Winning a baseball game doesn’t require a magic potion or intense superstition. It comes down to 9 players coordinating their efforts and skills on the playing field and working towards the one principle goal of scoring runs. How they go about that is another story, but the Cubs have been effective in this department as of late.

May 15, 2013; Chicago, IL, USA; Chicago Cubs second baseman Darwin Barney (15) doubles to deep left during the second inning against the Colorado Rockies at Wrigley Field. Mandatory Credit: Reid Compton-USA TODAY Sports

It really is that simple when you boil it down. The funny thing is, it’s the subtle things they’re doing differently that are having the biggest effect.

The Cubs have been enjoying solid starting pitching while winning 4 of their last 5 games, except for one lousy start from Carlos Villanueva, but that’s bound to happen sometimes. Statistically, they’re still one of the better starting rotations in baseball with a 3.76 team ERA and only 35 total HR scored against them. Not a sparkling clean record but certainly good enough to win ballgames.

Solid pitching is nice but runs win games, and the Cubs have been going to work with the bats.

Support from the middle of the order has been outstanding. For example, Darwin Barney has put up a .333 AVG/1.058 OPS in the last 7 games which includes 5 runs and 2 RBI. Same story for Luis Valbuena, who’s .286 AVG/.714 OPS aren’t quite as impressive as Barney’s numbers, but has found success hitting in clutch situations for the team.

David DeJesus has been tearing it up as of late as well, boasting a meaty .389/.486/.611 triple slash line. For a player who is not known for any sort of power hitting, that SLG line looks delicious. The value of having your leadoff man sporting a hot bat can’t be emphasized enough as it allows you to strike early and (hopefully) often.

Even the pitchers are doing their part, with Jeff Samardzija hitting a HR in yesterdays game and both Edwin Jackson and Travis Wood posting up an RBI or two. Shark even executed a SAC bunt! Not too shabby. I’d attribute this to luck more than anything, but hey, a rotation that can hit every once in a while is welcome in any NL lineup.

This goes without any mention of Kevin Gregg, who has blown pretty much everyone’s socks off in the closer role. He looks confident and is executing extremely well.

Hitting with RISP has also come to fruition for the team, who’s woes with men in scoring position earlier this season were dire. This is largely flukey and shouldn’t be given a ton of weight, as any team’s OPS with or without RISP during a season usually works itself out evenly. Chance and luck have a lot to do with it and the Cubs seem to be on the right side of the inch for now. Good contact and a little bit of power at the plate certainly don’t hurt your odds though…

The small fundamentals are what’s helping this team get back to winning, and it’s nice to see the Cubs doing the little things correctly. Smart pitch selection, quality baserunning (aka no TOOTBLANs), good defense and a little more emphasis on hitting for OBP have got the Cubs back on the right track.

At least for now.

The team has been put through the wringer in multiple ways, varying from bullpen blunders to limp bats and the list of follies continues. It’s far from pretty and quite frankly, a little painful to watch.

All things considered, the Cubs currently sit at 11-19 which is good enough for dead freakin’ last in the NL central. I don’t think that this is what fans had in mind when many sources were predicting a respectable 70+ win season for the north siders.

Something seems askew with the Cubs this season – they have temporary moments of greatness then follow it up with baffling displays of little league caliber baseball. The worst part is what seems to be killing the Cubs is almost intangible. Where do the answers lay? Time to break in to the number values of the Cubs’ 2013 season so far.

Amazingly, the Cubs don’t look all that bad on paper despite their horrendous record. In fact, I’d say their record should be closer to (if not over) .500 considering a few basic stats.

Starting pitching has been the saving grace so far for the Cubs with great performances from Jeff Samardzija, Carlos Villanueva, Travis Wood and occasionally Scott Feldman. In total before yesterday’s game, Cubs’ starters have a rock solid 106 OPS+ for the season and are tied for the second best team WHIP in the NL at 1.236.

This is indicative of how dominant the pitching has been considering the depth of teams they’ve been matched against in the early portion of the season. I know I wouldn’t want to face Texas, San Francisco, and Cincinnati every single game.

May 3, 2013; Chicago, IL, USA; Chicago Cubs shortstop Starlin Castro (13) talks to Chicago Cubs first base coach Dave McKay (39) while at first base during the seventh inning against the Cincinnati Reds at Wrigley Field. Mandatory Credit: Reid Compton-USA TODAY Sports

As much as we can observe these awesome figures from the Cubs’ starters, we must also take in to account that the Cubs have surrendered 14 total unearned runs , which puts them in the NL top 5 for this category. Unearned runs can be attributed to sloppy defense and a pile of errors which has no business being committed.

Think of it this way – the golden total score in baseball is 5 runs. If you can plate five, by law of averages, you’re going to win more games than you lose. This totals out to almost 3 additional losses for the Cubs based on fielding blunders alone. It has a huge impact and it’s a subtle detail that can be fixed very easily.

Another interesting stat is something that baseballreference.com calles “deffensive efficiency” and is essentially a total measure of a team’s ability to keep their opponents of the scoreboard. The Cubs have posted a .714 DefEff% which is 3rd best in the NL and tops in the NL central. By this logic, the Cubs should be one of the toughest teams in baseball to score runs against and arguably should be over .500.

However, stats can be misleading and after exploring further, I noted that the Cubs also have 23 total errors scored against them (2nd worst in the NL) and are tied for the worst fielding percentage at .979. Clearly this stat was being inflated by the Cubs’ starting pitching and truly shows how good they’ve been over the first month of the season.

Hitting with RISP has been another significant problem with the Cubs, and this is something that is a little tougher to take a tangible approach on. Thankfully, Luke Blaize (former writer at Cubbies Crib and current minor league guru at Bleacher Nation) was able to shed some light on the situation for me. He said that hitting with RISP has a lot to do with luck and that a team’s OPS without RISP and with RISP tend to balance out as the year progresses. It’s difficult to try and quantify “clutch” hitting properly without skewing the metrics one way or another, and the Cubs have simply been on the wrong side of the inch to start the year. Probability tends to work itself out in the end and this means more hitting with RISP will come.

As far as the bullpen woes go, Carlos Marmol has been in tough for a long time. The rest of the bullpen has been fairly solid with Hector Rondon, James Russell, and even Shawn Camp showing promise before the wheels fell off. Kyuji Fujikawa also started the year injured which did not help his case, and considering how effective he was before, I have high hopes for him when he returns.

I really don’t have a solution for the bullpen. You can’t hide a player there and when any member of the bullpen can’t find the strike zone, the whole team suffers. This is pivotal to the success of the team going forward in to May.

All hope may seem lost, but I’m more enthusiastic about the Cubs than ever. Consider the following: the Cubs trail the league average in both AVG and OBP but are 3rd best overall in SLG. Small adjustments with the bats will lead to more frequent and consistent hitting which will also lead to a jump in hitting with RISP. The team has lost 7 games by 1 run and 3 more by only 2 runs, so this adjustment will lead to more Ws.

The Cubs are a good baseball team this year, and the numbers back that up. It’s difficult to believe considering their record and a few other on field blunders, but the team is literally only 3 minor tweaks away from being a competitor in the NL central.

I know it’s tough Cubs fans, but don’t lose hope. We’re close.

February 25, 2013; Glendale, AZ, USA; Chicago Cubs right fielder Jorge Soler (68) hits against the Los Angeles Dodgers during a spring training game at Camelback Ranch. Mandatory Credit: Rick Scuteri-USA TODAY Sports

Jorge Soler, one of the best prospects within the Cubs organization, has just been ejected from a High-A game between the Daytona Cubs and the Clearwater Threshers.

Not only was he ejected from the game, he’ll likely face suspension time after charging the opposing dugout with a bat and reportedly beating the walls with said bat. No swings were taken at any opposition players. Apparently the brawl was sparked after the Clearwater 2B had some choice words for Soler, but this is unconfirmed.

This is all twitter buzz as of right now but I’m certain some video will surface eventually. Regardless, how badass is Soler for charging the dugout with a freakin’ bat?! Like shit, that’s completely nuts. It’s not like Soler is a small dude either – he’s 6 foot 4 inches and basically made of pure muscle with some man sprinkled in.

Of course, there’s no room for this in the Cubs organization and you can bet that Theo and Jed will be reviewing the incident.

Holy crap baseball kicks ass.