Hard to blame some Cubs fans for occasional crises of faith

Reader Mike is what I would call an old-school Cubs fan, the kind who has seen too much carnage and, though completely smitten with this year’s model, is always in mid-cringe, waiting for the other spiked shoe to drop.

I completely understand him, and I also understand his need to keep laying challenges in front of his favorite team, which, as of this writing, is 22 games over .500. It’s why I received this email from him Friday morning:

Starting Jun 6th, Cubs will play 23 of 32 on road until the all-star break, let’s see what they can do on the upcoming schedule. The trip should also determine what, if any, holes they will need to fill come the trade deadline in late July.

For most Cubs fans these days, past isn’t prologue because there’s no past and no prologue. There’s no century-plus since the last World Series title. There is only now, which is a string of sunny days, Christmas mornings, true love, perfect teeth and imminent World Series titles, plural. Or, if there is past and prologue, it started with Theo Epstein’s arrival in Chicago in 2011.

Those fans are Odie, slobbering over their team as if they were the team’s flagship radio station, and Reader Mike is Garfield, casting a wary eye at October.

They have it easy. He doesn’t.

I’m here to allay his fears. The Cubs do indeed play a large chunk of their games on the road before the All-Star Game on July 12. They also are the best team in baseball. They aren’t slump-proof, and, as has been previously mentioned here, there will be tough times ahead for them, baseball being both capricious and borderline endless.

But it’s hard to see the Cubs struggling for extended periods this season, even if they were to play the rest of their road games in the middle of a war zone. When Ben Zobrist, a career .268 hitter, is at .339 two months into the season, it’s a pretty good indication that this is a charmed team. You figure someone else will grab the baton when Zobrist inevitably slows down. Maybe that’s Anthony Rizzo, who is hitting .239 but has good power numbers. Or maybe it’s Jason Heyward, who is hitting .229.

Should the entire Cubs’ infield be in the All-Star Game? No it shouldn’t, but Chicagoans have been known to stuff ballot boxes. The Cubs are fun, and if there’s a face that captures the youth, enthusiasm and cuddliness their fans demand, it would be Addison Russell’s. He leads all National League shortstops in All-Star balloting. He’s also hitting .237. If he gets to .245, expect a landslide.

Reader Mike isn’t manufacturing concern out of thin air. The Cubs will face good competition before the All-Star break, with series against the Nationals, Pirates (twice), Cardinals and Mets, among others. But it won’t be a referendum on what they’ve done to this point. It will be further verification that they’re the best in class.

The surprise of the season has not been all the runs the Cubs have scored despite a mediocre team batting average. It has been the excellence of their starting rotation, from top to bottom. It’s almost absurd how good Jake Arrieta, Jon Lester, John Lackey, Jason Hammel and Kyle Hendricks have been. I find myself yelling at the other team through the television, “You’re getting dominated by Kyle Hendricks, not Jake Arrieta! This is the pitcher who’s supposed to make you feel good about yourselves again!’’

But, no. That’s not how this season rolls. Every Cub feeds off his teammates. Every player seems to believe he has a hand in the team’s success. That belief happens when you have a nurturing manager who calls everybody and everything “spectacular.’’ A sacrifice bunt? Spectacular. A player hustling to first base? Spectacular. Democracy? Fourteenth-century Italian poetry? Regular bowel movements? Almost certainly spectacular, all of them.

There are going to bumps along the way, but unless there is a rash of injuries or some other proof of a cruel deity, the Cubs will win their division. Reader Mike is on his own when he gets to the playoffs. Anything can happen there, the way it happened when Mets pitchers hushed Cubs bats in the N.L. Championship Series last season.

There are many other Cubs fans like Reader Mike who keep looking to the horizon for clouds, but they have been overshadowed by people with sunglasses and several coats of tanning lotion. The optimists are right, of course. What could possibly go wrong?