What the hell happened?

When I left the United States on May 8th, the Cubs were flying high. I managed to get enough WIFI service on my overnight flight to Copenhagen to watch the first few innings of their game against the Rangers that night, although the signal weakened, and I had to finish following on Gameday. But I was not disappointed, as they got their 10th straight win.

For the rest of my trip, almost all of the games started at 1:30 AM or so local time, so I would only fins out what happened if I woke up in the middle of the night and checked the store or saw the outcome the next morning.

Frankly, it was a bloodbath.

5/9 at Rangers – 6-0 Loss
5/10 at Rangers – 3-0 Loss
5/11 at Atlanta – 5-2 Loss
5/12 at Atlanta – 4-1 Loss
5/13 at Atlanta – 2-0 Win
5/15 at White Sox – 10-5 Win
5/16 at White Sox – 8-3 Loss
5/17 at White Sox – 9-8 Loss
5/18 vs Brewers – 9-3 Loss
5/19 – vs Brewers – 5-2 Loss
5/20 vs Brewers – 5-0 Loss

That’s a 2-9 record, being outscored 59-31. Yuck.

The only game I was able to watch a couple of innings of, and then “see” the ending live on Gameday was the extra-inning loss to the White Sox, which was not fun.

We were on the move during the whole trip: going from Copenhagen to Oslo to Bergen to Stockholm and then back to Copenhagen to fly home, so I had very little time to parse through what had been happening. But parsing through Twitter, here’s what I ‘ve got:

• PCA is in an offensive and defensive slump, getting into heated interactions with opposing fans
• The starting rotation, which had been carrying the team early in the season, has been bad. Shota Imanaga and Ben Brown have been the only decent members lately, and Edward Cabrera had been below average – and now may miss his next start due to blisters.
• The bullpen has not been great, despite getting back a few folks from injury.
• The hitting has been terrible, but the hitting with runners in scoring position has been even worse.
• The Brewers voodoo, demon-magic is still working, especially against the Cubs.

It is pure coincidence that all this started as soon as I had landed in Europe, but I’m really hoping the Cubs can turn things around now that I’m back. The competition coming up should not be quite as tough, but I am really worried about all aspect of the team after such a rough 11-game stretch.

If they do turn things around, I’ll really need to consider avoided travel during the season ever again.