Chicago Cubs: 5 bold predictions for second half of season
By Ryan Sikes
The Chicago Cubs have remained atop the National League Central despite playing subpar baseball. Here are five predictions for the second half.
The Chicago Cubs are just about to finish a lousy month of June and, shockingly, still find themselves in first place. That’s because, in large part, the rest of the NL Central contenders have been playing bad baseball as well. Theo Epstein stressed the importance of having a sense of urgency to start the season, but it’s unclear what that truly meant.
Ideally, it points to the end of 2018 having to go to a Game 163 tie-breaker with the Milwaukee Brewers and then petering out in the Wild Card game at home to the Rockies. It’s been an ongoing problem since 2017 of an inconsistent offense. This team has the potential to score 10 runs a game with all of the offensive firepower, but they have gone through stretches of a home-run or nothing type of offense.
That’s essentially what June was in a nutshell. Anyways, the Cubs are still in first place and they should be thankful to be where they are at. A year ago, they would be well back of a dominant Milwaukee team. The Cubs have not gotten the consistent production from Albert Almora, second base as a group, Kris Bryant, and Kyle Schwarber.
Anthony Rizzo and Javier Baez have been carrying this team, but the team recently received help in their bullpen in the form of 7-time all-star, Craig Kimbrel. He collected his first save on Thursday and should stabilize the rest of the group with the energy potentially carrying over to the rest of the team. That being said, if the Cubs struggle to score 2 to 3 runs a game, it won’t make a difference who’s in their bullpen.
That type of offense is not sustainable in the Major Leagues. So, again to recap, the Cubs entered the halfway point with a 1.0 game over the Milwaukee Brewers and here are five bold predictions for the second half of the season.