Underwhelming
That was really not fun. All of it. But at least we're used to it.
The baseball world seems to be shocked that the San Diego Padres were able to shut down the mighty Cubs' offense in a dominating two-game sweep in their Wild Card series redux. I can tell you who wasn't shocked.
Cubs fans.
A sputtering offense is what the Cubs do best in the playoffs. They have now lost five of their last six postseason series scoring 32 runs in their last 18 postseason games. That's 1.8 runs per game. They've been outscored 75-32. Since winning game five of the 2017 NLDS in Washington they are 5-13. How'd they ever win five?
In the two games in San Diego they never led and trailed in 15 of their 18 times at bat. They managed eight hits in two games, and Nico Hoerner had four of them. Nico, with his tidy .350 slugging this year got their only extra base hit. A ninth inning double off of Mason Miller in last night's 4-1 loss.
Before the series, Craig Counsell changed his batting order with presumptive MVP Petecrow Armstrong batting in his familiar leadoff spot, but then smashed face Alex Bregman batting second with Michael Busch third, and Seiya Suzuki dropped from second to cleanup. It was handy for the Padres, as the Cubs bunched three guys at the top of the order who combined to go 0-for-20 with nine strikeouts.
The Cubs led baseball with 5.25 runs per game. That's a stat that Peacock kept showing us. But the Cubs offense were mostly frontrunners this year. Yes, you had an all-time great season from Petecrow, and a great second half from Alex Bregman, but otherwise the Cubs' lineup mostly came to life when they got hold of a mediocre-to-bad pitcher to bludgeon.
They scored 1o or more runs 21 times. But they were also shut out 14 times, and scored and one run 12 times. Guess which version of that offense showed up for a whopping 26 and a half hour trip to the postseason?
The games were at least short. The entire series lasted just five hours and 10 minutes of actual game play. The Cubs' awful 13 inning Wild Card loss to the Rockies in 2018 took just 15 fewer minutes to play at four hours 55 minutes.
Nothing happened in that game and it still took nearly five hours. Pre-pitch clock baseball was a thing, man.
One game does not a series make, so these Cubs get that title. The previous shortest visit was the 2020 Covid travesty, when they were swept by the Marlins at Wrigley, and like this year, scored just one run in two games. Those games lasted a combined six hours and 44 minutes.
Craig Counsell did a really good job this year. How he managed to keep this team afloat with the number of pitching injuries and just plain shitty pitching that we saw was impressive.
The fault lies in the front office. And if this were a real organization, contract extension or not, Jed Hoyer would be cleaning out his office.
But that won't happen. Short of that, completely gutting the place around him would be a start, but that won't happen either.
The Cubs do not develop pitching, and that complete lack of home grown arms screws them over and over, season after season. They don't really develop position players, either. Other than that, they're great.
At least we'll have a supersized offseason to complain about all of it.
There was a final RECRAP of the season last night. It was just as festive as you'd imagine. The RECRAP made it to October. The Cubs didn't.
RECRAP - Cubs Playoffs - Same Old Shit - Oct. 1, 2026
