To say the Chicago Cubs are a franchise known for losing is akin to saying the Irish are a race known for drinking. But Losing 12 in a row i(tying the Kansas City Royals for the worst in baseball this year) isn’t loveable for any Major League Baseball team, even the loveable losers.
The Cubbies, worst in the majors with a 15-32 record and .319 winning percentage (tied with the Minnesota Twins), are on pace to finish the season 52-110. Have fun with that.
They’ll take on the penultimate team in the National League, the 17-32 San Diego Padres, this Memorial Day having been pretty much eliminated from playoff contention; already.
Remember this could and if logic holds, should, get worse as we get closer to the trade deadline and they sell off more talented veteran pieces of the team. The Cubs current 12 game skid is the worst streak the franchise has endured in 15 years. And they’re losing in bad, fun bad, epically bad, extremely bad, terribly bad, and horribly bad ways. I’m not sure Theo Epstein, Jed Hoyer and company signed on for this.
With the Boston Red Sox, they didn’t have to tear down, and then rebuild from scratch like they do here. There was a lot of Cubbie Kool-Aid being drunk when Theo was hired, and the recent losing streak seems to have been a buzzkill to that party. Of course, the rebuilding plan is just in its nascent stages. They haven’t even finished selling off yet.
Still, even the biggest Cubbie fatalists could not have anticipated it being THIS bad. The Pittsburgh Pirates are also bad at baseball, the worst offense in the major leagues, and they just scored a season high in runs on the Cubs and swept Chicago yesterday. But enough about how terrible the Cubs are as a team, let’s have some fun with their individual statistics now. We’ve already given you the team numbers.
Ian Stewart is a regular starting infielder, but he’s hitting just .193 with an OBP of .285
Everyday regular catcher Geovany Soto is at a .161 clip.
Starting 2B Darwin Barney has just 1 HR in 155 AB.
Starting corner outfielder David De Jesus has just one 1 HR in 161 AB
Some days you look at the Cubs lineup and it resembles a late game garbage time contest filled with September call-ups. Or a split squad preseason game in early March. Nope, that’s actually their real team.
Paul M. Banks is CEO of The Sports Bank.net, an official Google News site generating millions of unique visitors. He’s also a regular contributor to Chicago Now, Walter Football.com, Yardbarker, MSN, and Fox Sports
A Fulbright scholar and MBA, Banks has appeared on live radio all over the world; and he’s a member of the Football Writers Association of America, U.S. Basketball Writers Association, and Society of Professional Journalists. The President of the United States follows him on Twitter (@Paul_M_BanksTSB) You should too