Feeling the Heat in May

In 2016, the Cubs approached the league like eager med students completing their surgical residencies. With the opposition seemingly under anesthesia, the Cubs made expert incisions, extracted wins and sutured with a fast, laser-like precision. There was no stopping them.

At least until that year's World Series moved to Wrigley Field.

If contending for a World Championship isn't challenging enough, imagine playing for a franchise that hasn't come close in over a century. In front of rabid fans and an over-heated media while the nation looks on expectantly; all of them ready to pounce if sport's most infamous dry spell isn't broken.

The once free-flowing Cubs, who dismissed history when they weren't professing ignorance of it, looked stiff and self-conscious. They managed just five runs in the three games at Wrigley, eventually squeezing out a desperate 3 – 2 win in game five.

Removed from the pressure of clinching at home, they exploded for a 9 – 3 win in game six, and gritted-out an extra-inning game-seven clincher.

A year and-a-half removed from that glorious November night in Cleveland, the Cubs are struggling again. Sure, they've positioned themselves mid-pack in the NL Central and are theoretically ready to strike. But several glaring, high-priced failures consistently subvert them.

The pitching staff is struggling to incorporate two free-agents, Yu Darvish and Tyler Chatwood. This to replace free-agent departure Jake Arrieta and the newly-retired John Lackey.

Chatwood leads the league in bases on balls, and last night walked 5 in just two and-two-thirds innings. 

After five seasons in Colorado, perhaps he is lonely when the bases are empty. Whatever the reason, putting the opposition on base without requiring them to even slap the ball through the infield is not conductive to winning baseball.

Then there is Yu Darvish. Darvish's well-chronicled struggles originated in the 2017 World Series, where he failed to last beyond the second inning in either of the two games he started for the Los Angeles Dodgers.

While he has lasted beyond the second inning in several of his starts for the Cubs, his new unlucky number is five. It is in this inning that Darvish falls prey to his internal demons and does a remarkable imitation of Santa Claus, gifting the team in the other dugout with run after run after r, well, you get the picture.

Further torturing Cub fans is the fact that Arrieta is off to a great start in Philadelphia, where the surprising Phillies are in the thick of contention. But before we submit to having another limb pulled from its socket, Cub fans need to embrace the fact that Arrieta didn't have a snowball's chance in Phoenix of re-upping with the hometown heroes.

The truth is that outside of a trio of fine seasons in Chicago, Arrietta never threatened to make anyone forget Christy Mathewson. Or even Bert Blyleven.

But tell that to agent Scott Boras.

Boras' determination to sign his client to a contract appropriate for an ageless hybrid of Walter Johnson, Bob Feller and Tom Seaver relegated Jake to a team without any other big contracts, I.E. the Phillies.

The Cubs still have two strong starters and an occasionally decent third, as well as a largely-reliable bullpen, which should be more than enough to keep them in contention in the middling division they are fortunate enough to inhabit.

But then there is that facet of baseball known as hitting.

It is important to get hits. And where possible, to cluster them in an inning where other players in the same uniform have also done so, thereby increasing the odds that some of them might cross home plate, resulting in a run.

But like the products of a severely dysfunctional household, this edition of the Chicago Cubs is reluctant to send anyone home. The fact is the Cubs strand more men in scoring position than any team in baseball. Their .230 team batting average under these conditions likely has something to do with that.

Like many sports, baseball is reciprocal. Give a pitcher a little breathing room and a steady defense and they no longer fear that a single bad pitch will send the game rushing into the nearest sewer grate.

Give an offense a pitcher who can consistently put a lid on the opposition while the batters puzzle out the opposition's hurler and they no longer feel the need to imitate Babe Ruth each and every trip to the plate.

While Ben Zobrist has returned to form and Javier Baez and Willson Contreras are in the midst of breakout seasons, key run producer Anthony Rizzo is mired in a deep slump while Jason Heyward continues his offensive struggles.

But like the pitching, the team is hitting—enough. (They rank fourth in MLB in runs scored.) The problem is when they hit. Over the course of the season, only the woeful Cincinnati Reds have left more men on base.

Yes, it's only May. And it is my unswerving belief that no team has ever won a division or a league or a world championship before Labor Day. If baseball is a marathon, the Cubs are at least positioned to make a move when the time is right.

But it is also my belief that however heavy the pressure was to win a World Series, it has only increased in the season and-a-half since. And that these Cubs are feeling it—bad.