Cubs2023

Everyone knew they schedule was going to get tougher, which is why the start to the season was a bit disappointing, as they could have won 4-5 more games pretty easily. I suspect we don't see them back above .500 this year. Unfortunately, as we suspected, this is not a very good team. Combine that with wasting an opportunity to win several more games already this year.. not a good combination.

It's been a very rough start. Still plenty of time for adjustment.. but man.

So we should accept losing a bunch of winnable games because Ross likes to take the "long view" on the season? Sounds like nonsense to me.

Beginning of the season through April 19: Cubs were hitting .319 with RISP (126 wRC+), which was good for 4th best in the MLB. No surprise, they went 11-6 over that stretch. From April 20 through today: Cubs are hitting .214 with RISP (65 wRC+), which is second worst in the MLB. Unsurprisingly, they have gone 6-12 over that stretch. Lots of different players to be blamed over this stretch. Really, all of them have essentially played a role at some point.

You hate to see that!

Since 4/28, Patrick Wisdom has 15 strikeouts over 30 plate appearances. Folks, Wisdom has hit a 50% k-rate over the last week.

Increase that to 48% K-rate for Wisdom over the last week.

Rough first game for Mervis. Don't take that the wrong way - not saying anything about his long term abilities. But a tough debut for sure.

42.3% heading into today (over the last week). Think it's at 46.4% when you add in today's at bats now. He was slugging .500 over that period, though. But I have been very concerned with his hitting since the Dodgers series. Heading into today's game since then: .182/.294/.409, 92 wRC+, 39.2% K%.

I've noticed that as well haha. So much better.

Damn, even Hosmer could have done that!! /s

Let's get this thing back on track, Cubbies.

Yeah, you can't just take away a series against a bad team, because then you have to adjust for circumstances for every other team too. Reality is that this team has easily underperformed what their output has been. The question is whether or not they can continue to product this output. If so, it should even out somewhat over time. If not, then we're just going to look back on this period as a massively wasted opportunity to bank a good amount of wins.

Has to be almost impossible to do at this point in the season.

That's a road trip you can't have there. Squad may have just cost themselves any chance at making a serious run at a playoff spot. At least we'll get a chance to see the youngins go at it. That's what is most important in the end anyway.