All-star break is coming at right time for slumping Cubs
The all-star break is coming at the right time for the Cubs.
This young team suddenly finds itself limping into the final game before the break. A gut-wrenching loss to the Cardinals this past Wednesday has proven to be the start of a mini-skid that hit three games with Saturday's 5-1 loss to the White Sox before a season-high crowd of 41,596 at Wrigley Field.
Cubs manager Joe Maddon downplayed any notion that the ninth-inning loss to the Cardinals took the starch out of his charges.
“I honestly don't think so,” said Maddon, whose team fell to 46-40 with one game to play before Tuesday's All-Star Game. “I'm walking through the clubhouse and the dugout before the game, and I don't feel it. They (the White Sox) pitched well. They did it yesterday. They did it again today.
“My refrain is that I know our young guys are going to get better with that stuff as you continue along. Right now they got us. Give them credit. They got us.”
The Cubs were gotten by a pretty good pitcher in White Sox lefty Chris Sale, who outdueled Cubs left-hander Jon Lester, signed last winter to be the ace of the staff.
Maddon admitted that “swing-and-miss” is part of the Cubs' DNA, and Sale went to work on that science by striking out 10 in 7 innings.
Lester, on the other hand, fell to 4-8 with a 3.59 ERA as he worked 7 innings of 7-hit, 5-run (4 earned) ball. He gave up 2 quick runs in the first inning and 3 more in the third, lamenting that he made just three mistakes and gave up 5 runs and no walks.
Although one tough loss might not be haunting the Cubs, the young players on the team do have to learn how to deal with the ups and downs of winning and losing as well as the long grind of the season.
“You got to figure it out,” Lester said. “The grind in the minor leagues is the same as the big leagues. The only difference is you get to take planes to different cities as opposed to buses. The grind is there. It's stuff that should be learned. Obviously, it's a little bit of a different situation, but the grind is the grind. We all go through it. It doesn't matter how old or young you are.”
Maddon recently gave several of his youngsters a day off, citing that grind.
“That's always the concern by the end of the season, too,” the manager said. “That's why I keep talking about having to give guys days off. You have to relax the mind a little bit. The break is definitely coming at the appropriate time for us.”
The break also will give Lester a chance to reflect on his first half. He gave up a double, a triple and a single to the first three White Sox hitters Saturday. He gave up 3 hits in the seventh, and the Sox also took advantage of a fielding error by Kris Bryant in a 3-run inning.
“I think there's some good in there,” Lester said of his personal first half. “There's some bad. I think there's some really good, but there's a little bit of everything. Obviously, I'll be the first one to tell you guys I haven't thrown the ball the best I've been able to (as) in the past.
“I've had some spurts here and there, but I feel like I had a really good May, had a terrible June. But I feel like I've kind of been OK since then. I feel like I've been OK to the point where I look up to the stats at little bit and wonder what's going on. But it is what it is. At the end of the day, you can't give up more than the other guy, and I've been doing that.”
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