The Chicago Cubs Offense is COMPLETELY BROKEN….. AGAIN!

The Chicago Cubs Offense is COMPLETELY BROKEN….. AGAIN!

Well, I’ve got some bad news and I’ve got some good news. The bad news is it was same old for the Cubs today. No offense and another loss. And the good news is you are Locked on Cubs, your daily Chicago Cubs podcast, part of the Locked On podcast network. Your team every day. You are Locked On Cubs, part of the Locked On Network. your team every day. I’m Sam Over. I’m a lifelong fan, taking my passion into a discussion with you on all things Cubs. Thanks for being part of the show and making Locked on Cubs your first listen today. And the best way you can help us grow the show is to listen every day. Like the video and give us a comment below. Today’s episode is brought to you by Game Time. Download the Game Time app, create an account, use code locked on MLB for $20 off your first purchase. Packed show for you today. Obviously, I’m fired up and not in a good way. We’ve got news and notes, Assad back, uh birdie down, all that fun stuff. Uh uh we’ve got um we’re we’re going to take a look at what now, you know, for the Cubs. Obviously, the goals have changed. The the season has dramatically changed here since the All-Star break. You’ve gone from a game a game up uh heading into the All-Star break to now seven and a half back since the break. So, so what now? How do you approach it? How how am I going to approach it as a fan, let alone a podcaster? We’re going to talk about that. Some things uh um that that that could be changed and just a lot of organizational stuff. We start with, of course, uh game one, Cubs, Blue Jays, which was just more of the same. Uh, this game was basically, if you had to create a script of how the games have been going here for the last couple of weeks, this one followed it to a T. The Cubs had a whopping four hits in this baseball game. They committed two errors, both by Dansby Swanson. I believe both those errors were because he and the rest of the team are pressing, they’re frustrated, they’re angry. Uh, there was more helmets being thrown today. There was more bats being thrown today than there was base hits. Um, Cubs had a couple opportunities. They had two on, no out in the third inning after Dansby reached on what they called infield hit. Should have been ruled an air. Shaw walked, Michael Bush flew out, Seya popped out, Tucker walked, and Carson Kelly got rung up. Three with the bases loaded. Uh later in the game, I believe it was the seventh inning, uh the Cubs had more opportunities. Couple guys on, they actually had two on, nobody out. Then, uh BCH got a bloop hit. It was uh a pretty good opportunity there to to score his runners on the corners. Uh Seya came or excuse me, first and second. Seiya came up, struck out, first and second, one out, down 4-1. Tucker first pitch, lazy grounded a third and then whipped his helmet in the dugout. first and second, two outs. Then Kelly walked and then Pete Crow Armstrong left on left, struck out in a non-competitive at bat. Um Javier Assad made his debut, season debut today. He was not good. Uh going to give Jav a pass on this one just because this Blue Jays lineup’s really good. Uh they don’t strike out a lot. Uh uh they’re a really good offense and it’s just, you know, I think Assad’s in that group of guys that hey, when the wind’s blowing in at Wrigley, you love them. um in these type of situations, the Cubs, we we’ll see we’ll see what Cade can do uh um against a lineup of this quality. But of course, the story was the offense and you know, I I’m a broken record here. We all are the they’re not hitting and it’s the main guys and I just I just don’t subscribe to the theory like I’m hearing a lot of this lately. You know, Boog talked about it today. Well, you know, they’ve been a great offense all year. two things could be true. They could be one of the top offenses in the league, but they could be a problem, the the main problem right now. And again, it’s very logical thinking. I get it. Um, you know, Sahad Sharma on Northside Territory was talking about, hey, listen, they were I I don’t want to exact quote because I don’t know the exact numbers, but they were, you know, a top one or two offense in April, a top three offense in May, then it dropped in June and and and July to top 15. Now it’s it’s it’s bottoming out. And it’s like, hey, so you know, it’s just one month of this. I just think the Cubs have to do a better job of of looking at trends, right? Like it was trending in this direction. And I understand that, you know, we’ve talked about this. The Cubs don’t have an answer if Kyle Tucker is not going to hit. All right? We we we’ve talked about it. And, you know, they they don’t have an answer for that. They they don’t have an answer for Pete, Tucker, Seiya, Bush, all not hitting at the same time. But it does feel like there’s other things that they could do to shake things up. Whether that’s call up one of the young kids, Casey or Bisteros, whether it’s shift the order and just totally mess with it. Maybe it’s putting a guy like Tucker on the IIL because even though he might not be physically hurt, they need to give him a break because it’s just it’s just getting worse at this point. I don’t know what it is, but but it feels like the strategy and we’re going to talk about this and really the theme of this of this episode is just it’s just hope. They’re just hoping it turns around. They’re sitting on their hands and going, “Hey, the percentages say it’s going to turn around and we hope this and we hope that.” And you know, the Brewers are a big part of this story whether we like it or not, whether we’re tired of talking about it or not. And I think back to like great athletes or or great entertainers. I’ll use two that I know as a fact off the top of my head. Michael Jackson when he used to do music videos, right? He would hire the best guys that that that you could hire that the the guys the best movie directors, guys like uh uh Martin Scorsesei or uh uh John Landis or whoever it was, right? Because, you know, he wanted to be surrounded by the best. He knew, hey, they they do something right. Let’s bring them to what I’m doing. Kobe Bryant, when he wanted to get better at footwork, who’d he call and work out with for a summer? He worked out with a Malajuan, right? uh the the the greatest footwork big man of all time. And it’s like the Cubs need to look up at the Brewers and stop thinking, all right, and and in their in their defense, maybe they thought Council was that they’ve got to say, what are they doing? What what is this organization doing? Because enough of the flukiness or or the luck. They’ve been better. Like everyone keeps saying the Brewers are lucky. Brewers are lucky. Okay, fine. Maybe there’s a little luck into that. They’ve been better than you for seven consecutive years, not counting the COVID season. So, there’s something that they’re doing that you’re not that you’ve got to figure out and and and start start adjusting to, you know, great business people, um, successful people, they they have the ability to say, “I’m not good enough at this. What’s this person doing? Maybe let’s try that.” Um, it’s just it just feels like, and I I get it. It’s not something that could be done during the season, but it’s just it just feels like the Cubs philosophy. This is now the third year in a row where every Cubs major hitter is struggling at the same time, right? Somebody’s got to figure out a way to stop it. And in Jed’s defense, and and not that I want to defend Jed, but but you know, that was supposed to be Kyle Tucker. A and he’s not doing it right now. And um you know, somebody’s got to do it. Somebody’s got to do it. And and I don’t know if it’s if it’s Craig’s leadership. Do they need some sort of media? Do they need a team meeting? or do they just need guys to start hitting and maybe one guy gets a big hit and it it gets everybody going? I I I don’t know what it is, but something has to change. And and and the last thing I’ll say on this is I’m really tired about well, you know, since the end of May, the Cubs still have the third best record in the NL. Who cares what’s their record since the All-Star break? They went into the All-Star break a game up and now they’re seven and a half out. And I get it a lot of that’s because of Milwaukee, but the Cubs are a couple games under 500, too. So, who cares? Forget Milwaukee right now. That’s what we’re going to talk about next. Forget Milwaukee right now. You’ve got to take care of your own business. Before you could complain about other teams and go, “Oh, oh well, the Brewers are playing great. We’re doing the best we can.” Not if you win 89 games. Not if you win 88 games. You’ve got a job to do. You were on a 95, 96, 97 win pace. If you get to 95 wins, then you could complain about, well, there’s nothing we can do when the Brewers play like this. But right now, you can’t complain about anything because the Cubs aren’t doing uh uh what they need to do. They’re not holding up their end of the bargain. And you know, it’s really hard to watch right now. So, um what next, right? What do we do? What am I going to do as a fan and a podcaster? How do we how do we get through this? And and and and where’s the light at the end of the tunnel? And and and and and what do you do, right? What do you do right now when you’re in a a moment of of of real adversity with this season? and hopefully rock bottom. Uh we’re going to talk about that coming up next. This episode is brought to you by Open Phone. If you’re running a business, you know that every mis call is money left on the table. Think about the last time you had a service emergency like a burst pipe. If the first plumber didn’t answer, did you wait? Nope. You call the next one. That’s why having a reliable business line is so important. And that’s why you need Open Phone. Open Phone is the number one business phone system that helps you streamline and scale customer communication, all from an app on your phone or computer. Did you juggle two phones just to keep business and personal calls separate? Open Phone solved that instantly. Your whole team could share one number and respond to customers like a shared inbox. No more who’s handling this. Open Phone is offering locked show listeners 20% off your first six months at openphone.com/locktonmlb. That’s op pho n.com/lockedonmlb. And if you have existing numbers with another another service, open phone will port them over at no extra charge. Open phone, no missed calls, no missed customers. We are back here on Locked on Cubs and look this is obviously a really hard point in the season. Uh the Cubs have they’ve lost a series against the Reds at home. They lost a series in St. Louis. They’ve lost the opener here. They’ve lost five out of seven. Um you know, the the the division now seems more like a pipe dream than anything else. And um you kind of have to ask yourself, so what now, right? Because there’s still a lot of baseball to be played. You can’t just go, well, season’s over. You know what I mean? You can’t do that, right? there there there’s still baseball to be played. There’s still opportunities out there, right? You never take for granted being able to get to the postseason. Um so so how do you approach this now? Well, here here here’s what I’ll say. The first thing you got to do is forget about the division. Forget about what the Brewers are doing. Don’t even let that impact you or pressure you anymore. It’s meaningless, right? They could win 115. They could win 105. They could whatever it is. The only thing that that that Brewers relevant now is when you play him next week for five games, see if you can find a way to win a series. Okay. Um, this offense right now. And and look, the way this organization is designed is over hope. Hope hoping you outperform expectations. They didn’t do anything big at the trade deadline. So now the goal automatically shifts to let’s hope we get into the postseason. Let’s hope we’re playing well at that time and then anything could happen, right? That I know that doesn’t sound good and I’m not meaning it to sound good. I’m not meaning to sound bad. That’s just a fact. That’s this year’s plan. When you have your general manager come out and talk about 2032 and focusing on that, clearly the organizational philosophy of the Chicago Cubs under Jed Hoyer and Carter Hawkins is building a team that is an 83ish 80-ish to 90ish win team where if everything goes right, and we saw in the beginning of the year outside of the pitching injuries, everything went right. If everything goes right, they could be awesome. But the odds are everything’s not going to go right for 6 months, right? So, you know, when things go badly, hopefully it balances out. Hopefully, they win enough to win uh uh to get in the postseason and then you hope that you get hot at the right time like the 2020 uh three Diamondbacks did. I mean, Tom Ricketts even use them as an example of, hey, they didn’t spend a lot of money. They didn’t win that many games. And look, they went and won the world got to the World Series and lost to the Rangers. Rangers, another good example. Now, they spent a lot of money, but they were a 9- win team that limped their way to the postseason and then they got hot at the right time. That That’s what it is. Uh hope and and I’m not trying to be like uh uh negative about it. where my where my shift is is I the the plan of this organization is to hope hope that this team turns it around and hope that come the end of September they’re playing their best baseball of the year so they can carry it over for a couple game series because I’ll tell you it’s not like it would be shocking if the Cubs got hot and guys started to hit again and and you saw April you saw April you know midappril through uh July Pete and uh uh March and April Kyle Tucker if those guys came together again would it really shock you if they won two out of three against the Padres’s and then won three out of five against Milwaukee. No. Uh because those guys went into Milwaukee and beat them up in April. You know what I mean? So all you could do now is forget about the standings for right now, especially in the division. And you just have to see if these guys can figure it out. How does that happen? Well, I’ve talked about it yesterday. I’ll talk about it again. I I think you’re two games away from maybe seeing Kyle Tucker get go get go get go get go get go get go get go get go get go get go get go to the IIL. I know council said it today that you know he needs to get abs. I just this is a guy I mean you saw him today when he tapped out to third he whipped his helmet. I mean the frustration right now I mean it it it is it’s not like these guys don’t care. Let’s put it that way. Um you know you got to get him right. Everything starts with getting him right. The slump that Se is in with all due respect to him doesn’t surprise me at all. That’s who he is. But guess what the good news is? It’s not midepptember. It’s mid August. So hopefully the sea roller coaster goes up again. And if it can go up again from midepptember to mid-occtober, maybe this team could make a run. And you know, Michael Bush, not surprised that he’s slumping, right? A lot that that’s what’s so frustrating about this season. A lot of this regression you could see coming. You just didn’t see it coming from Tucker and you didn’t see it coming all at the same time. Um Ian Hap I’ve kind of given up on at this point. Like when he gets, you know, he gets little decent stretches. I I think Dansby’s done a really nice job through this stretch offensively. Um Nico as well, Matt Shaw we talked about yesterday. You just got to get a couple of these guys going. I personally would love to see a shakeup. I’d love to see Bayisteros with the big club or Casey with the big club. Even if that means you have to I a guy like Tucker. Um I I just think this team needs a shakeup. You know, you you you just need it. You you you need to do uh something in my opinion. I just think continuing to sit here and wait is not the strategy, but at the same time, like I said, you have to hope at some point that it turns around. I think there’s things the Cubs could do. Maybe change the lead off. Maybe put Tucker batting lead off tomorrow. I I mean, I would even think about it’s like it’s like little league. Like I remember when my my travel team struggled. We were really in a in a big slump uh uh one day and we went to the park and and we picked lineups out of a hat and we scored like 10 runs. I don’t know what it is that you need to do, but you I I think you need to change something in the short term to just relax this team. I think council I I I I do think there’s a little bit a little bit of reflection of leadership here because it’s just like when this is now year two in a row with council where for for a large chunk of time, everybody on the team is struggling at once. It’s your job as a manager to try and minimize that. I understand he can’t hit for him, but could he change the order? Could Jed help him out? Can they call up somebody? I don’t know what it is, but I think something in the short term needs to change for like a shakeup. And I think long term, if you’re listening and you’re like, Sam, I I don’t want to watch the Bears yet. I want to try and make the postseason. You have to just It’s very hard. And obviously, it’s been very hard for me to do. I’ve been extremely negative on the show, but now it’s a reality. The season after the All-Star break, you snap your fingers. That’s how quick it could change. And it’s a good lesson for everybody out there. You know, I know I know that I’m an overreactor, but but it’s also you could be an underreactor. And I think this Cubs this Cubs franchise in this organization, they’re underreactors. They’re too much. Well, it’s just 10 games. Well, it’s just 15 games. You know, you could snap your fingers and blink and and your goals could change because the All-Star break wasn’t that long ago. It was about a month ago and uh uh a month later, here we are seven and a half games out and everything slipped. Obviously, it’s taken a historic stretch for the Brewers. I get it, but it’s not like the Cubs have done their part either. So, all you could do is is, you know, a make the playoffs because I mean, if you don’t do that, now you’re talk now you’re talking about somebody has to lose their job if if that happens, which I I I still want to maintain. I don’t think that’s going to happen. I think they are I I do believe just like I believed last year after June that the offense was going to turn it around at some point. It just took too long. I do believe this offense is going to turn it around at some point because it’s just math. It’s just it’s just the law of averages at this point. I just think the Cubs wait too long for that to happen. But maybe that’s a separate conversation. Maybe that’s an offseason conversation. Um I I I do believe they’re going to turn it around. And if you really want to be a glass half full guy, the longer it takes to turn it around, hopefully it sustains and then maybe you could ride it into October. I I I don’t know. But that’s all you could do right now. That’s all the That’s all that uh these players can do right now is just this is a disaster. It’s it’s unbelievable to watch. The the the scariest part about watching it, guys, is that they’re not even close. Like, it’s not like they’re hitting into a ton of tough luck today. I mean, you know, Tucker got a a first pitch uh fast ball in the first inning right down the middle from from Barios. He just wasn’t even close. He just popped it right up. And Seya with guys on just striking out just not close. Even the run they scored was a soft single from Castro, a soft single from Bush. Uh Swanson’s infield hit should have been an air. I mean, three of their four hits weren’t even well hit. They’re just they’re totally lost right now. And um you know, there are no answers. But but luckily it’s not midepptember, it’s mid August, and you just have to hope because that’s what this organization is telling you they’re doing. Hope um that they could figure it out uh uh here soon. But man, it is um it’s tough. It’s as frustrated as I’ve been and and last year was really frustrating. Um obviously the division, like I said, is is tough. I mean, you look at I mean, you look at the rest of the NL. I mean, the Padres’s are really good, man. They might win this. They might win the West. We know the Dodgers are the defending champs, and until somebody beats them, they’re the team to beat. We know what Milwaukee is doing. Philly is significantly better than the Cubs right now. So, it’s it’s going to be tough. I mean, even if you get to October, even if you’re playing well, it’s going to be really tough. So, I think looking at all that stuff makes it daunting, makes it worse. Right now, you just have to take it day by day and just hope for signs. See if you can get your best hitter going and and that it trickles down uh from from there. Cubs made a bunch of roster moves, a bunch of a bunch of different situations and and catchers and all all these things. John Birdie’s gone. Let’s talk about all of that. Uh, coming up next, this episode is brought to you by Game Time. We’ve all been there, logging on early and waiting forever for concert tickets to go on sale, only to lose your spot for a show you’ve been dying to see. Live music should be about making memories, not dealing with the stress of ticket shopping. That’s where Game Time comes in. Game time makes getting concert tickets faster and easier than ever. prices actually drop as it gets closer to showtime and you could save up to 60% off with their killer last minute deals. Folks, if you love this ball club, one thing that you might want to do is August 15th, they’re going to be home against the Pirates. Might be a good idea if Tucker’s in the lineup to give him like a Trey Turner mook bet style standing ovation when he gets introduced to the plate to just try and get him going. I’m serious. Anything. just give an away. Hey Kyle, we’re with you, man. We know you can get through this. Uh I’m going to try and go to that game on Saturday. If I do, I’m going to use game time and I’ll do anything uh to get Kyle Tucker and this offense going. So, take the guesswork out of buying concert and show tickets with Game Time. Download the Game Time app, create an account, use code locked on MLB for $20 off your first purchase. Terms apply. Again, create an account, redeem code L K d MLB for $20 off. Download the game time app today. Last minute tickets, lowest price, guaranteed. We are back here on locked on Cubs trying to to do the best we can during the toughest of times in this baseball season. Cubs made a lot of moves uh uh today. I was hoping that they would make a big one. a a Owen Casey back in Canada or a uh Moises Bisteros to this day I think has the biggest hit of the Cubs season. He’s still down. Something like that. Um but they they didn’t uh but they did call up Javier Assad who made his debut today and uh activated Miguel Amaya as well. They didn’t call up Assad, they uh activated him off the 60-day IIEL and then brought up Amaya as well. Uh Nate Pearson uh was sent down and John Birdie uh got DFAD. Little surprise there. Cubs right now are carrying three catchers which we’ll talk about in a second. Um and then it sounds like Jameson Tyion should be good to go next home stand. I I I think he’s probably going to pitch in that Brewers series. Um take that for what you will. My guess would be when he comes up, um, you know, maybe a pitcher goes down or maybe one of the catchers goes down. I don’t know. And then good news, uh, M Michael Soka, um, looks like he’s going to be throwing here pretty soon and they have an early September return date for him. So hopefully he will be able to contribute a little bit for the Cubs down the stretch. I thought it was interesting that Birdie got DFA. Matt Matt kind of uhh saw that coming. I just like having speed um on the bench late when you’re playing a close game, especially, you know, in October. Um I know, I know that kind of sounds crazy because he got thrown out on Sunday, but you know, the Cubs now their bench without Birdie, it’s just so slow. Uh you know, you have Turner, you have you have the two catchers, uh you have Castro. Uh so maybe there’s something they could do at the minor league level when the rosters expand to just get a little bit of speed off the bench. I think that’s important. uh you know to pinch run and see what you could do there. But uh right now the Cubs are carrying the catchers. I’m trying to think of why they would want to carry three catchers. Maybe because of the offense. I mean Kelly’s been one of their better hitters. Amaya was one of their better hitters before he went down. And believe it or not, Reese Maguire over the last month has probably been one of their better hitters. I don’t think that’s why. Um, I’m not really sure why they’re doing it, but you know, maybe there’s something there that they know um that I don’t know. I just think Bird’s speed is is more valuable, especially when you’re struggling to score runs, but um they went in that direction. Um disappointing uh uh season for John Birdie. Really thought that that acquisition was going to help the team on the margins and it flat out didn’t. Um it flat out didn’t. In fact, it was really poor. Uh he wasn’t great defensively. He was really disappointing offensively. There were times early in the year he flashed his speed and and you know it was nice to see but but just not not what you wanted out of out of that free agent signing. Um I’m sure he’ll get picked up somewhere and with the way things are going he’ll probably hit a couple home runs, couple doubles um when uh uh when his name’s called. Uh Tyion being back and pitching against the Brewers terrifies me. Uh hopefully the wind is is blowing in that day and it’s freezing because we saw what happened last time Tyion faced the Brewers of Wrigley. Um it did not go well uh at all. Uh Assad being back gives you some depth. Like like I said, no disrespect to Assad. It was his first start, but he just feels like he’s in that pile with with Tyion, with Colin Ray, um of guys of like, yeah, man, if the conditions are right and the matchup’s decent, he could be really good. But can you expect him to go on the road against a really good offense like this and produce well? No. Same with J Mo if he were to pitch today. You know what I mean? It’s just right now it feels like it’s Boyd. It feels like it’s Imanaga and it feels like the guy starting tomorrow, Kate Horton, who’s going to have a heck of an opportunity. Um, if you want a reason to to turn on your television on Wednesday night, who cares about the offense. Watching this young man go pitch in Toronto is going to be really interesting. His ERA on the road is in the mid5s. This is a really good offense. As I’ve said many times, if he were to go out there tomorrow and throw like six strong or who knows, they might be careful with him again. But if he looks really good tomorrow, what a fun story that would be. Um because that’s probably going to be his biggest test of the season. So, we’ll see how Kade looks tomorrow. And like I said, right now, sounds cliche, day by day, pitch by pitch, inning by inning, just look for any good signs, uh that that you could find with this team right now. Right now, offensively, there are none. Um, I’m really tired of the excuses of, “Well, the Brewers are so great.” Well, since the break, you haven’t been great either. If you win 95 games, we’ll all complain about the Brewers season. But if you if you stumble your way to 87 88 wins with the way you’re playing now, you don’t deserve to win the division anyway. You were 57 and 39 at the All-Star break. And um, I just, you guys know me, I just wish there was a little bit more of the human element with this team. It just feels still too percentagebased, too wait and see, too, hey, you know, let’s just see what happens. There’s nothing we could do. There is always something you could do right now. These guys are pressing. They’re human beings. Baseball’s really hard. Being a major league player is really hard. Having, you know, people criticize you all the time is really hard. And it weighs on you. And it’s weighing on these guys right now. They need a lift. They need a spark. They don’t need a They don’t need a binder that says, “Hey, this guy likes to throw a slider one two.” They need something to change the mentality to get them going again, to get them feeling confident again. Whether it’s something on the field like a like a big two-run triple or a big hit or or or something off the field, they need a lift. somebody in that clubhouse or or Craig Council or somebody, they got to get these guys a lift and get them to calm down because we know maybe this team isn’t as good as it was in April and May. But we all know, we all know that they’re not as bad uh as how they’re playing right now, and I hope they turn it around soon. Thank you so much for checking out this edition of Lockdown Cubs. You give us 30 minutes and we’ll give you all things Cubs with a laugh or two along the way. Be sure to subscribe on YouTube, smash the like button for the algorithm, and leave a five-star review on Apple, Spotify, and everywhere you get your podcast. I’m Sam Olber, and this is Locked on Cubs.

Sam discusses another quiet offensive performance from the Cubs. Then he looks ahead and reflects about the goals changing and how the Cubs can come out of this. The show concludes with some roster moves and updates.

Follow & Subscribe on all Podcast platforms…
🎧 https://lockedonpodcasts.com/podcasts/locked-on-cubs/

Locked On MLB League-Wide: Every Team, Prospects & More
🎧 https://lockedonpodcasts.com/leagues/mlb/

#Cubs #ChicagoCubs