USA TODAY International Edition
CUBS SPINNING THEIR WHEELS
Struggling champs eager to break out
Those lovable Chicago Cubs, who cruised to 103 victories and stopped the baseball universe when they won the World Series last year, dreaming of turning this club into a dynasty, find themselves in the depths of mediocrity today.
The Cubs lost again Sunday, 5- 0, to the St. Louis Cardinals, as former Cy Young Award winner Jake Arrieta gave up two more homers, leadoff man Kyle Schwarber went hitless again and the Cubs spent Mother’s Day spitting oil trying to keep up in the National League Central.
The Cubs, who were expected to be printing out invitations to their World Series gala right about now, are 18- 19, sitting in fourth place in their division. They trail the Cardinals by 31⁄ games, their biggest deficit since Oct. 3, 2015.
This is a team that had a 71⁄ game lead on Mother’s Day a year ago. The Cubs didn’t get their 19th loss of the season until June 13 when they were 43- 19. So unless the Cubs reel off a 25game winning streak, this ride to October will be a whole lot bumpier than anyone imagined.
“We’ve got to get better, get something going and figure this out before it’s too late,” Cubs catcher Miguel Montero told USA TODAY Sports. “What’s so strange is that I actually believe we have even a better team than last year, so I don’t know what’s going on. I don’t think anyone is too concerned yet, but we’ve got to get back to being hungry. We need to clean this up. We have to come out and compete every day. We can’t just show up and expect to win, because it doesn’t work that way. This is baseball. Anything can happen. We’ve got to get this thing going.”
Certainly, any freakout is coming externally.
The Cubs are still the team to beat in the NL Central, if not the National League. They simply have too much young talent.
Come on, Schwarber won’t be batting .179 all season. Cleanup hitter Anthony Rizzo won’t be hitting .213 when October rolls around. Their lineup won’t always resemble a split- squad game in Mesa, Ariz., with half of their starting position players out with varying aches and pains.
“I don’t think there’s any reason to panic,” says Arrieta, who will be a free agent after the season. “The talent we have here will correct itself and start to turn itself around. But we’d love to win a few more games and tighten things up a little bit.”
The Cubs, who have had five ring ceremonies, played in three ESPN Sunday night games and spent nearly as many days in St. Louis over the first six weeks as in Chicago, think normalcy is just around the corner.
“We’re all frustrated,” Cubs ace Jon Lester said after Saturday’s loss. “Nobody wants to suck. Nobody wants to lose. We’re all frustrated, but all grinding.”
If the Cubs have one overriding concern, it’s their starting rotation. A year ago, it led the major leagues with a 2.96 ERA. This year, it’s the eighth worst. Their biggest enigma has been Arrieta. He won the Cy Young Award two years ago with a 22- 6 record and 1.77 ERA, won 18 games with a 3.10 ERA last year, but this year is yielding a 5.44 ERA, including 7.27 in his last five starts.
“That ( velocity) just hasn’t been there, I don’t know what else to say,” Montero said. “I don’t know if he has a dead arm or is fatigued from last year, but velo is not the same. Even if he was throwing 90- 91 ( mph), he used to have a giddy- up to it, but until today I didn’t really see that. He hasn’t had that explosion out of his hand. But today was the best I’ve seen him. Maybe that’ll change now.”
The radar gun reveals Arrieta’s average fastball dropping from 94.5 mph in 2015 to 93.6 mph last year to 91.7 mph this season. He didn’t throw a single pitch faster than 93 mph Sunday, with Yadier Molina and Matt Carpenter each hitting two- run homers off his sinker. He has given up eight home runs in 442⁄ innings, just two shy of his entire total during his Cy Young season.
“I don’t get off the bandwagon very easily,” Cubs manager Joe Maddon says. “I believe it will be just a snap of the fingers where everything will fall in place. I don’t think you’ll see this slow method of better, better, better, better, great. I just think all of a sudden you’ll see something click, and he’ll be back closer to where he had been.”
It’s no different, the Cubs insist, with Schwarber, who is in the deepest funk of his career. He’s looking like a guy who missed all of last season with torn knee ligaments and not the one who spoiled everyone by returning to hit .412 in the World Series.
“I guess when it’s going bad, it goes bad,” Schwarber said softly of going hitless in his last 16 atbats. “It stinks, but you can’t let it bother you. It’s a crazy game. It can put you in a great place; it can put you in a bad place. Obviously, it gets frustrating, but I’m still confident.”
If the Cubs need help, particularly another pitcher, the market will be flooded with starters at the trade deadline.
“You never anticipate guys that good struggling at this point as much as they have,” Maddon says. “So I really believe that in some perverse way is actually OK, or a good thing, because I have that much faith in our guys.
“I know our run is in there, and when that run shows up, I’m certain we’ll take off again.”
The launch date just happens to be later than anyone ever anticipated.