Though this outcome has been expected for a while now, the Chicago Cubs‘ 5-1 loss to the Washington Nationals on Saturday, combined with the New York Mets’ 6-3 win over the Philadelphia Phillies, has made it a reality: The Cubs have officially been eliminated from postseason contention in 2024.
Despite a September collapse that resulted in the Cubs missing the playoffs last season, there was optimism heading into this year that this squad was ready to take that next step. Even chairman Tom Ricketts said during spring training: “I don’t see any reason why we wouldn’t be favored for our division this year.”
Yet, the Cubs ultimately were out of the National League Central race a while ago.
The Milwaukee Brewers started running away with the division back in mid-May, as the Cubs’ May-and-June swoon, when they went 21-34, put them in a hole they couldn’t get out of. In fact, they were 11 1/2 games out of first place at the end of June and they were never fewer than eight games back the rest of the way.
The fact that, for a while now, talk about the Cubs’ postseason hopes has centered around the NL wild card rather than the division tells you how far out they’ve been. And even then, the Cubs haven’t necessarily been a threat in wild-card race, either.
Back on Aug. 11, the Cubs were only three games back of the Atlanta Braves for the third NL wild card spot, but a three-game sweep in Cleveland quickly moved them to six games behind. Though they immediately went on a 12-3 run, that only got them back to within three games.
They’ve since gone 8-10 at a time when they needed to stack as many wins as possible. Now, their hopes for a playoff appearance are done with seven games still to play.
“It’s a bummer that it came to an end officially,” said Patrick Wisdom, whose solo home run in the seventh inning Saturday provided one of two Cubs hits and their lone run. “I feel like it kind of slip through our hands, in a way. I feel like some of the games early on, they really matter. Especially when you come down to the end of September, those games in April, May, even June, the ones that we let slip away, they really matter. Obviously, every game matters, but those ones that kind of get away from us come back to bite us now.”
Cubs manager Craig Counsell has been candid in recent days about the state of the team, the “big gap” between them and the Brewers and the need to build 90-win, playoff-contending teams.
Getting there isn’t an easy task, but it’s obvious the Cubs have to look inward and figure out how to improve throughout the organization. Get there, and maybe they’re the ones popping champagne with over a week left in the season.
“We have to push each other in these situations, and that means that inevitably is going to make for hard decisions, because it’s hard,” Counsell said. “The thing we want to do is hard, and that’s going to require hard decisions. But the things worth doing are hard, so that’s where we gotta get to. It’s going to be difficult. We’re not there. There’s going to be hard decisions to get there, but that’s how it’s gotta work.”
As the Cubs’ skipper said, this team isn’t there. The group president of baseball operations Jed Hoyer built — consisting of mostly the same players as 2023, with some additions like Shota Imanaga, Michael Busch and, obviously, Counsell — wasn’t good enough.
There just wasn’t enough consistency. the Cubs had some nice runs in the second half of the season, battling their way back from nine games under .500 on July 3. But they couldn’t maintain the good stretches long enough (and some happened while the teams ahead of them were on their own good stretches), and the bad stretches ultimately did them in.
They currently sit at 79-76, so they’re in good position to finish with a winning record for the second straight year. But considering they aren’t in the playoffs and may not even finish with a better record than last season, that feels like a major consolation prize.
“It was a tough year, obviously,” said Kyle Hendricks, who allowed four earned runs over 5 1/3 innings in Saturday’s loss. “Just up and down, right about .500 with our record. Just seemed like we’d catch steam and then couldn’t maintain it, so just a really up and down year.
“Not surprising we’re right about .500. Just kind of how it went for us this year. When we played our good baseball, played fundamental, we could beat anybody. But we just couldn’t put it together for the whole year this year.”
So it’s now on to 2025. Hoyer and the front office have to press the right buttons this winter, and then Counsell, the coaching staff and the players have to figure out how to put together an overall better performance.
The Cubs haven’t been to the playoffs since 2020, haven’t been to the playoffs in a full season since 2018 and haven’t won a playoff game since 2017. It’s a been a long time since they were the class of the NL, and they need to get back to setting a better standard — starting with 2025.
“Teams shouldn’t want to come in here and play the Cubs,” Jameson Taillon said. “Wrigley shouldn’t be a fun road trip. Chicago shouldn’t be a fun road trip for other teams. They should come in here and say, ‘We’re going to get worked for three days. They’re going to be giving us a heck of an effort.’
“I think as players, that’s something we should strive for. I know a lot of players on other teams love coming to Wrigley, and it’s like, I don’t want that. I want people to see Wrigley on their schedule and be like, ‘Shoot, I don’t want a part of that.’
“We’re the Chicago Cubs. We should strive to be a 90-win, at least, organization.”
