Monday's Win Sent a Clear Message: The Cubs Will Take What You Can't Keep From Them

[Matthew Trueblood]

Quietly, the Cubs dedicated themselves this winter not only to getting better, but to being more situation-proof. Monday night's frigid frenzy on the bases demonstrated the value of that endeavor.

Image courtesy of © Matt Marton-Imagn Images

With the air heavy and cold and the wind rushing down Kenmore Avenue to defend the left-field wall like a relief battalion in battle, the Cubs knew no one was hitting the ball out of the park Monday night. Justin Steele let the visiting Rangers take the mightiest swings they could muster, and Texas did register seven hard-hit balls against him, but most of that came on the ground—which was just as well, because nothing they put in the air went anywhere. Kevin Pillar and Wyatt Langford hit flies in the early frames that had Pete Crow-Armstrong and Ian Happ tracking back on the ball, only to veer slightly in at the last second, several steps shy even of the warning track.

By the time Adolis García hit a ball squarely enough to even momentarily spook anyone, in the sixth inning, the whole stadium was in on the joke. Happ started at a sharp angle toward the wall in left-center, then ended up coming in a step as he corralled the ball. Not only did the Rangers fail to find extra bases against Steele, but they came nowhere near such a dangerous hit.

Stopping the opponent from scoring is just one half of the battle, though. The Cubs have gotten a good amount of power on this young season, but they wouldn't be able to count on any for themselves Monday night. Unlike Texas, they did benefit from a certain kind of slugging, as Michael Busch landed a double down the left-field line and laced a triple into the right-field corner, but they didn't wait for those outcomes or depend on them. Right after Busch's double, Dansby Swanson laid down a rare sacrifice bunt, and then Miguel Amaya swatted a ball to the big part of the park for a sacrifice fly. It was the perfect way to play that situation.

That was just the tip of the iceberg, though, and the Cubs stayed in the floe—er, flow—thereafter. Whenever they reached first base, they were predators, as hungry and as ruthless as polar bears. Nate Eovaldi couldn't hold them, and Kyle Higashioka couldn't punish their boldness. They stole five bases, on a night when many teams would have hesitated to let their players run for fear of injuries. As the game unfolded, it became increasingly clear that nights like Monday were part of Jed Hoyer and Craig Counsell's vision when they built this season's roster. Rather than power-dependent bench pieces like Patrick Wisdom, Trey Mancini, or Garrett Cooper, the team has exceptionally athletic ones, in Jon Berti and Gage Workman. Berti stole two bases as a lineup replacement for Nico Hoerner, and Happ, Crow-Armstrong and Seiya Suzuki each took one, too.

After that outburst, the Cubs are tied atop the big-league leaderboard with 21 steals this year. They've only been caught once. The Rangers are above-average in steals this season, too, but only attempted one Monday night—and when they did, Amaya threw out Josh Smith at second. In the past, the team settled for loosely mimicking flexibility in their formula for scoring, by having contact-oriented but one-dimensional players Nick Madrigal and Mike Tauchman in the mix. They believe, with Kyle Tucker and Berti joining the existing crew, they now have more ways to score, rather than merely more ways to tell a story about scoring.

They were proactive and aggressive, too, about adding Quintin Berry and Jose Javier as their new base coaches, with the express purpose of getting better at stealing bases. Increasingly, teams believe a variation of the old axiom about pitching, but turned to a new purpose: Stealing bases is not dangerous to good ballplayers. Stealing bases while tired is dangerous to good ballplayers. In other words, when there is pressure, stress, or fatigue at work, running the bases becomes a high-risk business. If carefully managed and planned for, though, the running game can be executed without undue risk, even in lousy conditions. That's part of why Berti was in for Hoerner, and Workman for Matt Shaw Monday night. The Cubs knew they would be trying to use their legs to make up for the weather, and they wanted fresh players they could install specifically for that duty.

Be it the long ball or small ball, the Cubs will take what opponents are not strong or smart enough to deny them. That has not always been true over the last several years. In fact, it hasn't been true of any Cubs team since 2016. That's not to say that they are an especially serious World Series contender in 2025—they can't match that team for raw talent—but it's telling. Monday night was a statement win, because it was proof of the concept that these Cubs are more complete and better prepared than recent iterations.

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