MILWAUKEE — Cubs president Jed Hoyer described to reporters heading into a crucial series against the division-heavyweight Brewers how the lingering malaise and frustration of the season has just kept building upon itself.
“It’s felt sort of like two weeks turned into four, turned into six, has turned into eight,” Hoyer said.
Eight weeks? That’s about like what the bottom of the third inning must have felt like Saturday for the epically struggling Cubs in a game they nevertheless pulled out 5-3.
The Brewers got an infield hit. A stolen base. Then another man on after a botched rundown. Then their first run of the game when Cubs pitcher Justin Steele bare-handed a bunt but dropped the ball. Hey, look, another stolen base. And finally, a pop-up that dropped behind second base, scoring another run, even though it hung in the air long enough that it sure seemed like someone could have gotten there.
The whole thing was excruciating.
A good team coasts out of that inning still leading 2-0, not tied 2-2 and hanging on for dear life to a chance to cut into an 11½-game division deficit. But you might have noticed, the Cubs (39-45) aren’t a good team.
Is it too late for them?
A noticeable moment happened when Steele blew his stack entering the dugout after the third. Though none of the Cubs wanted to share what Steele said, expert lip readers had very little trouble deciphering, “Wake the [bleep] up!”
"WAKE THE F*** UP! WAKE THE F*** UP!" — Justin Steele pic.twitter.com/rx9tyrrjC9
— Brendan Miller (@brendan_cubs) June 29, 2024
Reliever Luke Little later got all fired up at home plate after tagging out a Brewers runner to complete a crazy 1-3-4-2-5-1 caught stealing and keep the game tied 3-3. Maybe it was the sheer spectacle of Little’s 6-8 frame gyrating, but it hinted at a team whose spirit might be coming alive. The dugout erupted after Ian Happ’s two-run homer made it a 5-3 game in the eighth. Hector Neris showed welcome emotion, too, after wriggling out of a ninth-inning jam for the save.
There are no awards for acting like you care, but it’s still a good look — especially for a team that came in 3-9-1 in road series and 2-11 in its last 13 series overall, blowing save opportunities left and right and elevating making outs at the plate with runners in scoring position practically to an art form.
Do these Cubs have it in them to catch fire? They’re running out of daylight before it’ll be too late — with the July 30 trade deadline a month away — to go all-in on chasing a meaningful outcome to the season, as Hoyer made clear.
“We have to play well this month,” he said. “You have to be a realist when you get to that point. That’s not where we are [yet], but always in this job you have to be a realist. You have to make the best decisions for the organization based on the hand you’re dealt that year.”
Last year, that put the Cubs on the high wire all the way to the very end of July — but they made it to the deadline with a 10-2 finish to the month that lifted a flat-seeming team back to .500 and convinced Hoyer not to sell. It didn’t end in a postseason berth, but it was the right call.
The Cubs might as well start stacking some wins now. They might as well give the impression it’s important to them, too.
“Cheerleading,” manager Craig Counsel said, “I don’t see as [being] the answer. … Loud team, quiet team does not dictate team success.”
Did we mention it’s a good look, though?
“Everybody’s competitiveness manifests itself in different ways,” Happ said. “There’s guys that are calm, there’s guys that are even, there’s guys that are excited and pissed. …
“It’s an intense game, but I think every single guy in this clubhouse is competing and wants to win baseball games every day. And when you’re going through a stretch like we are, that frustration is real.”
