The Cubs are scoring a lot. And they have to.
Did they forget they needed to put together a bullpen?
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The Cubs are just pounding people right now with 47 runs scored in their last six games. They’ve scored at least five runs in seven of their last eight games. The only losses in that stretch were Saturday when they stranded six runners in the first two innings against the Dodgers’ Yoshinobu Yamamoto and then last night when they specatcularly blew an 8-0 lead in the sixth inning in San Diego.
What is behind this surge in offense? I mean, other than the hitters trying to Jose Cuas-proof the leads they hand over to the bullpen.
The Cubs are really good at getting on base. They currently have a .365 on base average and are fourth in walks and had the fewest strikeouts in baseball.
To put that on base average in perspetive no Cubs player posted an on base average of .363 in a full season since 2019 when both Anthony Rizzo and Kris Bryant did it. But even that team only finished the season with a .331 team on base average. Probably because nobody got a hit after August 12th.
Yes, it’s a ludicrously small sample at just ten games. But the point isn’t to claim the Cubs will keep this up all season, just to put into perspective how good this start has been.
The last team to do something like this for a full season was in 2007 when the Yankees led baseball with a .366 team on base average, and the Red Sox were second at .362.
In the last decade, only the 2019 Astros have finished a season with an on base average of better than .350.
And, it’s a good thing the Cubs can get on base and score runs, because the bullpen that Jed Hoyer hand waved in the offseason is going to need some pretty big leads to hold.
