NEW YORK — The Cubs are running out of time to prove to the front office that they’re contenders.
They made a commendable push right before the All-Star break, playing four close games against the division-rival Brewers and winning the series against the Yankees in New York. But the Cubs (42-47) still come out of the break five games below .500 and seven games back of the National League Central-leading Reds with a little over two weeks until the trade deadline.
“We don’t change things just because the trade deadline’s coming up,” manager David Ross said before the last game of the unofficial first half.
Isn’t being able to block out the noise a skill, too?
“I think it just gets to be the norm,” Ross said. “We have winners, we talk about the process every single day. We need results, we know that. But the guys we have in the room, it really is pretty evident that we’ve just got to keep taking care of business, and we’ve got to put up wins. That’s the bottom line.”
President of baseball operations Jed Hoyer doesn’t appear to be in a rush to commit either way — buy or sell — which gives the group a longer runway.
“By definition, the calendar is going to tell us on Aug. 1 that is the point [of no return],” he said last week. “And is there a point before that where we have to make a decision? Yeah, of course. But, obviously, a week ago at this time, we were talking about the buy side. And I still want to be there. We just need to start the climb back to .500 again. And we need to start that quickly.”
The Cubs won four of the next six games they played after Hoyer’s comments. They also haven’t completed the climb.
“We’re close enough where we have a chance,” right-hander Kyle Hendricks said after the Cubs capped their first half with a 7-4 win in New York on Sunday. “Obviously, we’re just taking it one day at a time. We can’t wait to get a few days off and just mentally take a break. But we’re already excited to get back at it.
“This was a good way to end it, and it’ll roll right in the second half, hopefully, [when we] open up with Boston back home.”
Being within striking distance is a sign of progress. In 2021, the Cubs made the first move of their trade deadline teardown on the last day of the All-Star break, dealing Joc Pederson to the Braves. Last year, they were never in contention.
“When you look back at the last two years, that’s obviously not where we want to be,” second baseman Nico Hoerner said during the last homestand of the first half. “The bulk of my career playing has been outside of a pennant race, division races, all that. . . . You want to have a chance. You want to be acquiring players at the deadline, be on that end of it. You want to be pushing. And I feel like we’re a team that believes we have our best baseball ahead of us.”
The Cubs’ roller-coaster first half amounted to underperformance in the standings. And the weight the trade deadline still holds this year presents a goal for future seasons.
“At some point, we’ll start to be that group that is not talking about that [as] such a big moment in the season,” Ross said.
Obvious buyers don’t have to worry about time running out before the deadline.
