CARDS, PIRATES TAKE AIM AFTER CUBS’ DOWNTURN
SAN DIEGO If pollsters projected divisional races, the Chicago Cubs likely would have been declared the winner of the National League Central on June 19.
The Cubs beat the Pittsburgh Pirates 10-5 that night to raise their record to 47-20 and their lead to 12½ games over the second-place St. Louis Cardinals. The third-place Pirates dropped to 15 games back. Chicago’s probability to win the Central, according to Fangraphs, was 99.9%.
That was quite a contrast to last year, when the same three teams had the best regular-season records in the major leagues with the Cardinals (100-62) holding off the Pirates (98-64) by two games and the Cubs (97-65) by three games.
However, it appears there could be a race in the NL Central after all.
The Cubs (53-35) lost 15 of their last 21 games before the All- Star break to at least take a step back toward the pack. Their lead is down to seven games over the Cardinals (46-42) and 7½ over the Pirates (46-43).
Their division-winning probability is “down” to 92.5% — still an overwhelming proposition.
Just a little less certain than before.
“We don’t feel different at all,” Cubs third baseman and All-Star starter Kris Bryant said Tuesday. “It’s just that the last 20 games or so, we haven’t been winning more than we’ve been losing. But that happens. Our attitude has never changed.
“We’re just doing some damage control here, and, hopefully, heading into the second half, we’ll come out with a bang.”
Fair enough. But even if the Cubs are undaunted by their 615 stretch, it’s prompted their rivals to think the door’s cracked open a bit more than it was three weeks ago.
“The Cubs have a great team, and it would still be a big challenge to catch them if their lead was four games instead of seven,” Cardinals second baseman Matt Carpenter said Monday.
“It’s not going to be easy — but it does at least seem more realistic than it did a few weeks ago.”
The three-time reigning division champion Cardinals had a hard time gaining traction in the first half, going 12-12 in April, 1613 in May, 12-13 in June and 6-4 in July. They also have a 19-26 record at Busch Stadium, as opposed to 27-16 on the road.
“We haven’t played our best baseball,” Carpenter said. “It’s been a strange first half, like with our record with home, which is hard to explain.
“I really believe we are a better team than our record shows, and we’re going to show that in the second half.”
The Cardinals, though, will start off the second half without Carpenter (strained right side muscle) and first baseman-outfielder Brandon Moss (sprained left ankle).
Coming off three consecutive wild-card game appearances that followed 20 consecutive losing seasons, the Pirates entered the All- Star break playing better than at any point of the season. They won nine of 11 after falling a season-worst four games below .500.
“Everything is starting to come together now,” left fielder Starling Marte said. “We’re doing the little things that helped us win a lot of ballgames the last three years. Everybody is relaxed, not trying to do too much. We’re playing with confidence.”
Pirates closer Mark Melancon, low key by nature, thinks the Pirates are primed for a big second half.
“I really can’t believe we lost as many games as we did in the first half. It stunned me,” Melancon said. “I knew we were much better than that, and we’re showing it now. We’re still 7½ games back, but with the way we’re playing now, I really feel like we can make that deficit up.”
The Cubs, though, plan on having a lot to say about the NL Central race. Their lead is the largest among the six first-place teams in the major leagues.
Of course, the angst is already growing among Cubs fans, who have been waiting 108 years since the franchise’s last World Series title in 1908 and 71 years since the last Fall Classic appearance in 1945.
“I’m not the type of guy that seeks that or I don’t really pay attention to what people are saying on the Internet or Twitter or anything like that,” Bryant says. “But we’re not panicking at all. We know this is the process of playing 162 games in a season.”
Even though the Cubs had six players on the NL team in the All-Star Game on Tuesday at Petco Park — center fielder Dexter Fowler would have been the seventh but was going to sit out with a strained hamstring — there is even a dark cloud attached to the franchise being so well-represented in San Diego.
In 1984, the Cubs won the first two games of the best-of-five National League Championship Series from the Padres at Wrigley Field. However, the Padres won the next three at Jack Murphy Stadium in San Diego.
The Cubs didn’t make it back to the NLCS again until last year and were swept by the New York Mets.
These Cubs bristle at the suggestion that they are weighted down by their past and poised for a second-half collapse.
“Everyone crowned us the World Series champion in December, which is unfair to the whole organization,” first baseman Anthony Rizzo said. “Everyone put this high expectation on us, and we lived up to it.
“We’ve had a couple of tough weeks, but no team goes through a season without having some rough stretches. We know the kind of team we have, and we’re very confident about what we’re capable of doing.”
“I really believe we are a better team than our record shows, and we’re going to show that in the second half.” Cardinals second baseman Matt Carpenter