The Cubs Lineup Has Been Decimated By Injuries, But That's Not All

On any list of the Cubs' best hitters, Cody Bellinger, Seiya Suzuki, Dansby Swanson, and Nico Hoerner have to be in the top six. Depending on your evaluations of the inconsistent Ian Happ and Christopher Morel, maybe all four of those guys are in the top five at any given time. At any rate, they're essential, and being without each of them for stretches of the young season has made the Cubs offense a sputtering mess recently.

The last time the Cubs had all four in their lineup was on Apr. 14, in their 15th contest of the season. Thereafter, Suzuki went on the shelf for what turned out to be just over four weeks. Ten days after that loss, Bellinger, too, was sidelined for a fortnight. He returned just in time to play one game (May 7) with both Hoerner and Swanson, before the latter hit the injured list. Suzuki returned May 11, and he, Hoerner and Bellinger managed to play together three times before Hoerner was removed from the lineup due to his balky hamstring. In the last five weeks, the team has had three of the four together only one-third of the time: 11 games, out of 33.

Reportedly, that could change Tuesday. Both Suzuki and Bellinger are healthy, and both Swanson and Hoerner have a chance to return from their injuries this week. That would be a welcome development, because this team has not functioned well at all in the absence of more than one of these four. With three or four of them in the lineup, they're 15-10 this year. With two or fewer of them, they're 11-12, after Sunday's 3-2 loss to the Pirates.

In general, the team's scoring has trended downward since the first week of the season, and injuries are the main culprit. They especially cratered during Bellinger's absence, but whatever recovery they effected once he came back fizzled quickly as Swanson and Hoerner were hampered by their respective leg trouble.

Even at full strength, this is far from an elite offense. A hot Morel and Michael Busch, plus a healthy Bellinger, Swanson, Hoerner, Happ, and Suzuki does make for that good a lineup, but that's a lot for which to ask. It's much better to hope merely for good health, with the understanding that Morel and Busch will continue to have hot and cold stretches, based on their offensive profiles.

We shouldn't overlook the confluence of these injuries and a brutal stretch of tough pitching as a contributor to the team's offensive struggles. Over the last two weeks, the average fastball the Cubs have seen has been 95.5 miles per hour, which is not only the highest in MLB, but 0.8 MPH higher than the team who has seen the second-hottest heat. It's not just difficult to hit fastballs that hard; it's also harder to handle breaking and offspeed pitches when trying to cover them. The team's collective weighted on-base average (wOBA) on non-fastballs is .245 since May 6, 22nd in MLB. Through May 5, that same number was .274, good for 12th in the league.

Over that two-week span, alone, the Cubs have seen Paul Skenes (twice), Jared Jones (twice), Chris Sale, Yu Darvish, Dylan Cease, Reynaldo López, and Mitch Keller. They were a depleted team facing a gauntlet of great starters. That's why they've only scored 3.4 runs per game over that span, including three times being shut out. 

The bad news is that that stretch of fierce competition isn't quite over. Atlanta comes to town for three more games this week, even as the Cubs lineup becomes whole again. The good news (apart from those impending and much-needed returns to play) is that after that, things open up quite a bit. The Cubs have series against the Brewers in Milwaukee at the end of this month and next, but those are the only two times they'll face a truly formidable pitching staff between the Atlanta series and one against the Phillies in the first week of July. In there are two series apiece against the Reds, Giants, and Cardinals, and encounters with the Mets, White Sox, and Rays. All of those teams lack the kind of elite arms the Cubs have seen recently, and all but the Rays also lack quality depth. 

By no means will the wins come easily from here. Still, some relief is right around the corner, and help is on the way. The Cubs' season will come down, in no small part, to staying healthier than they have over the first two months of the campaign. Great teams don't need to rely on that kind of luck the way this one does, but bad teams don't even have a chance if they do stay healthy, as this one clearly does. Starting Tuesday, we'll start to get a clearer sense of what this team is capable of than we've had for the last six weeks.