By Marty Gangler
Boy, that sucked.
It kinda felt like 2009 all over again.
You remember that, right? What with the losing and nothing going right and all of that?
But you kind of had to expect a little of this. Sure, the nerds say the Cubs should have actually won more games then they have already, but your heart was always saying, you know, this just seems a bit too easy.
Because before this week as a Cub fan, you were thinking about parade routes and how to choose between Addison or Heyward as the name of your next dog and/or child (though Willson is now in the running too.)
So yeah, you probably needed to slow your roll a bit, or a lot of bit. These Cubs are still pretty good and will still (probably) cruise to the division championship – I mean, they are still up nine games on the Cardinals for the division lead. Just no need to panic.
But technically there are over nine games left in the season, so they technically could easily blow this thing.
I can’t say I’m in that camp right now. Baseball is a marathon and all, but could we be an arm injury from Jake or Lester away from being in a little trouble?
Pat Hughes would then describe a brown stripe running down the back of our trousers before each game.
But let’s not think about that; we’ve got another new guy to be happy about. Welcome Kyle Schwarber 2.0 – better known as Willson Contreras. Because the Cubs needed another catcher who might be better off at another position most of the time.
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Week in Review: The Cubs went 1-6 for the week, getting swept at home vs. the hated Cardinals and then losing three of four to the hated Marlins. Okay, can’t say the Cubs hate the Marlins, but maybe they should, and just for this weirdness.
Week in Preview: The boys in blue stay on the road for three with the Reds and four with the hated Mets. And yeah, the Mets are always hated. Oh, and we can hopefully hear the next lame nickname they’ve given to one of their players. That’ll be fun.
Musical Outfielders: And no we aren’t talking about Matt Szczur playing the French horn. Kris Bryant got two starts, Chris Coghlan got two starts and Willson Contreras got three starts. One has to wonder what will happen once some guys get back to being healthy – notably Jorge Soler and Dexter Fowler. Coghlan is certainly expendable in my book (and anyone else’s not related to him) but what about Willson? He may not have a position – or too many positions? The good thing is he is a catcher, and the Cubs love the hell out of guys who are catchers, and guys named Coghlan, for some reason.
Former Annoying Cub of the Week: Darwin Barney is our winner for the second consecutive week; for some reason playing well for the Blue Jays this year. He’s batting .293 and somehow has taken 10 walks, too. What? Add in his always solid defense and he’s a 1.4 WAR player already this season. If you added up his cumulative WAR for the past five seasons (and some were in the negative) he is at 1.5. That’s nuts. So okay, right now he may be missed but this is a long season to turn that back into him not being missed.
Current Annoying Cub of the Week: Once again it’s Chris Coghlan. Cogs had two hits for the week in 14 at-bats. The weird thing is that he started the week batting .156 and finished the week batting .156. So he kind of seems like a .156 hitter. He did have six walks, which is pretty great, and seems like the classic “moneyball” reason why the A’s had him at the beginning of the season. But just like the A’s, I think he’s gone soon. He had a couple bonehead base-running plays as well this week, and if all you can do is walk, and then be stupid out there after walk, then what was the point of the walk anyway?
Mad (don) Scientist: Big Poppa Joe had the guys wear kinda weird suit things with shorts for this road trip. He may want to put this one in his back pocket seeing how things have gone. Here’s a bit of a list of Joeisms. The interesting thing coming out of the Cub injuries and new guys in the mix right now is that Joe might be getting a little too all over the place to a point where even he doesn’t know who is the right guy for the right job on any given day.
Kubs Kalender: Fans attending the Cubs-Mets game on Sunday will receive a Yoenis Cespedes compression sleeve. Compression sleeves: for when you want to give yourself a hug, but just on your arm.
Beachwood Sabermetrics: A complex algorithm performed by The Cub Factor staff using all historical data made available by Major League Baseball has determined that a lot of people will spell Willson wrong.
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Marty Gangler is The Cub Factor. He welcomes your comments.
Posted on June 27, 2016