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Chicago Cubs: More ‘what-ifs’ stand out looking back
What if the Cubs offense wasn’t in such a slump at the end of the season? Ever since those four games when the Cubs only managed to score one run on a solo home run the offense has been pretty bad. When Daniel Murphy first joined the Cubs the bats seemed to come back to life for a while, but that didn’t last. On Saturday, the Cubs only scored one run with the division lead on the line.
What if Yu Darvish, Brandon Morrow and Pedro Strop weren’t injured? Injuries are a part of baseball. But the Cubs seemed to be dealing with the injuries pretty well. But the way Strop got injured has caused a lot of second guessing. Also when you sign pitchers with a history of arm injuries, we shouldn’t be surprised when they suffer injured arms.
What if the Cubs weren’t forced to play so many games with so few real off-days? I still can’t believe the confluence of events that led to the team playing 30 games without a break. The Cubs managed to win both of their one-game make-up series on the road (against the Braves and Nationals). And they did hold onto their lead in the division during that stretch. But I can’t help but feel they would have played just a little bit better if they had a rest in that stretch.
Of course the opposite can be true too. What if the Cubs didn’t win that incredible comeback win against the Braves earlier in the season? What if the club didn’t have a ridiculous number of comeback wins? What if Chicago didn’t have Murphy fall into their lap mid-season? What if Hamels didn’t turn into the best pitcher in baseball after they picked him up? What if Jesse Chavez didn’t turn his season around to help hold the bullpen together?
What if this was one of those Cubs seasons from the past hundred years when the Cubs didn’t have anything to play for on the last day of the year? The Cubs are guaranteed to go to the playoffs this year. They still have a chance to clinch the division. Yes, the Cubs need to play an extra game to do so. Or they might even fall into the Wild Card Game. But there are about a hundred other Cubs seasons I wouldn’t trade for this one.