ROAD TO NOWHERE
Lackluster team needs to flip switch or pressure will mount
PITTSBURGH — See, now, that’s what a championship team is supposed to look like. A team in perfect offensive and defensive balance. A team that never, ever beats itself. A team of individual stars whose collective focus in crucial moments makes opponents crumble.
No, not the can’t-get-out-of-their-ownway Cubs, 5-1 losers to the Pirates on a rainsoaked Tuesday night at PNC Park.
We’re referring to the U.S. women’s soccer team, which beat England 2-1 to advance to Sunday’s World Cup final.
As Team USA did its thing in Lyon, France, Cubs players watched intently on four flat-screen TVs in the visitors’ clubhouse. They saw a team on a mission. They saw greatness.
And then the Cubs took the field and did their own thing, which is — as anyone who has been watching them lately should know — playing like they have utterly no idea where they’re going.
Even with Kyle Hendricks, back from a bout of shoulder inflammation, pitching for the first time since June 14, it was no surprise when the Cubs quickly fell behind 1-0 in the first inning. It was just more of the same for a team that managed to lose Monday’s series opener by a preposterous score of 18-5, is mired in a painful 4-14 stretch on the road and is winless in its last six — going on seven — series overall.
“I felt great, health-wise, so that was a positive from it,” said Hendricks, who pronounced himself “100 percent” and expects to be all systems go in his next start Sunday against the host White Sox.
Hendricks (7-6), on a restrictive pitch count as it was, threw only three innings before a rain delay that lasted 2 hours, 5 minutes.
Frankly, it was a welcome respite from the Cubs’ shoddy play — and from the flamethrowing bat of Pirates leadoff man Adam Frazier. He finished Tuesday’s game on a streak of seven straight hits, the first Pirates player in a decade to accomplish that feat, and is 9-for-10 with six extra-base hits in the series.
Looking out at the field during the delay, it was natural to wonder: When will the Cubs roll up the tarp, so to speak, and clear the mess they’ve made since the calendar turned to June?
Manager Joe Maddon held a midseason meeting with players before the game, giving them marching orders on what to get better at and offering his take on ways to make it happen.
Will it stick? If it doesn’t, the Cubs will keep backsliding toward .500 and into the morass of a more-crowded-by-the-day, yet less-than-riveting division race.
“I know what we have, and I love our group,” Maddon said. “But I think these other groups have been [rising]. They’ve worked from pretty much the same template that we have. And now we have to look for, and find, that other edge that’s going to make the most sense to us and puts us back over the top. That’s pretty much the challenge for us as a group right now.”
Again, though, what if Maddon’s midseason directives don’t take root, and fast? The pressure will mount — on the players and on Maddon himself.
“I’m committed and believe that this group can be what we thought it can be,” Maddon said. “That’s my job, and I take it very seriously; I take it to heart. And that’s why I talk to them like I just did. That’s why I communicate with them the way I do.”