The Cubs are hanging on...by a thread

They keep winning despite injuries and self-inflicted limitations

The Cubs are hanging on...by a thread

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The current Cubs remind me a lot of some fairly recent Cardinals teams. In a good way, really, that’s possible. You would watch the Cardinals play and think to yourself, “These guys suck,” and then you’d look up and they were in first place or close to it with a winning record.

The record tells us that these Cubs are fine. They are 17-11, have won four of their last six and ten of their last 14. But they’re kind of a rough watch.

Some of it is because so many guys they are relying on are injured. Justin Steele hasn’t pitched since the fifth inning of the first game, back in March. Two-thirds of the outfield is injured with Seiya Suzuki out with a strained oblique and Cody Bellinger sidelined with cracked ribs.

Ian Happ is still in the lineup though he’s severely limited by being Ian Happ. It is impressive that if he can keep up this (what’s the opposite of) torrid pace, his batting average will have declined over the year before it for the fourth time in five years. But hey, at least he’s batting third again (and “hitting” .167 while doing it.)

He really chipped in last night striking out twice in four at bats and playing with his ass pressed up against the Green Monster on the final pitch of the game when Dansby Swanson had to run out into medium left field and try to Willie Mays a pop-up that scored the winning run.

Karl Ravech’s toupee told a story earlier in the game about how “pleasantly suprised” the Red Sox have been with Tyler O’Neill’s defense in the outfield. It’s a pretty good indication of just what actual baseball people think of the prestige of the left field Gold Glove, considering O’Neill won it twice with the Cardinals and the Red Sox were thrilled to learn that he can actually catch a pop-up.

Steele is on the injured list and so is Kyle Hendricks. Kyle is out with a, “Hey Carter, what phony ailment did we write on the injury list paperwork?”—stained lower back.

Jameson Taillon missed the start of the season with the same thing and now Jordan Wicks has missed a start with a strained forearm.

The sheer variety of injuries is pretty impressive, if nothing else.