The Cubs are heating up just in time to be just a little too late

It's a good thing they aren't chasing anybody that's any good

The Cubs are heating up just in time to be just a little too late

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In case you haven’t noticed, and judging by Marquee’s ratings you haven’t, the Cubs are 8-2 since the trade deadline and have won four of their last five series. They woke up today after their weird Sunday off day one game under .500 and only three games out of a playoff spot. Is it too little, too late? Probably, but it’s better than nothing.

The timing corresponds with three important things, the return of Cody Bellinger from the injured list, the arrival of Isaac Paredes and the awakening of Petecrow Armstrong’s bat. I guess Mike Tauchman came back, around that time, too, so that helps. And they traded for Nate Person and…I guess maybe his teammates are inspired his by very large sweaty face.

As a team the Cubs have posted their highest monthly batting average (.270), on base average (.322) and slugging (.480) in August and you can’t credit all of that to the White Sox, since that’s only two of the games.

Petecrow is slashing a whopping .333/.355/.533 in August. And in fact, most of the Cubs are hitting well at once for the first time since April. Michael Busch has a .997 OPS for the month, Cody Bellinger is at .896, Nico Hoerner’s is .711 which is a marked improvement over what he’s done otherwise this season.

And I’d like to take credit for Dansby Swanson who is slashing .387/.424/.484 since the deadline and just a few days later this Tweet by me:

You can tell from the volume meter in the photo that I screenshotted this, what you don’t know is that I did it while on the can. Regardless, it finally lit a fire (not he Jeff Baker kind) under Dansby.

And he even got his 1,000th hit on Saturday (I had no idea he’d already had 7,000 big league at bats), which got the Fox Sports graphics team to work up this beauty.

I included the entire photo in this screengrab (I’m not on the can at this moment), just to show off @liberalclass’ intriguing coffee table book, “The Book on Pie” which looks incredible.

Anyway, you’ll notice that from the graphic on the screen on the TV that the photo of the happy US gold medal winning soccer player is not Dansby’s wife, Mallory, it’s actually her teammate Sophia Smith, who is not married to a Cubs shortstop, but rather is dating Arizona Cardinals wide receiver Michael Wilson. Nice job, Fox.

Later in the broadcast they admitted their mistake and play by play guy Kevin Kugler (filling in for Adam Amin who was busy calling the Bears-Bills preseason game) did the sensible thing, and blamed it on AJ Pierzynski.

Whatever the motivation, Dansby’s having his first good month at the plate since June of 2023 and we’re all here for it. Mostly because we’re stuck with him for the next five seasons, so he might as well hit.

Paredes started very slowly after the trade from Tampa, but he’s been good lately, (.333/.389/.800) with two homers and eight RBI in his last four games.

Seiya’s been off at the plate a little, and he missed a game against the Twins with a sore shoulder, but his mediocre play this month has been more than offset by the Cubs one true star. Yes sir. When the season reached the brink, Ian Happ was there to pull them back and into contention with his scintillating:

.156/.229/.375, with 13 strikeouts in 32 at bats. But he’s really hitting into tough luck, his BABIP is a scorching hot .177. Oh, well. What did we expect?