The Chicago Cubs were on a tear through the summer. After many wrote them off, the Cubs appeared poised to make a serious run at the National League Wild Card. But the team has conceded ground lately. Chicago lost their second game in a row to the lowly Pittsburgh Pirates on Thursday night. The loss dropped them to 79-74 and into a tie for the third Wild Card spot with the Miami Marlins. Manager David Ross wasn’t thrilled after the game, to say the very least.
Ross lit the Pirates up after the game despite the defeat. “That’s not a good team that just took two out of three from us,” the Cubs manager said in a postgame interview, per MLB.com. “Or not a high-caliber team, I believe.”
Ross also claimed after the game, according to longtime Cubs reporter Jesse Rogers, “We have to turn it around. It’s on me. It’s on the guys in the room.”
The Pirates are 72-81 this season. It’s a bit of an improvement from years of being in the cellar of the NL Central Division. But since the Cardinals, already eliminated from Postseason contention, occupy that spot, the Pirates are happy to be in 4th place. And while they might not be good, baseball is baseball. You’re going to lose to bad teams now and then.
However, at this time of year, everything is so heightened that the Cubs could ill afford to drop games to the Pirates. That Chicago did that is a tough look and now puts their MLB Postseason outlook on edge.
