After the Cubs, National League powers struggle to find consistency
NEW YORK -- Joe Maddon, the eclectic Cubs manager, sat in the visiting dugout at Citi Field on Thursday afternoon, and chuckled behind his Brooklyn hipster-chic black sunglasses. These have not been heady times for Chicago lately. Dexter Fowler, a potential All-Star, hit the disabled list 10 days ago. And the Cubs had broken the vow of the team motto, emblazoned on Maddon’s T-shirt -- “Try Not To Suck” -- by losing six of seven games before sweeping the Reds to start the week.
Now came another possible test -- a rematch of last October’s National League Championship Series. Over five days last fall, the Cubs were summarily swept by the Mets. Their unbeatable ace, Jake Arrieta, had lost and their mighty lineup had been suppressed. This was, however, not quite a worry to Maddon. The Cubs had come to New York for a four-game series and he had just one regret.
“I just wish there was a couple more day games so we could go out at night,” Maddon rued. “This series -- I’m not even thinking about it. Last year has nothing to do with this. If you look at the two teams on paper right now, Jimmy Loney is playing first base right now. Jimmy wasn’t even here last year. We got a bunch of young guys that were in the minor leagues last year.”
This is what passes for an issue with the Cubs right now: Not enough chances to party on a holiday weekend. They are a team of first-world-problems.
Maddon’s glee is understandable. Chicago is the monolith standing above the rest of the National League as the other contenders continue to wallow or come apart. They represent certainty right now and no other team hoping to take them down has that at the moment, let alone is able to match their baseball-best record.
The Cardinals are the only other team in the N.L. Central with a winning record. The Dodgers just put Clayton Kershaw on the disabled list, while the Giants have their own injury problems. Joe Panik, Hunter Pence, and Matt Duffy headline their growing list of the infirm.
The Nationals are atop the N.L. East but their season to this point has been a roller coaster. They suffered through a seven-game losing streak last week, as Stephen Strasburg and closer Jonathan Papelbon wait on the disabled list.
And the Mets, well, most simply, they are a mess. Steven Matz is pitching through a bone spur in his left elbow. Noah Syndergaard has a bone spur in his right elbow. Matt Harvey is 4-10 with a 4.55 ERA and pitching like the Dark Knight who’s lost all his gadgets. That vaunted Mets rotation -- with so many hosannas thrown at their feet last fall and this spring -- is now pockmarked by questions.
If only that was the extent of the Mets’ problems. They, too, are the walking wounded and their offense has gone nearly catatonic. But if the Mets are looking for reinforcement for their beleaguered roster, it may not be coming for a while -- if at all.
“What I’ve said before there is no single acquisition at least that I can see that is going to change what’s transpired over the last two months,” General manager Sandy Alderson said. “It’s going to have to come from within. There may be things we can do that can improve the team, we’ve done various things over the last couple of months to try to improve the team, but certainly we’ll be monitoring the market. But I don’t believe right now that an acquisition is going to make a big difference for us.”
The Cubs, meanwhile, continue on for now with no worry seemingly large enough to halt them. Arrieta remains dominant, even if he is now allowing runs at a more mortal pace. Their starting staff has a 2.54 ERA -- best in baseball over the Mets by three-quarters of a run. Their lineup, even without Fowler, remains formidable. It ranks second in the National League in runs scored and on-base-plus-slugging percentage, while Kris Bryant, who homered off Matz, is tied for the league lead with 22 home runs.
“We love our position player base and we feel that puts us in a pretty good position to put a good lineup out there every night and for the foreseeable future,” Theo Epstein, Chicago’s president of baseball operations, said. “But to do that you have be able to craft quality pitching staffs – sometimes year by year. We’ve been able to do that but it’s not always the position you want to paint yourself in. But we’ve been able to do it. With young pitching, you gotta keep them healthy. If you can get them healthy you might win the whole thing. If they’re not healthy you fall apart in a hurry.”