Thursday, May 10, 2018

Underdog Cubs Yet Again


We've lapped ourselves. We've gotten to the point where the Cubs are no longer the overpowered NL Central favorites, but instead the still-good-but-under-the-radar team that could take it at any second. Which...isn't the worst thing.

The NL Central is crazy right now, because the Cardinals, Brewers, Pirates and Cubs are all playing to win, and switching off division spots. They're all pretty good, but only the Cardinals and Brewers are making a big deal about it.

The Cubs, despite sweeping the Marlins, still aren't a perfect team. There are areas of this team, like Anthony Rizzo and Yu Darvish, that could be a ton better than they are, but...on the whole, everybody's doing pretty well. Kyle Schwarber's been consistently good, which is rare for him. Bryant, Baez, Zobrist and Almora are all playing like their peak selves, the pitching staff is definitely coming around thanks to some much-needed material from Jon Lester, and they're just playing solid baseball.

This is a different approach for the Cubs, especially after the superior, best-team-in-baseball 2016 season. They're not used to keeping a low profile this decade, but they're doing a nice enough job of it, and they're still winning games. The only problem is that it's looking like the Cardinals and Brewers are gonna be ruling the division, and I'm not sure how far the Cubs can push those two.

Coming Tonight: Ohtani may be the newsmaker and Richards may be the ace, but this guy is playing like a pro this season in a dominant AL West squad.

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