No matter how it ends, June will be a tough month for the Cubs. There were four games against the Nationals, and between here and the end of the month, there will be: two against the Tigers, four against the Indians, four against the Dodgers, and three against the Cardinals. That’s 17 games against, perhaps, five of the top 10 teams in baseball, not to mention the Twins, who still (however improbably, and unsustainably) lead the AL Central, and whom the Cubs play in Minnesota June 19-21. It’s 11 contests against the top three teams in the National League (outside of Chicago, at least). Eighteen of their 28 scheduled games this month are on the road, although nine of those will be out of the way by Wednesday night.
July will begin with a difficult test, too: a three-game weekday series in New York, against the Mets. There are 23 games between now and the end of that series, and if the Cubs come through them at even 12-11, they’ll have to feel very good about it. Even with three games against St. Louis sprinkled in, it feels like anything but an opportunity to close the gap in the divisional standings. The Cardinals’ schedule over the same stretch looks significantly softer.
Ah, but relief is coming, in a huge way. After that series at Citi Field to begin July, the Cubs come home for a 10-game stand leading into the All-Star break: three against Miami, four against St. Louis (in three days—the teams play a doubleheader on July 7), and three against the White Sox. After the break, they open with a seven-game road trip against the non-contending Braves and Reds. They then come home for six, against the even more hapless Phillies and Rockies. As July gives way to August, the Cubs will play seven more road games, in Milwaukee and Pittsburgh.
This is a boring article so far! All I’m doing is laying out the team’s schedule. I know. I’m sorry. Here’s the payoff: From Thursday, August 6th through Sunday, August 23rd, the Cubs will not leave Chicago. They host the Giants, Brewers, Tigers, and Braves for 13 games in (technically) two distinct home stands, and play the White Sox three times at U.S. Cellular Field in the middle of it all. Sixteen games in 18 days, and for that stretch of nearly three weeks, no member of the Cubs will even pack a bag.
Under the current schedule structure, this is simply unprecedented. Obviously, the Cubs, White Sox, Mets, Yankees, Dodgers, and Angels are special cases. This sort of thing is utterly impossible for 24 teams. It’s exceptionally rare, though, even for these six. Ten-game home stands aren’t uncommon. They happen perhaps twice a year, though often, they’re scheduled for nine and pushed to 10 because of a makeup game. Eleven-gamers are much more rare: the Cubs have played in Chicago 11 consecutive times just twice in the last decade (2006 and 2009).
More than that? Now we’re getting arcane, and nearly obsolete. The Cubs had a 12-game home stand in May and June 2003. The year before, they played 12 straight at home, then three at the White Sox. They had a scheduled 13-game homer in 2000. Again, though, these phenomena largely belong to a different era. One of the small issues on which the players won in the Collective Bargaining Agreement hammered out in 2002 was the schedule, and the limitations on travel turnarounds and the timing of off days more or less got rid of both prolonged home stands and prolonged road trips. Three series is the modern limit, really, and those rules aren’t being broken here, but the Cubs are getting a really good break.
I think some people will ask: Why should we care? Who cares if the Cubs have a soft schedule coming out of the All-Star break, after they lost four of six to the Diamondbacks and Marlins over the last two weeks? Who cares if they play a bunch of games in a row in Chicago, when they’ve been outscored 89-88 at home over their first 26 games there? Obviously, I could answer snobbishly, and point out that:
- The Braves, Reds, Phillies and Rockies have an aggregate PECOTA-projected rest-of-season winning percentage of .440. They’re all borderline 90-loss teams, and the Cubs have 13 straight games against them with a fresh pitching staff (plus, in all likelihood, a healthy Jorge Soler);
- The home team in any given game has a 54-percent likelihood of winning, assuming the teams to be flat-footedly equal. That matters, especially if you believe (though I can’t provide evidence of same for you) that that number ticks up after a long home stand. Maybe comfort accumulates.
In truth, though, that’s not why I view that stretch as an important one. I think the Cubs are one of the three or four best teams in the NL, and they don’t need a back door through which to sneak into October. So adopt, just for a moment, my vision of this stretch in August. Imagine a team newly decked out with a prime trade-deadline acquisition. It’s a team with a healthier and more comfortable Jorge Soler, and one with updated iterations of Addison Russell and Kris Bryant, who will have seen the league a second time and made another round of adjustments. It’s likely to be a team armed with a deeper and more settled bullpen. The bleachers will be complete, and likely filled to brimming.
The first game of that stretch will be the 109th of the Cubs’ season, so it will mark the beginning of the final third of the campaign. There will still be ample uncertainty, but there will also be quite a bit known. The Brewers and Braves (and probably the White Sox) will be weakened by having traded away assets at the deadline. The pieces will be in place. If Javier Baez is going to get healthy and make it back to the parent club, he’ll do it by then. If Kyle Schwarber is coming up to make any meaningful impact, he’ll do it then.
I know I’m painting a picture here; I promise to get back to delivering data next week. For now, get used to this idea: the Cubs aren’t going away. The Cubs had the day off Monday, but gained ground, as both the Cardinals and Pirates lost. Our Playoff Odds report pegs them for better than a 62-percent chance of reaching the playoffs, and while the Cardinals’ hot start has dented Chicago’s hopes of winning the division, the Cardinals were always going to be the team that started hot. The Cubs’ sweet spot is the month or so coming out of the break, when their young players will have their feet under them, the front office will have its trade targets in sight, and the schedule will provide them an opportunity to do some damage.
Last year’s Royals were 48-50 on July 22, and 72-56 on August 23. It took some good luck and a soft schedule for Kansas City to pull that off; they weren’t as good a team as it typically takes to reel off 24 wins in 30 games. In that 24-6 stretch, they saw the teams who would go on to pick first, third, fourth, sixth, and eighth in the 2015 Draft, plus seven games against the reeling A’s. The Cubs are a better team than those Royals, so they might get hot any time (although probably not that hot), but if I had to guess, I would guess that they’re going to make a lot of hay in the August sunshine, at the shore of Lake Michigan.
Lead photo courtesy of Tommy Gilligan-USA TODAY Sports