No sympathy for Cubs for long stretch
The heaviest thing most baseball players lift during a game is a bat, and most of the time they’re standing around in the field waiting for something to happen.
They stay in swanky hotels, fly on chartered planes and avoid the hassles of everyday travelers going through airport security. And they get paid a lot of money for doing a job that includes 3 1⁄2 months off or more, depending on whether they make the playoffs.
Maybe that’s why the Cubs seem to get so little sympathy from fans for their ongoing saga.
Because of rainouts and a pair of makeup games in Atlanta and Washington, the Cubs will have their 30th consecutive day of work Wednesday in Phoenix, if you include Sunday’s rainout in Washington after they had reported to the ballpark. They’ll finally get a day off Thursday in Chicago before the City Series with the White Sox resumes on the South Side the next day.
Major League Baseball has rules to prevent such occurrences. Teams are not supposed to be scheduled to play more than 21 days in a row, and players have to approve a change if it goes past that because of a makeup game. The Cubs did that when a May 17 game in Atlanta was postponed, agreeing to give up a day off Aug. 30 to make it up.
But when the teams have no more scheduled games, it’s all in MLB’s hands. And with time running out in the season and only one common day off, the Cubs and Nationals were forced to play a makeup game Thursday in Washington on what would’ve been the Cubs’ first day off in 24 days.
MLB didn’t want to schedule the game for Oct. 1, after the regular season, with the National League wild-card game scheduled for Oct. 2. The Cubs fought the decision and lost. They won the game in 10 innings but lost closer Pedro Strop to a hamstring injury.
September normally has been the month they’ve been able to find another gear in the Joe Maddon era. They were 23-9 after Aug. 31 in 2015, 18-11 in 2016, and 19-10 in 2017. That’s a 60-30 total, a .667 winning percentage. But they entered the weekend series against the Reds 6-6 this September and were hitting .234 with nine home runs, only one more than the majors’ lowest total.
What gives?
“I think it’s a combination of velocity and fatigue that might have something to do with it,” Maddon said Thursday, referring to the proliferation of power relief pitchers who throw in the mid- to upper 90s. “I don’t know that, but the velocities these days are absurd, and combine that with not getting any breaks (in the schedule), that may be leading a little bit to the inefficiency at the plate.”
The Cubs aren’t the only ones facing hard-throwing relievers or playing a tough schedule, but could there be a connection between their performance and the fatigue of the 30-day stretch?
“It’s human nature,” general manager Jed Hoyer said. “When you see a team at the end of a long road trip, or at the end of playing 20 in a row, they always look a little bit ragged and they always have some
challenges. I know last year when we got swept by the Brewers at home, it was the end of 20 in a row. We had an off day then and did well.
“I don’t think it’s a coincidence, but this is the hand we’ve been dealt this season and we have to do everything we can to win one more game than Milwaukee or St. Louis. That’s our charge and we have to do that. No one is going to feel sorry for us. This is what we have to deal with and we just have to get through it.
“Our hope certainly is, as we play these pennant-race games, we kind of get a second wind.”
That Brewers sweep last year occurred on Sept. 8-10 at Wrigley Field. After the day off, the Cubs won 15 of 18 to pull away in the NL Central.
The Cubs understand what kind of response they get when they mention “fatigue” or talk about the absurdity of going 30 days without a break.
“Suck it up.”
“Shut up and play.”
“Quit crying, you millionaires.”
But having a day off is important to an athlete for physical and mental reasons. If it wasn’t, MLB would schedule 162 games in 162 days instead of having built-in days off. It’s a problem peculiar to baseball because the NFL plays once a week and the NBA and NHL have many more days off than games during their 82-game seasons.
So Maddon and the Cubs will be criticized for even mentioning the stretch, though they really talk about it only when asked by the media.
“I haven’t heard our guys complain at all, and I’m only reiterating or answering a question all the time, or that’s what I’m trying to do,” Maddon said. “You ask me what I’m thinking, I’m going to tell you what I’m thinking based on that’s just the way it is. But we’re here. We’re ready to play.
“But again, it’s an unusual set of circumstances. Even in the minor leagues, you don’t go through this kind of a stretch, and to make it even more difficult, all the different cities involved. We’ve been in different cities through this whole mechanism.”
By the end of the stretch, the Cubs will have gone from Chicago to Detroit to Chicago to Atlanta to Philadelphia to Milwaukee to Washington to Chicago to Washington to Chicago to Phoenix and back to Chicago. Players often are arriving in a city between midnight and 4 a.m. and playing a game that night. That’s part of baseball, but doing it so often without a break can wear on a team.
“It’s not an excuse, it’s just a fact,” Maddon said. “Nobody is crying or complaining, but it’s suboptimal when you’re looking for optimal performance.”
Many Cubs players were upset with the MLB decision to have them play in Washington while canceling their day off. Anthony Rizzo called it a “joke,” and Kris Bryant said, “It really kind of shows that we just work here.”
Pitcher Mike Montgomery was the most vocal, saying MLB needs to take a hard look at the decision and make sure it doesn’t happen to other teams in the future. He also put Strop’s injury on MLB, saying the reliever should have been “sitting on a boat somewhere for an off day” instead of playing in Washington.
“There needs to be a better way to do all this,” Montgomery said. “I think we embraced this as good as we could. We came in fired up and came out with a win. It wasn’t easy. Those guys (the Nationals) didn’t want to be here either. No one wanted to be here playing a game we shouldn’t have. But the fact we did shows you something needs to be done.
“I don’t know how it’s going to happen. I’m not the guy who is going to make it happen, but I think we can all agree these games shouldn’t happen. … It’s a way to move the game forward to make it better for everyone.”
Having this stretch come near the end of a tense pennant race increases the degree of difficulty.
“They’ve hung in pretty well,” Maddon said. “The biggest thing is just the lack of offense right now. We have to get going. We still have been playing well, we have been pitching well. The offense is just taking a break right now. We just have to get the offense back, and if we do that, we’re going to be just fine.”
The light at the end of the tunnel is near, but the Cubs can’t afford to think about it until the day comes.
Is the worst of it over with?
“No,” Bryant said after Thursday’s victory. “The worst will be over when we actually have an off day. We just have to keep grinding through it. This is 23 or 24 of 30, so I think we’ll be all right.”