snakes scoreless through six, until Goldschmidt put the D'Backs on the board in the seventh. He wasn't done, however, as he came up again in the 8th and hit a single off Cubs setup man Pedro Strop, to tie the game. With two down and a runner on second in the next frame, Yasmany Thomas singled home Chris Owings for another walk-off win. It happened again.

I'm burying the lede there, of course. The real sacrifice the Cubs had to make to the godless heathen monster of Chase FIeld that year wasn't a gut-punch loss; it was Kyle Schwarber's entire knee. It was in deep left-center there that Schwarber and Dexter Fowler collided, resulting in the catastrophic injury that set up Schwarber to be an unlikely playoff hero but also altered his career.

In 2018, the two-time defending NL Central champs were on the verge of securing their third straight crown and cruising into the Division Series. By mid-September, though, they were also three weeks into what became six during which they practically lived without an off day. They won the first two games in Arizona that month, but their loss on getaway day—a 9-0 shellacking in which their only hit was a third-inning single by Addison Russell—became emblematic of the fatigue that overtook them as the season wound to an end.

It's astounding, still, to remember that the eventual NL pennant-winning 2023 Diamondbacks only got to the postseason (with 84 wins) by beating the Cubs (83 wins) six times in seven September meetings. The signature game of that stretch was the Saturday affair in Arizona on Sept. 16. That was the game that featured a madcap three-run Cubs rally in the fifth, as the amuse bouche for an orgiastic buffet of baseball torture. In a tie game, the Cubs put three runners on in the seventh, but one was erased on a caught stealing and they never did collect a hit. No runs. There were two overturned replays (one for each team) and one failed one (by the Cubs) even before the game reached extra innings. Then:

• The Cubs started the 10th inning with Nico Hoerner on second. They got an infield single, a double-steal, a throwing error, and two walks, but came away with only Hoerner's run. In the middle of that: a ball hitting the knob of Cody Bellinger's bat as he tried to avoid being hit by a pitch, and going right back to the mound for an out. (The Cubs challenged again, to no avail.)
• The Diamondbacks tied the game back up on the very first at-bat of the bottom of the 10th (this was the beginning of the desperate attempt to bring Marcus Stroman back from his injury as a reliever, to save an injury-ravaged bullpen), but the Cubs held them at bay.
• The automatic runner and two more hits only netted the Cubs one run in the 11th, as another runner was tagged out between third and home on an ill-timed comebacker to the pitcher.
• The Diamondbacks again tied the score very easily in the 11th.
• The Diamondbacks loaded the bases in the bottom of the 12th, but couldn't score.
• Another bad call (this one non-reviewable) gave the Cubs a run in the top of the 13th, but only by turning what should have been a foul ball into an awkward double play. The Cubs would have been better off with the foul.
• With runners on the corners, two strikes and two outs, a line drive back up the middle hit Hayden Wesneski and popped harmlessly to the spot at shallow shortstop where Dansby Swanson made such a brilliant play this weekend. That time, though, Swanson couldn't get to the ricochet in time, and the tying run trotted home.
• The Diamondbacks then won on a breathtakingly close play at the plate, with the ancient Evan Longoria beating the even older (in baseball age, if not actual years) Yan Gomes on a great slide. That play, too, was reviewed, but it was upheld.

That game, in hindsight, encapsulated the Cubs' failure to hold onto their playoff position that September. They tried everything, and it wasn't enough. Typical, when they're in Arizona.

You can even look at last year, once again in April. That time, the affair saw a mammoth 23 runs scored in a crazy, back-and-forth slugfest. First, it was Arizona taking a quick 4-1 lead behind Lourdes Guerriel Jr. and Joc Pederson home runs. The Cubs countered with a Miguel Amaya triple, an Alexander Canario double and a Bellinger triple—only for them to find themselves down 8-5 again, entering the seventh. The Cubs once again exploded, scoring six runs, capped by an Ian Happ home run putting the Cubs up once again, 11-8. Arizona would go on to score in the seventh, the eighth and the ninth to tie the game. In the 10th inning, it took just two pitches for Randal Grichuk to hit a double off Drew Smyly to bring home the 12th and final run of the game.

This cannot be a coincidence.

If you still need some proof that this not just anecdotal, that there's something larger at play here, perhaps the all-time records against each other would drive that home. Since the Arizona Diamondbacks have joined the league, the Cubs are a lowly 88-101 against them. Where things get weird, however, is in looking at the home/road record. When playing Arizona in the Friendly Confines of Wrigley Field, the Cubs are two games over .500, with a 47-45 record. Once you send the Cubs out West, things change, as they are whopping 15 games in the red, with a total record of 41-56. This isn't a story of one-off heartbreaks, the Cubs just fall under a hex when they play at Chase.

Morgan blowing up in the eighth was destined to happen, it was written in the scrolls long before the game even started. Chase Field and the Chicago Cubs have beef; there's no question. When the Cubs travel to Arizona, something happens, and I am not entirely sure what it is. A rational person would tell you that it's just a bunch of coincidence—that baseball is a long battle of attrition, and within that, you're bound to find oddities. Normally, I'm that rational human being. But, just this once, after looking at every little thing... I think, instead, I side with a famous line from Steve Carell's character from The Office.

I'm not superstitious, but I am a little -stitious. At least when it comes to Chase Field.

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Do you remember any devastating losses to Arizona we missed? Which one was your—ahem—favorite? Let us know in the comment section below!

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[Yall Illin]

Very impressive write-up. Yesterday was preventable and predictable. Can't go into a season hoping everything breaks right. You need back-ups and redundancies. The bullpen was not adequately addressed.

[Jason Ross]

17 minutes ago, Yall Illin said:

Very impressive write-up. Yesterday was preventable and predictable. Can't go into a season hoping everything breaks right. You need back-ups and redundancies. The bullpen was not adequately addressed.

Thanks! And welcome to NSBB! Glad you found us

[Nolansomebody]

Quote

This forced the rare event in which a pitcher has to hit in the era of the league wide DH. And of course, the pitcher picked up a base knock, and an RBI, to boot.

I’m sorry if this seems off-topic, but this is just way too funny to be ignored.

[Jason Ross]

1 hour ago, Nolansomebody said:

I’m sorry if this seems off-topic, but this is just way too funny to be ignored.

When researching all of the Arizona heartbreaking losses, I got time a point where it just went to a place of "oh? The pircher got a hit? Yeah." And you just started laughing.