The Cubs’ season-opening gantlet is over.
Well, sort of. It depends who you ask.
They’ve played 26 of their 29 games against contenders – the Dodgers, Diamondbacks, Padres, Rangers and Phillies – and they’ve emerged mostly triumphant, owners of the highest-scoring offense in baseball and a 17-12 record that tops the NL Central.
A road trip to face off, finally, against division foes in Pittsburgh and Milwaukee would seem like an earned respite.
But that’s not how the Cubs see it.
“In the big leagues, you just never know. You can run into a team with a bad record that’s playing well that can do damage and school you,” starting pitcher Jameson Taillon said Sunday. “Back when I played with Pittsburgh, when we weren’t in the playoffs, we took a lot of pride in playing good teams tough.
“The fact that we came out of the gate hot and played really good teams well is great. I also think we have a bit of a target on our back. We’re the Chicago Cubs. Teams like it when we come to town, they want to beat us.
“There’s no time to step off the gas.”
Baseball’s a marathon rather than a sprint, and it will take a good deal of tortoise-style dedication if the Cubs want to avoid the fate of the hare and be a team that impressed in April with nothing to show for it come October.
And nothing’s easy. The Cubs could see the Pirates’ Cy Young candidate, Paul Skenes, this week. The always-pesky Brewers are just three games back of the Cubs in the standings.
After those six games, the schedule cranks back up, with six games against the first-place Giants and the best-in-baseball Mets. The Cubs can’t claim their schedule truly slows down until a stretch of 12 of 15 games against the last-place Marlins, White Sox and Rockies.
But the point is that, regardless of the opponent, the Cubs have to be consistent. They have to play well for six, seven months if they’re going to chase their championship-level aspirations.
Taillon, for one, thinks he and his teammates have that capability.
“It helps that we’ve got a lot of guys who have been around,” he said. “They’re going to do their work, regardless, if they’re facing a guy that’s just called up from Triple-A or if they’re facing Aaron Nola. They prepare super consistently and do their work. They all have their routine.
“I think we’re fit to play a complete season of baseball and avoid the peaks and valleys.”
Cubs fans saw the team slip into offensive ruts a season ago and know hot bats can cool off in a blink. The two pitching buzzsaws the Phillies threw at them this weekend, Nola and Jesus Luzardo, did their part to make that happen.
Whether the wind’s blowing out or blowing in at Wrigley, the Cubs have to be able to win, no matter what their bats are doing at the time and no matter who’s standing on the mound.
“Anyone can score runs when the wind’s blowing out here. I was pretty excited about some of the things I saw when the wind was blowing in,” Taillon said. “I saw us bunt, steal bags, move runners, kind of that old-school baseball stuff.
“It’s cool that we’ve found ways to manufacture runs and play to the environment a little bit.”
There are challenges on the pitching front, too. The rotation has to survive without Justin Steele and at least get the front office closer to the trade deadline. The bullpen has been shaky, entering Monday with the third-highest relief ERA in baseball, at 4.99.
The Pirates and Brewers might not look like the Dodgers or Padres or Phillies. But this wasn’t about surviving a few weeks and stamping a ticket to the postseason.
As good as they’ve been so far, the challenges of baseball’s season-long marathon are still in front of the Cubs.
