Chicago Cubs: Agonizing stat perfectly summarizes prodigious fall from grace

The Chicago Cubs lost another one on Friday– another one that they really couldn’t afford to lose.

By dropping a 3-2 heartbreaker to the previously free-falling Pittsburgh Pirates, the team now falls to 9 games behind the first place Milwaukee Brewers in the NL Central Division. Maybe, most important at this point, the Cubs are tentatively holding on to the top NL Wild Card spot on a pure statistical technicality as the Los Angeles Dodgers and San Diego Padres are currently tied atop the NL West.

No doubt, these are tough times in Cubbie land, as the Wrigley Field boos on Friday clearly showed.

In Chicago’s latest stumble, the team failed to overcome a 3-2 deficit heading into the bottom of the ninth inning, even after a Pete Crow-Armstrong single set the stage for a possible comeback (PCA would be thrown out in a steal attempt, over-sliding second base).

The Crow-Armstrong miscue took the juice out of any comeback energy and resulted in another late season “L.”

The no-comeback Chicago Cubs

The inability to stage a comeback in the loss to the lowly Pirates wasn’t exactly unexpected given the team’s current form. Actually, most who follow the team have noticed this trend towards going down and staying down.

Tony Andracki of Marquee Sports Network, however, put some numbers behind the off-putting vibe:

“The Cubs have not had a comeback victory since July 2, a span of 35 games. It is the longest such streak in franchise history since at least 1901.”

Ouch. That seems to sting all the more when it’s put into black and white like that.

The Cubs’ absolute inability to generate any sort of sustained offensive surge is the general culprit for the team’s doldrums. The drought has created scenarios where the team is now almost always behind in the score at some point.

Horrible with runners in scoring position

Specifically, though, the team’s lack of comeback mojo is a result of their utter inability to deliver with runners in scoring position. In their last two games– losses versus the Pirates and the Toronto Blue Jays– the offense was a meager 2-for-16 with runners in scoring position, with only one of those hits actually resulting in a run. If the Cubs had just managed two more hits in this run, the pair of one-run losses could’ve been victories instead.

If one goes back further, that same pattern shows itself over and over again, especially since late June.

Manager Craig Counsell, who has tried switching up the lineup and strategically benching slumping players, has no real answers as to how to make his hitters– who were killing opposition pitching earlier in the year– start hitting again.

The Cubs front office failed to deliver impact reinforcements at the trade deadline. So, now, all Counsell and the Cubs can really do is try to wring better results from a team that has relatively suddenly gone dry.

Craig Counsell speaks

“Consistency is something that we have to offer,” Counsell told reporters after Friday’s loss. “You can’t fall into (thinking) it’s that bad. You can’t fall into that thought because nothing bad has happened. You get trapped into results. Of course, we know results are what matter here. This is a results business. You understand that. But I think for us to focus on results is harmful.

“Focus on the things that contribute to us being good. Those are the right things to focus on. Those things make you better. It’s hard. I get it, it’s hard. But for those guys in there, you got to keep them on that, man, because that’s what’s going to get you to a better place.”

In short, the only strategy going forward seems to be: “Be better, Cubs.”

Source: https://www.chicitysports.com/chicago-cubs-slump-pca-counsell-stats?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=chicago-cubs-slump-pca-counsell-stats