Chicago Cubs: Most gut-wrenching losses of the Maddon era

Chicago Cubs: Thursday may be the worst loss in the last decade

Well of COURSE the Bryce Harper walk-off grand slam was going to be number one on this list. Blowing a 5-1 lead in the ninth after just needing two outs will haunt this team for a while. They had a 99.6 percent chance of winning the game after retiring the leadoff man in the ninth inning before everything went awry.

Grounders that could have been outs kept the Phillies alive, including a David Bote error, and neither Rowan Wick nor Pedro Strop could get the second or third out. Derek Holland had the displeasure of facing Harper with the bags loaded and one out. WHAM. Upper deck. Game over. Cubs lose 7-5.

This is a loss that could live in infamy for a while, depending on how the season ends. If they win the division, then it will be nothing more than an ugly footnote. If they do not win the division, everyone will point to this game. It is hard to remember a regular season loss as deflating at this one in a while.

Might have to go back to that 2004 team that lost out on the postseason in the final week, it was that historically bad. A number of gut-wrenching losses over the past decade either happened on teams that still ended up postseason bound, or on teams that were bad and it did not matter. No doubt this was the worst of the Maddon era (for now at least).

Go figure, a Chicago team losing to a Philly team in gut-wrenching fashion…have not seen that before.

Not much fun reading stuff like this, but it is always a good discussion starter. What other bad losses since 2015 can you think of? Would love to see what you the readers have to say.  Certainly some were missed in this piece.