Faithful, Too: “Games 39L/40W/41L and Some Gerberlytics”

I had zero engagement with Cubs brief road trip to New York for Mother’s Day weekend, mainly due to the day in question (out at a tulip fest) and the first two games airing on Apple+ (don’t subscribe) and Fox (cut the cord). Although the Cubs definitely had a shot to win the series on Sunday (they didn’t), the series didn’t seem close.

They lost in a blowout 7-2 on Friday thanks to a blow-up by Jamo. They kind of bounced back and won the second game in the series on Saturday by a final of 6-5, thanks to a pretty encouraging MLB debut by Cade Horton. The young righty had a soft start (came in in the 2nd) but went four innings striking out 5, giving up no walks and 4 hits (including a mistake pitch, 3-run homer in the 4th). I’d like to see him get another start next weekend at home against the sorry White S0x. As for the third game, it was a low-scoring affair going into the bottom of the 8th with the score tied…and then a couple homers clinched it for the home team. Cubs lost 6-2.

This brings me to a stat I was interested in investigating. The Cubs offense is overall better than the Mets, but the Mets pitching is much better than the Cubs’. With that in mind, I looked back at the ten most recent World Series teams and where their teams ranked in the regular season offensively (runs scored), defensively (runs allowed), and in run-scoring differential (separation between how many runs they averaged a game and how many runs they gave up a game). At the top is where the Cubs rank this season, as well as the Mets:

2025 Cubs 2/22/5

2025 Mets 7/1/3

2024 Dodgers 2/13/1

2024 Yankees 3/9/2

2023 Rangers 3/13/4

2023 Diamondbacks 15/20/16

2022 Astros 8/2/3

2022 Phillies 7/15/3

2021 Braves 8/6/7

2021 Astros 1/7/4

2020 Dodgers 1/2/3

2020 Rays 12/4/5

What does this tell us? Well, offenses are at least in the same ballpark (pardon the pun) when it comes to their offensive/defensive rankings, with the biggest separation coming from the Dodgers 2nd-ranked offense and 13th-ranked defense last year. The Mets are in a good spot this year…but the Cubs are not. 2nd and 22nd is not a good pairing. Major changes need to be made in the bullpen over the next couple of months. That 2023 Diamondbacks team was a nice story, but not the way things usually work themselves out in the playoffs. The Cubs need to see if Pressly is their true-blue closer and whether or not Brown/Horton/Rea are going to be crunch-time starters.

On a positive note: here comes a nice reprieve from what’s been a real tough month-and-a-half for the Cubbies. 6 games against the Marlins (15-24) sandwiching 3 games against the White S0x (12-29). 6-3 will be an acceptable record over the next week or so. Anything less is embarrassing. Good teams beat bad teams. Great teams trounce bad teams. Onwards.