Cubs get tense 3-2 win over Cardinals
ST. LOUIS — Neither Cubs manager Joe Maddon nor general manager Jed Hoyer is measuring the Cubs season by any artificial milepost, whether it be Mother's Day or Memorial Day.
Both said Friday they know the Cubs need to start playing better.
They took a step in that direction Friday night in a 3-2 victory over the St. Louis Cardinals at Busch Stadium. Eddie Butler, making his first Cubs start after being called up from Class AAA Iowa, pitched 6 shutout innings. The Cubs got 2 solo homers from Willson Contreras and a solo shot from Tommy La Stella.
“Honestly, I know everybody's into markers,” Maddon said. “What I looked up was our record in 2015 on the same date. It was like we were one game over .500. Then I looked at 2015 at the halfway point, and we were seven games over .500. And we really kicked it in August and September. Not a bad formula.
“I don't go by dates on a calendar or holidays. I never quite understood that. They're all fabricated moments.”
The Cubs entered this big weekend series at .500 (17-17), a far cry from the 26-8 they were last year on the way to a World Series title.
Hoyer said there's no “diagnostic test” for why the Cubs have been mediocre. Like everybody else, he has watched the team and has seen that it's looked “off” so far.
“I don't think it's complacency at all,” he said. “It's not like you can say we're missing this or lacking that. Ultimately, we're a .500 team, and we've actually scrambled for some wins to get to that point. In some ways we probably haven't played as well as that record. But I don't think it's complacency. These guys are really competitive.
“Probably the thing I look at the most is that we've had so many deficits. I feel like the whole year we've played from behind.”
The Cubs have been outscored 41-21 in the first inning this year, and according to Hoyer, that takes a toll.
In Friday's game, the Cubs were ahead 3-0 by the seventh and then survived single runs by St. Louis in the seventh and ninth. Wade Davis earned his eighth save by stranding a runner on second after a throwing error by Contreras on a dropped third strike.
“When you're behind a lot, it does a lot of things that are negatives,” he said. It forces hitters to press. ‘I feel like I have to get a hit here because we've got to cut into the lead.' And it puts players on edge. You're constantly playing that way. It shortens up some starts that you wish you could allow a guy to work his way in, but when you're in the sixth inning and you're down 3-1 or 5-2, you have to pinch hit there.”
So far, the watchword has been patience. Maddon has continually expressed confidence the Cubs will get out of this funk which has affected the hitting, the starting pitching and, most troubling to the team, the defense. The July 31 nonwaiver deadline is still a long ways away, and Hoyer said the front office is of a mind to give the current group the benefit of the doubt.
“I do feel as you start to get into the summer, at some point you have to start making decisions,” he said. “We have to start making decisions about the deadline. I think at some point you do have to believe in what you're seeing. So I don't believe in a specific milepost. I do think that this year, because of what happened last year, we have to be a lot more patient in evaluating the team.
“We know we have a good group. We know we can be successful. We also have had a difficult schedule so I think we have to keep that in mind and maybe not make those decisions quite as early as we would normally because I do think we'll be very patient with this group.”