Photo Credit: “Wrigley Field, aftermath” by Kirk Kittell via Flickr.

The 2018 Cubs ended their post-season run as soon as it began last night with a 2-1 13-inning chess match Wild Card loss to the visiting Colorado Rockies.

The last game of the season for the Cubs was like 39 of the 163 other games they played this year, with the Cubs scoring 1 or less runs in each of those games.

It was also like the Cubs’ playoff game with Milwaukee on Monday, where the disappearance of the Cub bats gave visiting Milwaukee the 3-1 victory, the NL Central division championship, and home field advantage throughout the National League playoffs.

At the beginning of September, the Cubs had a four game lead on Milwaukee in the Central Division.

By the end of the 2018 regular season on Sunday, Milwaukee caught the Cubs and shared a tie record with them for first place, and forced the one game playoff Monday- a game at home, which the Cubs lost, before they lost their home game hosting Colorado in the last night’s NL Wild Card playoff.

The Cubs’ 40 games of futility, games where they scored only 0 or 1 runs, was bizarre for this team, to say the least. That statistic made the Cubs first in offensive futility in all of the MLB, one game worse than the 2018 Baltimore Orioles, who experienced one of their worst seasons ever and boasted the league’s worst record this year at 47-115. The Cubs lost their “O” more frequently than the O’s did.

And yet, the Cubs had a very respectable regular season record of 95-68, though, and were 6th in the major leagues in the number of wins they had this year. They were also 7th in the major leagues with a run differential (the difference between the number of runs they scored and the number of runs they allowed their opponents) of +116. They were ninth in total runs scored (761), and averaged 4.65 runs a game, good enough for 11th out of 30 teams. These numbers tell us that the Cubs could and did put up runs during the season. Factor in the 40 offensive futility games, though, and you realize the Cubs had a problem at times this year.

The Cubs either scored a lot on a given opponent on a given day, or very little. And too many of those “too little” games came at the end of the year- periodic power failures- against key opponents in games that mattered.

Surprisingly, I worried about Cubs pitching being a concern coming to the end of the regular season and looking into the playoffs. The Cubs had started the year with a promising stable of starters and bullpen guys, but stuff happened. Yu Darvish got hurt and never played after July. Tyler Chatwood, a starter I was high upon in his acquisition from Colorado, forgot how to find the strike zone as a Cub. A bunch of the guys that were bullpen favorites in 2017 lost their ways as well – Duensing, Wilson, Carl Edwards Jr.

In the long run, Cubs pitching was pretty reliable this year, especially in the second half, and the Cubs ended up with the third best staff ERA in the major leagues (3.65), behind only Houston (3.11) and the Dodgers (3.38). Cubs relievers posted a 3.35 ERA, second to Houston’s, while the starters actually struggled more (ranked 10th at 3.84).

It was more the offensive vacuums that doomed this team.

There were high points in the year though, as well.

Javy Baez was a beast on the field and at the plate, sitting perched most of the season in NL MVP discussion. He finished leading the NL in Runs Batted In with 111, and a Wins-Above-Replacement figure of 6.3, which was good for third in the National League (Yelich of Milwaukee finished at a lofty 7.6). Rizzo finished with 100 RBI or more for his fourth year in a row (101 in 2018), despite a long offensive slump to start the year- an achievement which is a first ever for a lefty on the Cubs. David Bote, a AAA call up asked to cover for Bryant at third while Bryant was on the DL, provided show-stopping at-bats, and 5 of his 6 home runs won ballgames (including a grand slam walk-off against the Nationals on August 13th). Ben Zobrist had arguably his best year at the plate in his 13 year career in 2018, hitting .305 as a 37 year-old. Heyward suddenly found his hitting bat from his early Atlanta days. Lester returned to his Cy Young form (18-6). Hendricks rediscovered his stingy arm in the second half of the season. And the acquisitions of Daniel Murphy, Cole Hamels, and Jesse Chavez made significant impact on the Cubs fortunes later in the season, when the club was suffering from guys lost to injuries (Strop, Morrow, Bryant) or off-field issues (Addison Russell).

This year’s team was a very good team.

One factor that contributed to their early out this year, though- in my opinion- was their late season schedule.

The Cubs had an inordinate number of rain- or snow-related postponed games this year (5) that were rescheduled for later in the season, which created a fatigue effect. The Cubs played 21 times in 22 days to end their season- including last night’s Wild Card game- and were at the ballpark 42 times in the last 43 days of the campaign.

I can’t help to think that all of that ballpark time had something to do with their late season production woes.

2018 is over for this squad, and 2019 will come around soon enough. Most of the core guys on this team will be back, as will Maddon, the manager who received a little flack for the club’s late season meltdown, which is probably not really deserved. In four years as the Cubs’ helmsman, Maddon has been 387-261 record (60% wins) and taken the club to four postseason appearances.

I just think they wore out and could not get rested before post-season play.

Enjoy your break fellas. Thanks for a fun 2018.

But also, find your bats!