That's still a pretty [expletive] big divisional lead. Sure, though it had been 12.5 just a month before, and the Cubs went through a pretty prolonged bout of average baseball while the Cardinals seemed to be finally playing to what was expected of them at the right time. Personally, I didn't think the Cubs were ever going to actually give up the lead, but I was worried that the Cardinals could get close enough that it prevent the Cubs from, say, giving players extra rest and playing the September callups less than I would prefer, and just generally making things more stressful than we wanted or expected it to be. yeah, it's kind of mystifying why people/robots are making a bigger deal out of this than what you said. Describing the discussion around here at the time as "pretty bleak" displays a complete lack of comprehension about how truly bleak this site can be when things actually are going poorly. Spirits were still relatively high and there was pretty much just dark humor addressing the struggles.