Ivy League Cubs

By: Jacob Zanolla

The Cubs won arguably their best game of the season on Wednesday, coming back from a 10-3 deficit to beat the Pirates 14-10. Not only is a win good, but coming back and scoring 11 runs in the last three innings is extremely impressive, and a confidence boost for the whole team before September starts. The problem Craig Counsell and his team faces is the deficit in the standings, which they had already let grow by losing so many games earlier in the season. Because of the rough middle chunk of the season, they don’t have the tie breakers needed to make this race even closer.

It seems like the Cubs always do better in the second half, and this year is no exception. They have a 21-15 record after the middle point of the season, the seventh best record in baseball during that time. However, it doesn’t really do much when the teams ahead of the Cubs are doing just as good, if not better. Counsell’s team has been impressive, with a strong rotation and suddenly electric offense.

According to @MLBStats, the Cubs have scored 73 runs over their past seven games. The next closest team has scored 42 runs in that span. Even with the ten runs allowed on Wednesday, this red-hot offense came back and made it look rather easy in the ninth inning.

As of Thursday’s off day, the Cubs are still pretty far out of the wild card race, and even farther back in the division. At 68-66, they’re nine games behind the Brewers for first place in the NL Central. The St. Louis Cardinals are one and a half games behind the Cubs, but they’ve been playing some bad baseball as of late, and have a tough schedule to finish out the year.

Wild card wise, The Diamondbacks have pretty much sealed up the first spot, or at least guaranteed that they will get in. Sure it’s only a three game lead, but they’ve been on a roll, and would need a horrible collapse to miss the postseason. The Cubs are 5.5 games behind the Braves for the third wild card spot, and have to pass the Mets (four behind the Braves) as well. Atlanta keeps winning, but a four game series against the Phillies should be quite interesting. If the Phillies can win that series, or even sweep, the Cubs are in business. The next seven games for the Cubs are against pretty bad teams, with three against the Nationals followed by four more versus the Pirates.

Even with one of the easiest schedules in baseball, and the easiest in the National League, the Cubs have built themselves such a gap that I’m not sure if it matters. Either way, it’s nice to see them above .500, and prepare to crush our hopes and dreams once again. With 28 games remaining, the goal is to keep everyone healthy, see what some of the prospects can offer, and hope for a miracle to sneak into the post season.

Photo credit: Chicago Tribune