The Cubs in Late August: Winning Without Scoring – It’s Not Going to Work in the Postseason

For a team that is leading the National League in batting average and OPS and is third in total runs scored, the last four games have not been what we want: one run in each game, a solo home run.¹  The amazing thing is that the Cubs actually won two of the four games – and only lost another in the eleventh inning.

While it is great to win two out of four games when you only score one run a game, the pitching we wasted was depressing.  Look at the stats for the four games.  First, the relievers: collectively, they gave up one run in 16-2/3 innings.  That’s an ERA of 0.55.  The four starters were almost as good: four runs in 20 innings, for an ERA of 1.80.  And if you leave out Tyler Chatwood (and it would be nice if we could), they were better: one run in 18 innings.  Ex Chatwood, that’s an ERA of 0.50.

It seems pretty obvious that, if the Cubs make the postseason, our four starters will be Jon Lester, Kyle Hendricks, Cole Hamel, and Jose Quintana, with Mike Montgomery in the bullpen (hopefully with as good a result as two years ago).  The problem is getting there – and avoiding the Wild Card game.  And then getting the kind of pitching we did in Pittsburgh (as opposed to some of Lester, etc.’s other starts), but with the hitting that we have had only some times this year.

As I have said before, it’s all about getting hot in October.  Because October is a whole new season.

PS I wrote this before the Danny Murphy deal, but it probably explains it.
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¹ See here, here, here, and here.