How to put this without being overly dramatic?
If the Cubs don’t win like maniacs for the rest of August, life as they hoped to know it this season will be over. The sky will fall. All hope shall be lost.
OK, so maybe that was a little much.
But understand this: Nearly three-quarters of the season has come and gone, with the Cubs having accomplished nothing of import along the way beyond vaguely insinuating themselves into the National League playoff picture. Yet now — right now — is when they can change that by seizing a golden opportunity to pounce to the next level. And if they fail to do that, well, they’d better not look up lest chunks of blue yonder come crashing down onto their faces. Or something like that.
The Cubs — who were 3½ games out of first place entering Tuesday’s homestand-opening 5-3 loss against the White Sox — are still just beginning a dream segment of their schedule against four consecutive opponents that are, combined, 92 games under .500. That happens to be as nice a way as there is to say the words “White Sox, Royals, Tigers and Pirates.”
But dropping even one game to the Sox was a terrible way to live the dream. If the Cubs really are any good, they should spend a 12-game stretch crushing the dregs of the two Central divisions. And if the baseball gods are cooperating, the first-place Brewers will be giving up ground during their concurrent stretch against the first-place Dodgers, the first-place Rangers and the first-place Twins, with the dangerous Padres waiting for the Brewers after that.
And then the Cubs and Brewers will end the month with three head-to-head matchups at Wrigley Field.
How does “first-place Cubs” sound to open September?
Maybe?
At the very least, it has to beat the sky falling.
“It’s just really cool to be in the middle of a division race, in simple terms, right?” second baseman Nico Hoerner said. “You’re playing baseball every day that has real consequences and meaning. Obviously, you want to control what you can on your end [so] what other teams do doesn’t matter. If we can play our best ball, we can see where it takes us.”
Shortstop Dansby Swanson was quick to wave a caution flag about overlooking teams that have been struggling or, in the case of the Sox, imploding.
“I think the best way to look at things is the internal part,” Swanson said. “Everyone’s a big leaguer. It doesn’t matter what team, doesn’t matter what the record is, anyone can beat anyone on any given night. We know and understand that.”
The Cubs understand, too, that they can’t look at a 12-game August stretch as being all-or-nothing in the same way that a fan or a writer in search of an angle might. The other team is bound to show up to play, as the Sox did in getting to Cubs starter Kyle Hendricks for three early runs. Look, the Sox are pros, too, allegedly. They’re getting paid and everything, if you can believe it.
And the Cubs have a list of real concerns of their own, among them the creeping mediocrity of Hendricks and the behind-schedule return from injury of fellow starter Marcus Stroman.
If the rest of August goes less than swimmingly, perhaps the sky won’t actually fall on Cubdom. Perhaps it’ll be September when things get settled in earnest.
But the Cubs might as well get on with the good stuff now — right now — in what Swanson called “the fastest but slowest year ever.” Having 43 games left means there’s still time, but not enough of it to keep from getting antsy.
“Obviously, you want to be playing your best when October comes,” said Swanson, who won a World Series two seasons ago with a Braves squad that was two games under .500 at the end of July. “But being able to hit our stride now, to take that momentum towards that point of the season, is awesome. It definitely has worked in the past.”
The Cubs are trying not to scoreboard-watch knowing more than a few baseball teams have lost their focus doing that.
“We can’t help ourselves unless we play good baseball,” Swanson said.
But where the schedule is concerned, they know the score. Things are all laid out for the Cubs in a back half of August that should be as easy as it gets. It’s kind of now or never.
