Nope, it’s acting like this team is terrible and has no chance of doing anything this year after a five game losing streak. Less than a weeks ago we had won 17 of 25, had won 7 of 8 series and had the best record in the NL. And don’t try and say this is just heat of the game thread moment because you and others do this all the time. I’m not going to lie, the losses bother me a hell of a lot less than they did pre-WS. But they still bother me. Some more than others. So go ahead and bitch about losses. It’s fine. I’ve complained about losses this year. But there’s a huge difference between “this loss hurts, never should have happened, team blew it, team sucked today” and “omg, this team is horrible, definitely not making the playoffs, collapse potential, etc.” It’s definitley possible this team doesn’t make the playoffs and I suppose it’s possible that they collapse and win 76 games. But they’ve got a three year track record of being really good, are still on pace for upper 80’s in wins and are 2 1/2 games out of first and currently lead in the wild card. Fangraphs has them 87% to make the playoffs, BP is 76% and 538 is 78%. I get it, you wanted us to be like the Astros. That would be awesome. But there are other options besides “Astros good” and “total crap”. saying there is collapse potential is not the same as the other 2 things you grouped it with. the rotation's problems are concerning enough that a collapse to .500 or whatever and missing the playoffs is not the far-fetched idea that it's constantly treated as. there is plenty of reason to be scared as horsefeathers of the rotation and what it would mean organizationally if they don't turn it around. it's at the point where people complaining about the cubs are automatically assumed to be saying the cubs are on their way to the bottom, when really it's the opposite side that is constantly pretending to know where the cubs are headed. any sort of negativity is immediately met with 1 of like 3-4 posters saying some variation of "who cares, they won x amount of games the last 4 years, so that is obviously going to continue" and then the other 2-3 people immediately liking the post. The three things do deserve to be grouped together, especially the last two. You're going to the extreme here. I admitted there's a realistic chance the Cubs miss the playoffs. Going by the three metrics, It's around a 1 in 5 they miss. That's not far fetched. But its much more likely they make the playoffs, even if it's as a wild card. Again, entering the Reds series they had the best record in the NL. Did you think there was collapse potential then? If you did, you're just a lunatic and we're probably done here. If not, then you're just blowing 5 games out of proportion and putting more stock in that than the 73 games before, which is not the best of ideas. That's why people get annoyed. You're ignoring 2 1/2 months of baseball in favor of less than a week. The Dodgers last year were on pace for 115 wins and had a 1-16 stretch in September (worked out pretty well for them). The 2017 Astros had a 4-12 stretch (worked out even better for them). The Cubs had a 5-15 stretch in 2016 (ditto). These things happen. It's baseball. Bad teams are going to look great for one to two week stretches and good/great teams will look bad for one to two week stretches.