Chicago Cubs off to an unsustainably horrific start to the 2019 campaign

Chicago Cubs: Pitching has been downright abysmal this year

Again, we’re just one week in, but after an offseason dominated by talk about how this staff didn’t have what it takes to win championships, seeing the Cubs drop three different games where they led late hurts.

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Want some numbers that really get you? 16.20, 40.50, 27.00, 18.00, 16.20. Those are respective earned run averages of Steve Cishek, Mike Montgomery, Carl Edwards, Pedro Strop and Tyler Chatwood so far this season in a cumulative six innings of work.

And it’s not like the starting rotation has been any better. Aside from Jon Lester, the club is yet to get what can be classified as a decent start. Cole Hamels looked good till he blew up in the fifth, Darvish was downright awful in a disappointing and historic in a not-great kind of way start and Hendricks got the short end of the worst defensive effort in the last three decades of Cubs baseball.

Chicago pitchers have allowed 48 base hits this season to go along with 35 walks (second-worst in baseball, behind only Arizona, who has played two more games than the Cubs). That works out to a 2.008 WHIP. Of those 83 baserunners, 37 have scored one way or another. That means 44 percent of runners reaching base are scoring.

Half. That’s almost HALF.

There’s no way that’s sustainable. Nor is it feasible to think the staff will perform this poorly over the course of the remaining 157 games. The offense is scoring runs – which is more than we could say for most of the second half of 2018. It’s on the pitching to knuckle down and rise to the occasion.

Like Lester told the media after Wednesday’s loss. You can’t control what happened in the last four games. Now’s the time to start to turn the tide and get the job done. Because simply put, there is too much talent on this roster to think they’ll play like this for an entire season.