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Chapter 1: What recent performance issues are affecting the Cubs?
And Happ hits a high fly ball to center. Shallow and playable for Bote. He's got it. And the ball game is over. The Cubs had a chance. Could not do anything with it. And the Athletics win this series opener.
Oh, man. That's Pat Hughes on the call. You know the drill. Cubs lose to the A's starting their series at home where they last left home. Seven home losses in a row, and it's a buzzkill. This is Rahimi Harrison-Grody on 104.3 The Score. Marshall just looks at me, slaps his arm, and then purses. What has caused you for this reaction? Purses his lips. That was hilarious.
Let me just let you know, Layla. I love our listeners, the people who watch us on Twitch. the people who watch us on YouTube, because y'all are here for the conversation. 217. The current state of the Cubs is like a birthday party balloon that slowly deflates to the point it barely hovers over the ground.
Oh my God.
We've all been there. We've all seen that balloon, sad balloon. You know, a couple of days after the party.
And it didn't have enough helium or it just wasn't the overachiever that the one balloon who stays up there forever for months is. And instead, you could say it's underperforming its expectations as a balloon.
Is that not what the Cubs are doing right now?
Oh, man.
It's like the balloon from The Office where everyone was wanting to go see it and just see it slowly coming down.
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Chapter 2: How has the Cubs' recent schedule impacted their performance?
He felt something. How many times a week is somebody like, oh, better not be the meniscus, and then it's like, you don't even feel it at first. I'm like, this is old. This is getting old. It's just threats to your body parts.
He had the surgery. He's on his way back. This is the good news. The bad news is neither Boyd nor Cabrera in these modern times will be at the plate.
6-3-0 points out that the A's are underperforming, too. Yahtzee. I didn't look at this series as any sort of layup. They've got some bats in that lineup, and Kurtz is badass. Kurtz is. He is. And Langoliers, as we know, really has talent. Of course, Matt Spiegel was the first to point him out.
And at one point recently, for a while, Rooker, of course, has had some great games against the Cubs and the White Sox. And I feel like this is a team that... held on to whatever you want to call it, the lead in the AL West for quite some time before Seattle recently took it back.
Yeah, Seattle's surging a little bit, over 500. More teams in the American League getting over 500. Who thought that that was a thing? But ultimately, the Cubs have an opportunity here. And it's interesting to hear the players themselves talk about the situations that they've been in because they're trying to get... They're above 500, so they're staying afloat.
But they need to be better than staying afloat in the National League Central specifically.
Yeah, they're 32 and 29. But as we mentioned, you know that the pattern over the last 22 games hasn't been good. And they wasted a Jamison Tyone start that went really well for him. I'm okay with the one solo shot as long as it's a one solo shot. And Tyone understands the severity of the situation.
This has been a wake-up call, I hope, for everyone. It definitely has been for me. Nothing's going to be handed to us, and the Brewers are for real again. They're a very good team. Our division's really good. The league's really tough. It's just going to take a lot of work to dig ourselves out of this.
Obviously, it's a great group of guys that work really hard, but I definitely think it's been a wake-up call. I just know it has been for me, for sure.
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Chapter 3: What are the implications of the Cubs' upcoming games against weaker teams?
First of all, Edward Cabrera wasn't Cy Young before he got hurt.
There was that 1-0 game against Cleveland. But I blame weather for a lot of that. Not his performance. Do you want to hear from PCA because he was asked about Jameson Tyone talking about the wake-up call?
The sense of urgency during a long season is a funny thing because, you know, I think it's still important to recognize that we're, I guess, like almost halfway, right? There's still a lot of time left, but, you know, again, you don't want to fall into a trap of getting too comfortable when stuff isn't going very well.
I think there comes a time when you do want to turn it around, and it kind of has to. But... Yeah, I mean, I haven't really thought about it in that way, and I guess he's right. We've got to do a lot of stuff better and, you know, take advantage of opportunities that are in front of us. You know, Jamo goes out and throws six really strong innings, and, you know,
Two runs is a very reachable deficit for this team. We've got to do a better job of finishing the job that he did very well. But yeah, sure, I think a wake-up call is a nice way to put it.
So what time is the alarm? What's it set for?
Oh, no, no. The alarm went off. I believe the snooze button has been hit a couple times here.
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Chapter 4: How are injuries affecting the Cubs' roster and performance?
Because they're in trouble. They're in trouble. Look at the standings right now. Look at the fact that I started this show talking about June Swoons and let's avoid them. The Cubs, the first time they were on the field, take a loss.
Look, the best thing they have for them is not the fact that Edward Cabrera is coming back or that Matthew Boyd's return is around the corner, which are both very good things for a team that needs its out-getters, as Craig Council puts it. But the biggest stopper for the Cubs right now is... is the schedule.
Let's be honest, Layla, because even though they struggled last night to get runs against the A's, even after this A's series, let's say they don't win the series, they drop two out of three, or at worst get swept, because those are things that are on the table right now. You've got 12 games against the teams with the two worst records in the National League. Teams who...
not only have been inept in the Colorado Rockies and the San Francisco Giants, but teams that will find a way to lose because bad teams find a way to lose. You have to take advantage of a 12-game stretch like that. In the... understanding that even though you've got 22 games in a row against losing teams, some of these teams are still fighting for something.
The A's are fighting for a playoff spot still.
They're not out of it. The A's are very much, they led that division for long enough to say, we're still trying to make this happen. And they built their roster that way. It's not like they're the Pirates who eked into first place and then sat there for a couple days. That's not what they're doing.
The Rockies and the Giants are bad. They are objectively bad. I don't know what's going on with the Giants and their manager, their new manager, but it has been, since day one, bad. The Cubs have played the most difficult schedule in baseball to this point in the season. That schedule is about to get a whole lot lighter. Take advantage of it. We know you can compete.
with good to above average teams because you have a winning record having the toughest baseball schedule that exists so far. Now just take advantage of this 12-game stretch, or if you want to say a 15-game stretch with the A's included, or if you want to say a 22-game stretch with how June starts. You got to take advantage of it.
Well, and if they don't, then all money in the bank has evaporated. That's the biggest problem. That's Marshall Harris. I'm Layla Rahimi. Next, let's talk about the White Sox. They took one on the chin last night in Minnesota, but there's still some takeaways because they had more hits. Usually there's something else to discuss. But Davis Martin had an uncharacteristic performance.
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