Alright, as a fan of baseball, I’ll give my TWO sentence congratulations to the Brewers for being one of the hottest teams in the final month of the season and winning 8 straight to close it out and taking the NL Central. It was deserved.
IMAGE: Giphy.com
Great, now that I got that out of the way, what the actual fuck is going on? Before the weekend, and for much of the second half, the Cubs were sitting with the best record in the National League and the potential #1 seed in the playoffs securing home field advantage till the World Series. That was until we decided to shit the bed in game 163, lose the division to the Brewers, and slide down to the #4 seed losing home field advantage past the Wild Card. The good news? We are still in the playoffs. *Sarcastic Cheer*
IMAGE: Giphy.com
Don’t get me wrong, I’m relieved that we still have a fighting chance, but I also realize that we are going to need some things to immediately and drastically change if we want to stand any chance of capturing a second World Series with this Cubs team. I’m talking as immediately as tonight’s Wild Card Game. At the beginning of the month, I wrote a piece on how I thought the MLB playoffs would turn out this year, and I had the Cubs winning it all again. If you ask me how I felt about that today, I’d tell you how it looks like Boston is about to take the crown. Here’s why…THE CUBS OFFENSE IS STILL FAR TOO INCONSISTENT.
We not only lost the division to the Brewers, but we lost it while they had Mr. Potato Head on the mound. That’s right. If you replace Mr. Potato Head’s mustache with a chin strap, BOOM! You have Jhoulys Chacin, the guy who looked like a staff ace yesterday holding the Cubs to 1 hit for the first 5 2/3 innings. In fact, we were only able to muster 3 hits the entire game. When we got Daniel Murphy, I thought that was the answer the offense needed. It was looking great at first, but the last few weeks of the season showed us that the offense is still streaky and we’re going to NEED it to wake up in a do or die situation today.
Speaking of today’s game, the Cubs will be sending Jon Lester to the mound to face off against the Rockies best pitcher this year, Kyle Freeland. While I don’t hate this decision, I don’t necessarily agree with it completely. Yes, Jon has had a terrific postseason career and has pitched in numerous must win games, but he hasn’t been at his best this year. He’s allowed too much traffic on the base paths and the Rockies offense has also been one of the hottest lineups to close out the year. That could lead to a lot of stressful innings in the Wild Card game. Kyle Hendricks would’ve been a good pick for the game since he’s our hottest pitcher, pitches his best at Wrigley, pitches to weak contact, and has also pitched in huge games with smooth confidence. I mean look at his September ERA…
.@kylehendricks28 this season:
33 starts (career high)
199 IP (career high)
3.44 ERA (1.79 in Sept.)
18 consecutive starts with 2 BB or fewer#ClassDismissed pic.twitter.com/5DCIliLve3— Chicago Cubs (@Cubs) September 28, 2018
One of the beautiful things about baseball though is that anything can happen, and while I’m nervous as a fan, I know that the Cubs are going to come to play tonight and we’re going to need that energy to carry us through the playoffs. Regardless of how much I just bashed the Cubs, I’m going to be there cheering on my team through thick and thin. Will you?
Follow me on Twitter @eadiaz57 and instagram @edgar.a.diaz.57 to either share my excitement or grief following tonight’s game.
#ForTheBrand
Featured Image: Chicagotribune.com