Cubs look to Little League Classic to cure road troubles
Maybe a little side trip to Williamsport will help the Chicago Cubs put some joy back into their game.
At the very least, maybe playing in Sunday night's Little League Classic against the Pittsburgh Pirates at Williamsport, Pa., will help former Cubs Little Leaguers Kris Bryant, Steve Cishek, Jonathan Lucroy, Jose Quintana, Anthony Rizzo and manager Joe Maddon feel at home.
Back-to-back gut-punch losses at Philadelphia Thursday and at Pittsburgh Friday further widened the perplexing gap between the Cubs' home and road performances this season.
The Cubs have a home record of 41-19, good for a winning percentage of .683.
The road record entering Saturday was 23-39 for a percentage of .371.
The 312-point difference in winning percentages was the largest in the major leagues. And if you put the "home" Cubs' record on top of the "road" Cubs' record, you'd find that the "home" Cubs were 19 games ahead of the "road" Cubs.
That difference is historic.
According to research historian Ed Hartig, that's the largest games-behind gap since Sept. 26, 1956, when the "home" Cubs were 39-36 and the "road" Cubs were 21-56.
The last time the difference was at least 20 games was in 1953. But that's still not the largest gap in franchise history. That was Sept. 14, 1933, when the "home" Cubs were 52-16 and the "road" Cubs were 28-45 for a 26½-game difference.
About today's disparity, nobody seems to have an answer. And the latest run of road woes have turned the talk again to the job status of Maddon, whose contract expires at the end of this season.
General manager Jed Hoyer addressed Maddon's situation with reporters Friday in Pittsburgh.
"One of his great strengths is he shows up every day," Hoyer said to the media. "He's the same guy. Just seeing him on the field just now, we had a pretty awful loss (Thursday), and he's confident and has a smile on his face.
"If we were in any other division, we'd be at least 7 games back … And we should look at that as in incredible opportunity. We've had all these road struggles all year.
"If we keep on playing well at home, going on the road and give up whatever lead we have and keep getting knocked down, if we continue that cycle, we're going to end up disappointed. ... But we should look at his as an amazing opportunity to have a 41-game sprint to win when the first 121 games of performance don't deserve that fate."
Difficult without a closer:
The Cubs entered Saturday with 6 losses after they led entering the ninth inning. That was tops in the major leagues.
One of the reasons for that has been the lack of a legitimate closer for three-quarters of the season. The Cubs went until the activation of Craig Kimbrel on June 27 without a bona fide closer.
Kimbrel pitched from June 27-Aug. 3 before he went on the injured list Aug. 4 with right-knee inflammation.
If the Cubs are going to improve their road record and make the playoffs, Kimbrel is going to have to come back and be the lockdown closer the Cubs signed him to be.
Otherwise, there's not much more Maddon can do, except perhaps take the fall for the front office's failure to adequately address this key position.
More bad history:
How bad was Thursday night's 7-5 walk-off loss at Philadelphia, when Bryce Harper's grand slam capped a 6-run bottom of the ninth?
In keeping with today's theme, it was historically bad.
According to Hartig, the 6-runs the Phillies scored in the final inning tied the record for most runs allowed by the Cubs in a walk-off inning since they began playing in the National League in 1876.
It happened four previous times, the most recent before Thursday was July 28, 2002, when the St. Louis Cardinals scored 6 in the bottom of the ninth to beat the Cubs 10-9, with the coup de grace being Edgar Renteria's 3-run homer against Antonio Alfonseca.
After that game, interim manager Bruce Kimm was second-guessed for pulling starting pitcher Matt Clement after 5-plus innings and 81 pitches.
The more things change ...