A LITTLE REST FOR THE WEARY
Cubs looking forward to mental downtime All- Star break offers
PITTSBURGH — There might not be a team in baseball that needs the All- Star break more than the Cubs. Or one that might get less benefit from it.
Even in their first victory in nearly a week, a 6- 5 decision Sunday against the Pirates, the Cubs showed the fatigue and starting-pitching problems that have plagued them throughout their 6- 15 slide into the break.
‘‘ There’s no question we could use a break; we could have used a break 12, 13 games ago,’’ said second baseman Ben Zobrist, one of a major- league- high seven- man contingent from the Cubs headed to San Diego for the All- Star Game on Tuesday. ‘‘ That would have done wonders, I think, for this team.”
For now, they’ll settle for the victory in a game All- Star first baseman Anthony Rizzo called ‘‘ as close to must- win’’ as any they’ve played this season. It ended a stretch of 24 games in 24 days.
‘‘ We’re going to the break now with our heads up,’’ said Rizzo, who finished the first half with consecutive 4- for- 5 performances. ‘‘ We can exhale a little bit and take these four mental days off and relax.’’
The Cubs snapped a seasonhigh five- game losing streak with only their second victory in their last 11 games. And the schedule out of the break doesn’t get any easier, starting with the American League West- leading Rangers, followed by a Mets team that swept a four- game series from the Cubs on June 30- July 3 in New York.
And it’s at least debatable just how much of a break seven of their players will get by the time they’re done with the two days of All- Star obligations and round- trip travel to the West Coast.
‘‘ I think it’s more of a mental break that we need,’’ said All- Star third baseman Kris Bryant, who drove in the tiebreaking run with a two- out single in the eighth. ‘‘ The All- Star Game’s going to be fun. We’re going to be playing in it, but it’s still a mental break for us because there’s no pressure to go out there and perform or do any of that. We’re just going to enjoy the time.’’
Is that going to be enough for a fatigued, banged- up team to recharge? ‘‘ We’ll find out,’’ Zobrist said. The Cubs said they’re happy with the seven- game lead over the Cardinals they take to the break.
‘‘ If you told us at the beginning of the year we’d be in this position, I think any of us would take it,’’ Bryant said.
But the victory Sunday and an overall good first half can’t hide the fact the Cubs have lost four games off their lead to the Cardinals and 7 ½ to the Pirates in 11 days. Or the fact they’ve lost five of six to those teams in the last three weeks.
Plus, the Cubs’ rotation continued to struggle. John Lackey allowed five runs in six- plus innings and didn’t get a decision, leaving the starting staff without a quality start in 10 games this month. The once- vaunted rotation’s ERA during the Cubs’ 21- game slide is 6.04.
If the Cubs learned one thing in 88 games about their seasonlong mission to ‘‘ embrace the target,’’ it’s that they’ve drawn the wrath of every team in the league. And they can expect the target to get brighter — and the race to get hotter — in the second half.
‘‘ Everybody’s coming after us hard, man; everybody is,’’ manager Joe Maddon said. ‘‘ And I love that. And what we went through right now is going to be really beneficial to us in the second half.’’
As long as the pitching turns around and the bodies heal.
Because, as Rizzo said, ‘‘ Every game now in the Central, especially against the Cardinals and the Pirates, is going to be a playoff game from here on out.’’