PITTSBURGH — Thanks to an August surge, the 68-66 Cubs are on pace to finish the season with 82 wins. The beauty of baseball is that it isn’t that predictable. The Cubs could ride their recent momentum and favorable schedule to a significantly better record.
Or they could stumble at the finish line. So far, however, though their route there took some surprising turns, in aggregate, this is about the season they were projected to have. The Cubs have their own projection models, but going into the season, Fangraphs had the Cubs at 82.
3 wins, with a 41.3 % chance to make the playoffs. Now, it’s looking like 82 or 83 wins won’t secure a National League wild-card spot.
Not even close. It seems the Cubs were always going to have to outperform projections to make it into the postseason. But morale is high after a sweep in Pittsburgh this week “We’re playing really good baseball,” left fielder Ian Happ said.
“We’ve really strung together some good offensive performances. ..
. I’ve been saying this for a couple weeks now: it’s game by game and series by series.” The Cubs have the Mets (69-64 entering Thursday) in their sights.
But the Braves (73-60 entering Thursday), who occupy the last NL wild-card spot, haven’t faded despite injuries to key players. While the Cubs have gone 16-8 in the month of August, the Braves put up a respectable 15-11 August record going into Thursday, making them difficult to catch. The Cubs are making up for a two-month rut — which.