It could have been a much-needed reset. A chance to build momentum for a week that will see the mighty Rays come to town before a grueling, 10-game West Coast swing.
But the Cubs’ 2023 season reached an early nadir on Sunday with an 8-5 loss to the Reds that completed a series sweep for the division rival and dropped the hosts’ NL-worst record to 22-30.
“We’re just not really clicking right now, not putting all three phases of the game together at the same time,” starter Drew Smyly said. “It was an ugly weekend for us, the Reds came in and beat us up.”
If good teams find different ways to win, then the bad ones find different ways to lose — and the Cubs currently find themselves square in the latter category.
With two botched pickoff attempts and a dropped pop fly in foul territory, shoddy defense extended a fifth inning that eventually culminated in two tiebreaking Cincinnati runs.
Save for a pair of Patrick Wisdom home runs, the offense went hitless in eight other at-bats with runners in scoring position, which included failing to convert with the bases loaded and one out while trailing 7-3 in the bottom of the sixth.
Not including the two inherited runners Jeremiah Estrada allowed that broke a 3-3 tie and went on Smyly’s record, the bullpen ceded three runs between the sixth and seventh innings to turn a 5-3 deficit to an 8-3 rout — although at least the relievers’ combined 6.59 ERA over 4.1 innings was an improvement over their 8.22 ERA since May 13 entering play.
On paper, it is not an ideal time to face the 39-16 Rays, then hit the road for stops in San Diego, Anaheim and San Francisco. But the Cubs maintain internal faith that if they can rediscover the quality that propelled their fast start, it shouldn’t matter who lines up opposite them.
“I don’t think the opponent matters, to be honest,” Smyly said. “We have to play our best game. If we come out and play our best baseball it doesn’t matter who we’re playing.”
Added Wisdom: “We’re not playing up to our caliber. Everyone’s aware of that. But it’s baseball, so I think at any point it can turn in our favor. We still have a lot of belief in this clubhouse, and we believe in one another.”
But the sample size of a group underperforming relative to heightened preseason expectations has surpassed the period in which they surged. Since the 12-7 start that had them 1.5 games back of the NL Central lead on April 21, the Cubs are 10-23 and now sit 5.5 games behind the first-place Brewers.
The good news? There are 112 games yet to play, and that hole — or the 4.5 games by which they trail in the Wild Card hunt — could be much more cavernous. Ian Happ pointed to positives even during the team’s most lackluster stretches of play as talismans to cling to as they work towards a turnaround.
“It was really, really good early, and at some point it had to flip a little bit. It’s flipped pretty hard on us,” Happ said, pointing to hard-hit balls ending in outs, and a 2-10 record in one-run games, as factors in the schneid.
“Eventually those are going to turn, we’re going to get some good breaks. It’s just a matter of keeping that confidence up, a matter of continuing to play the game hard and play the game the right way.”
Then, with a smile: “It’s not always going to be bad, we’ll be alright.”
Time will tell.
