DENVER — When asked about handling the Cubs’ extra-innings loss Saturday, knowing where the team sat in the standings, rookie Pete Crow-Armstrong’s mind went to a conversation with manager Craig Counsell in spring training.
“All he wanted from me was to have the trust in me to go make the next play,” Crow-Armstrong said.
It was a request Crow-Armstrong has carried all year, through the ups and downs of his own performance. It helped form the foundation for a strong second half from the still-improving 22-year-old. But as the Cubs dropped the series against the Rockies, he saw its big-picture relevance.
“You can’t let this game [Saturday] define the last two weeks,” he said. “And it won’t.”
The Cubs avoided a sweep with a 6-2 victory Sunday, but their playoff chances remain slim. They’re five games back of the last National League wild-card spot.
Even if the Cubs win 10 of their last 13 games — a tall order — they would need the Mets to lose 10 of their last 13 and the Braves to lose 11 of their last 14. The Cubs don’t hold the tiebreaker over either team.
The Mets and Braves play each other in a three-game series next week, making that math even more precarious.
“It’s a crazy game; you never know what can happen,” said Kyle Hendricks, who held the Rockies to one run and two hits in six innings Sunday. “So we know we have to control what we can control, we have to go home and have a really good week. We know that. But that’s our focus: put our best foot forward, dominate at home, see where we’re at.”
With that mentality over the past month, the Cubs have played as well as could be expected. In that time, they’ve gone 17-10 and had scored the second-most runs of any team entering Sunday.
“This is kind of what everyone envisioned, obviously, for the entirety of the year,” shortstop Dansby Swanson said. “We got out of the gates in a strong way, and then kind of lost our way for maybe six or seven weeks. Felt longer than that.”
The consequences of a stumble in Colorado this week drove home just how deep of a hole the Cubs dug in May and June. The rut lasted longer than anyone expected, even considering the double-barrelled challenge with some of the team’s most prominent hitters and relievers being sidelined by injuries during that stretch.
This was a group that had playoff expectations after falling a game shy of a berth with a 83-79 record last season — although they pushed back on the notion that one year could inform the next.
“You could have the exact same team; every year it’s going to be different,” Swanson said Sunday. “But being able to trust the individual allows for the growth of a group.”
That’s where the value lies in a strong finish to the season, regardless of the likely disappointing final result.
Swanson pointed to the development of young position players like Michael Busch, Miguel Amaya and Crow-Armstrong. He applauded third baseman Isaac Paredes and reliever Nate Pearson for the impact they have made since joining the team at the trade deadline. He acknowledged how rookie reliever Porter Hodge has “come into his own” in a high-leverage role.
“And you start to see, OK, these are guys that actually can make a difference moving forward as well,” Swanson said. “It’s not just a flash in the pan or like, ‘Yeah, you had a run at success.’. . . [That] is a really good feeling.”