Cubs 'doing everything we can' as playoff hopes dwindle

MILWAUKEE -- With his arms slung over the railing of the vacated visitors’ dugout at American Family Field, Christopher Morel stayed and stared out at the field on Friday night. The Brewers’ players had poured onto the infield, mobbing Carlos Santana after his walk-off double in the 10th inning.

It was not all that long ago that the Cubs were still talking about trying to chase down the Brewers for the National League Central title. Now, in the aftermath of a 4-3 loss in Milwaukee, the North Siders’ September slide has the team staring down an early-arriving offseason and winter’s wait ‘til next year.

“We’ve got to win every game,” Cubs manager David Ross said. “It’s been that way for a while now. I know the score.”

• Games remaining (2): at MIL (2)
• Standings update: The Cubs (82-78) sit just outside the third and final National League Wild Card spot. The Marlins (83-76) beat the Pirates on Friday, sit 1 1/2 games ahead of Chicago and own the tiebreaker between the two clubs. The Marlins will have to resume a suspended game against the Mets on Monday, but only if it has postseason implications. The Reds (82-78) are now tied with the Cubs, as well, and also hold the tiebreakers over Chicago.
• Path to the Postseason: Chicago needs to win its next two games to have a chance at claiming a Wild Card. The Cubs lose any tiebreaker against the D-backs, Marlins and Reds, so in addition to the two wins, they would need the Marlins to lose their next two games and the Reds to lose once. In that scenario, Miami would have to play in New York on Monday and finish it's suspended game from Thursday, which the Marlins lead, 2-1, in the top of the ninth. If the Marlins lost that game, the Cubs would earn the final NL Wild Card spot.

The Cubs have two games left in the regular season. Due to the absence of a Game 163 scenario, Chicago needs to win out and hope Miami drops its next two games against the Pirates. That would put the Cubs a half-game ahead and force the Marlins to return to Queens to finish Thursday’s rain-suspended contest. Chicago would need Miami to lose Monday and also hope Cincinnati dropped its last two games, too.

That is the reality for a Cubs team that was only 1 1/2 games behind the Brewers for the NL Central lead back on Sept. 6, when FanGraphs gave Chicago a 92.4% chance to punch its ticket to the playoffs. The Cubs have since dropped 14 of 20 games, sliding down from the second Wild Card perch to the outside looking in.

With the math still leaving a lane to the October stage, the players were not ready to make any sweeping statements about the season as a whole.

“We’ll reflect on the season when it’s over,” Cubs outfielder Ian Happ said. “For right now, we’ll focus on winning baseball tomorrow.”

And really, that has been the required approach going back three-plus months.

First, Chicago had to claw back to a .500 record after falling 10 games under in June. Then, the Cubs had to rattle off wins in rapid succession to convince the front office to add to the roster at the Trade Deadline. It has been non-stop, must-win baseball for the North Siders.

Could that experience -- surely beneficial in the larger picture -- actually have contributed to wearing the team down in the short-term?

“I don’t think so,” Happ said. “I think it’s just that’s the season that we’ve had this year. We’ve had to play a lot of those games. We had to fight back from where we were early in the season. That’s part of it. That’s part of what this was, but you’re never going to ask for anything else [if it means you] get to this spot.”

Morel certainly brought energy, howling to his teammates after sliding into third base with a triple (on the heels of Jeimer Candelario’s leadoff homer) in a two-run eighth inning. Happ also provided a spark, launching a game-tying homer in the ninth inning off Brewers rookie Caleb Boushley.

Defensively, shortstop Dansby Swanson made a series of spectacular plays late in the game to stave off Milwaukee rallies. Catcher Yan Gomes hustled into foul territory to make an impressive snag in the second. Second baseman Nico Hoerner -- forced out of the game after fouling a pitch off his left knee -- made a jaw-dropping diving grab in the fourth.

In an all-hands-on-deck situation, Patrick Wisdom manned second base for the final few innings. He had never played that position in his professional career.

“I don't think anybody's on fumes,” Ross said. “I don’t think I see a lack of energy, a lack of focus -- any of those things. It’s just some things aren’t going our way right now.”

Cubs veteran Kyle Hendricks -- the last player remaining from the 2016 World Series team -- did not entirely dismiss the idea that the team was playing a little “tight” as postseason pressure has mounted.

“Every pitch is meaning so much to us right now,” said Hendricks, who lasted 4 1/3 innings in the loss. “We haven't been in this situation in a couple of years, so maybe a little bit of a learning curve. But at the end of the day, we're doing everything we can out there.”

Now, only two more chances remain.

“It’s kind of in our DNA to continue to fight and grind. That’s who we are,” Swanson said. “I know we’re looking forward to two more opportunities to put ourselves in a position to make the playoffs.”