Is winning the National League Central the only way for the Cubs to make the playoffs?
With a pair of wild card spots up for grabs and just about three months’ worth of baseball left to play, it might seem a tad early to pigeonhole the Cubs into a do-or-die scenario when it comes to their postseason chances. But Jake Arrieta suggested that might be the case after Saturday’s 4-2 loss to the visiting Pittsburgh Pirates, the second-to-last game before the All-Star break.
“That’s the primary objective,” Arrieta said of the Cubs getting on top of the NL Central standings. “With where we’re at, we’ll probably have to win the division versus potentially getting a wild card spot with regards to where the other teams are around the league. That’s the goal at hand, and I think we’re still in a good position to get to where we want to go.”
The first half has been a mighty disappointing one for a Cubs team that entered the follow-up season to their curse-smashing World Series championship with expectations of starting a dynasty on the North Side. Instead, with one game remaining before the All-Star break, the Cubs are a game below .500 and 4.5 games back of the first-place Milwaukee Brewers.
The heretofore fruitless search for consistency continued Saturday night, with Arrieta — perhaps the most conspicuous of the underachieving Cubs — allowing four runs and failing to get out of the sixth inning. The Cubs haven’t been able to string wins together with any sort of regularity. You have to go back to June 20 for their last set of back-to-back victories.
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It still seems a little early to say “division or bust,” even if that’s the scenario Arrieta laid out Saturday night. Obviously, though, Arrieta is looking at the NL West, which houses thee 50-win teams and three of the four best records in the NL. If the Los Angeles Dodgers, Arizona Diamondbacks and Colorado Rockies do in the second half what they did in the first, then yeah those two wild card slots would be spoken for.
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The Central crown does seem more realistic as things stand right this second. The Brewers, for as many headaches as they’ve given the Cubs in the early going, haven’t been able to pull away from the pack. The division's medicority from top to bottom is plain to see, with the Cubs and their middling play still good for second place in the standings.
There is a lot of baseball to be played, and a lot of things could change with any and all of the teams in the National League. But that’s the thing: The Cubs will have to change, too. They’ll have to flip the switch in a way everyone’s waited for them to do but hasn’t happened to this point.
“We’ve battled all year. We’ve been up and down. We haven’t been able to sustain a streak for as long as we would like. But we’re a five- or six-game winning streak away from being right there,” Arrieta said. “We’re still right there. We’re a couple sweeps away or a good winning streak away from being back in this thing.
“As poorly as we feel we’ve played as a team at times, we’re still right there. Remaining positive is the only way to go at this point. There’s still a significant amount of games left to be played, and we’re going to do our best to get to the top.
“It’s frustrating because we’ll play very well for a short period of time and then kind of have a lull. That’s been the story of the season, and there’s no excuses, there’s no complaining. It’s the situation we’re in. We’re all going to handle it as professionals and be there for the other guys in the clubhouse or in the dugout and do our best to rally together and try and put something together to get on top of the division.”
It’s a long way to October. But already the Cubs have watched as the Dodgers, D-backs, Rockies and Washington Nationals have flown past them to the forefront of the NL. Catching the Brewers currently looks and might end up being easier than catching the other teams in wild card contention.
But can the Cubs do it? The only alternative might be missing the postseason a year after winning the World Series.