Right Now, the Chicago Cubs are Beating Themselves Every Night—in a Good Way

[Matthew Trueblood]

Image courtesy of © Matt Marton-Imagn Images

In literature, there are three archetypal conflicts: man vs. man, man vs. nature, and man vs. self. Baseball is just literature in cleats, and over the course of 162 games, every team enters all three types of conflicts. Obviously, much of the early season is spent navigating ugly weather, which becomes true again late in October, but even in between, there is heat and rain and wind to manage—and besides, 'nature' is not only weather, in this case. One must also survive the game itself, with its demanding, explosive movements and the entropy they inflict on the players who execute them. So, for instance, the Cubs' recent hot streak is a bit impressive, simply because they've done it after having lost Cade Horton for the year after elbow surgery; with their top four relievers varying flavors of unavailable; and with Matthew Boyd missing time with a bicep strain.

The more obvious conflict in baseball is man vs. man. Every night, there's another team trying to take your precious chance for a win away, and you have to fight them off a majority of the time to be calledf a successful team. We define goodness and greatness in baseball by wins and losses, and those are assigned on a zero-sum basis. When you're pitching, someone is in the box trying to ruin your day with a big hit. This week, for some reason, that's almost always been JJ Bleday. The Reds outfielder opened the scoring both Monday and Tuesday with solo homers, and on Wednesday night, he stroked the game-tying single in the top of the ninth, as things fell apart for the Cubs. Opponents are ruthless, too. Slightly midjudge your proximity to the wall, as Seiya Suzuki did while hauling in Elly De La Cruz's sacrific fly immediately after Bleday's game-tying hit, and you might end up slumped against the barrier as an extra runner streaks home. It's ruthless—not because humans are inherently so, but because sports are where we've agreed that a certain rules-bounded ruthlessness is acceptable, and even admirable.

For teams who get very, very good at handling both the man vs. nature and the man vs. man conflicts, though, man vs. self becomes the defining fight. Baseball offers many ways to beat oneself, physically and mentally, and the higher your aims, the more likely you are to succumb to one of those pitfalls. That was certainly on display Wednesday night, as the team improbably pulled out the win to extend their streak to seven wins in all games and 14 straight at Wrigley Field. Their last loss at home came on one of those man-vs.-self days: Matt Shaw messed up the footwork while playing first base; Caleb Thielbar made a bad throw Shaw couldn't handle; the go-ahead run scored; and then, in the bottom of that 11th inning, Seiya Suzuki swung foolishly at a 3-1 pitch with a chance to win, popping out instead. It looked like Wednesday might be a loss of similar shape. 

Corbin Martin didn't have it, which happens to many a middling middle reliever. In the modern game, good relievers are defined less by whether they can flash decent command of overpowering stuff (because almost all of them can) than by whether they can do so consistently, and Martin has yet to pass that test. He entered with a 4-2 lead, looking for a save, because the Cubs have had to rush Daniel Palencia back from his lat strain and aren't yet willing to use him in back-to-back games. Instead of shutting the door, though, Martin quickly gave up a solo home run and two singles. He fell behind in the count, and he left pitches in the middle of the zone when he needed to avoid falling even further behind. His was a man-vs.-self conflict, but for the Cubs, it was also a matter of man vs. nature: Craig Counsell was managing against the grind of the season and the injuries his team has already suffered, by withholding Palencia. 

Hoby Milner came on to try to put out the fire, but in a moment eerily reminiscent of Thielbar's folly four weeks earlier, he botched an effort to field a sacrifice bunt. Looking to take down the lead runner, he didn't get the ball cleanly on his first attempt to transfer it from glove to hand, and his throw was late, putting the Cubs in big trouble. As we've already discussed, the Reds pushed across three runs in the wake of that mistake, seizing a two-run lead. Milner did an admirable job on the whole, though. Things could have gotten much worse.

They almost finished beating themselves in the bottom of the ninth, but instead, they beat themselves—as in, soared above their own foibles through a sheer exercise of talent. After Michael Busch was retired to lead off the inning, both Carson Kelly and Pete Crow-Armstrong swung at 3-1 pitches well outside the zone—truly dreadful swing decisions. Kelly fouled his pitch off, though, and then did so with another, closer offering. On the seventh pitch of the at-bat, Graham Ashcraft (whom Kelly was seeing for a second night in a row) made a mistake with a cutter, and Kelly was able to line a single to right field.

Crow-Armstrong whiffed on his 3-1 pitch, and left himself with no choice but to chase a strike-to-ball slider Ashcraft executed well on 3-2. In a laugh-out-roar moment of brilliance, though, Crow-Armstrong hammered that pitch on a line to left field, just clearing the high wall and finding the basket in left-center field, where Wrigley Field remains the most hitter-friendly park in the majors. The wind was blowing in Wednesday night, but the video board in left-center not only blocks that wind, but invites it to curl backward on the other side of it. Thus, Crow-Armstrong's drive got a bit of help from nature, instead of being resisted by it. Even Statcast (which doesn't account for the windscreen or curl, but solely for dimensions) says it would only have been a homer at Wrigley. The game was tied; the ballpark was a madhouse. The rest of the way, a win felt almost certain.

That's an insane pitch to hit the way Crow-Armstrong hit it. He's an exceptionally talented player, but in that moment, he was also showing an extraordinary force of will—to conquer his own frustrating mistake with an otherwise impossible feat of acuity and explosiveness. That's how the Cubs' current streak feels, in a nutshell. In the bottom of the 10th, Craig Counsell (sensibly) had Miguel Amaya pinch-hit for Michael Conforto against Reds lefty Brock Burke, but (much less sensibly) then had Amaya lay down a sacrifice bunt to move Nico Hoerner to third base with the winning run. The Reds responded (sensibly) by intentionally walking Alex Bregman, but then (much less sensibly) they also intentionally walked Seiya Suzuki with two outs, loading the bases for Busch. 

That move by Terry Francona traded the expected batting average of Suzuki (even against a lefty, not higher than .280) for the on-base percentage of Busch (even against a lefty, not lower than .290) as the chances he would lose the game then and there. It was a gaffe; the other man helped the Cubs a bit. Lately, this is how it goes. The Cubs have been getting help, instead of hindrance, from opponents at some crucial junctures. They've been getting help, instead of hindrance, from nature at just the right moments. But those forces are still fighting against them more often than with them, so the team must spend most of its time finding ways to win the battles against themselves. Just when it looks like they've beaten themselves (in a bad way), they find ways to outdo themselves, instead.

Such a run can't last forever, so savor it. Crow-Armstrong's game-tying homer Wednesday felt even more miraculous than Busch's slightly earlier tying shot Tuesday or Conforto's walkoff homer Monday. Though Martin stumbled Wednesday night, Ryan Rolison and Trent Thornton have pitched key innings and collected wins in relief this week. The Cubs planned for their battle with the nature of the arm, so they're deeper than they would have been in any of the past several years when facing a similar onslaught of injuries. They've also collected a group of players they feel they can trust in big moments and amid adversity, and players with the raw talent to make up for their mistakes. It's a winning formula. There are harder days and some losses ahead, but the team has already shown that they have the right stuff to overcome opponents of several kinds—even the ones in the mirror.

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