My calendar says it’s August, so why are the Chicago Cubs playing baseball like they’re still stuck in May?
This is no panic-button slappin’ or knee-jerk reactin’ to Cub relievers blowing a couple of winnable games. No, this is an honest question to a week’s worth of listless, lifeless Cubs’ baseball not seen since the May malaise.
You name it and we’ve probably seen it when it comes to correlations between now and then.
Remember those fielding faux pas and mental mistakes that reminded us more of the dregs of 2006 than the hope of 2007? Well, they’re back.
How about a starting pitching staff that can’t go more than five innings? Or what about a group of relievers who record zeros between the sixth and eighth, but give up runs like a slot machine payout in the ninth?
Look and sound familiar? Maybe because it’s eerily so. It was May 17th when Cubs closer Ryan Dempster surrendered a four-run Chicago lead in the bottom of the ninth against the Mets. Today, in a tied game, with the same teams and the same faces, Dempster was up to his old tricks, allowing four runs in the top half of the ninth. Obviously, Dempster, the Mets and redemption don’t belong in the same sentence, little lone the same inning.
Talk about deja vu all over again.
All that and more came back like a run-amok sledge hammer this week, slamming home the idea that maybe the past two months of flawless Cubs baseball has been the fantasy, and the reality is now a re-run.
The Cubs look like a tired team. They act like a team with no surge under the hood and no juice in the caboose.
Maybe the two-month climb up the Central Division mountain was more draining than imagined. Or maybe it’s the grand plan to keep Cub fans on the edge of their seats to the end of the season.
Even still, maybe it’s time for guru Lou Piniella to kick start his Cubs with another patented tantrum.
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