Cubs rout Bucs to end skid with postseason push in focus

CHICAGO -- Cubs manager David Ross reiterated on Tuesday that looking too far ahead at a finish line can be dangerous. He has repeatedly stressed the importance of having his players break each day and game into a series of objectives, with the focus concentrated on the task directly in front of them.

That said, a finish line can also serve as a motivating factor. It sure did back in July, when Chicago’s players used another endpoint -- the Trade Deadline -- as an inflection point for their season. They piled up win after win after win, and the front office was forced to keep the group intact with a playoff push in mind.

“This team sort of stared down being broken up at the Trade Deadline,” Cubs president of baseball operations Jed Hoyer said prior to Tuesday’s 14-1 romp over the Pirates. “Obviously, that was a big thing. And they played with a lot of pressure during that period.”

The pressure is on once again for the Cubs, and they responded in a big way back in the comforts of Wrigley Field. The North Siders launched four home runs -- punctuated by the first career blast (a grand slam) by rookie Alexander Canario -- and received a strong showing from righty Javier Assad and the relief corps.

• Games remaining (11): vs. PIT (2), vs. COL (3), at ATL (3), at MIL (3).
• Standings update: The Cubs remain six games back of the first-place Brewers in the National League Central. Chicago is a half-game behind the D-backs for the second Wild Card spot. The Phillies hold a three game lead over the Cubs for the top spot. The Marlins are a half-game behind the Cubs, while the Reds are one game back of Chicago. The Cubs own the tiebreaker against San Francisco, but are on the wrong side of tiebreaker scenarios with Philadelphia, Arizona, Miami and Cincinnati.

The victory over Pittsburgh snapped a five-game losing streak that came at the end of a 2-8 stretch that put the North Siders’ postseason prospects in jeopardy. According to FanGraphs, the Cubs had a 92.4% chance of making the playoffs on Sept. 6, following a three-game sweep of the Giants. Those odds had crashed to a proverbial coin flip (49.7%) through play on Monday.

The Cubs headed into their final homestand of 2023 with a dozen games to go in a crowded National League Wild Card field that has multiple tiebreakers stacked against Chicago. The North Siders need to once again pile up win after win after win, or the front office will be starting to play for ‘24 earlier than hoped.

“A lot of it feels similar to the Trade Deadline,” said Cubs second baseman Nico Hoerner, who went 1-for-3 with an RBI and two runs scored on Tuesday. “There is a bit of an end in sight of sorts. Whether it’s the end of the season or the Deadline, there’s a bit of a looming thing. The way that we handled the Trade Deadline was as an opportunity, right? We had a chance to play baseball that really mattered and turn our season around in a way that put us in a place where we are exactly right now.”

A Cubs team that was 10 games under .500 on June 8 (26-36) rattled off 10 wins in 11 games at the end of July, moving over the break-even mark and back into the October conversation, convincing Hoyer and his staff to shift into buy mode. At this current pressure-packed juncture, the players have the chance to turn that conversation into reality.

“If we play good baseball for the next two weeks,” Hoerner said, “and bring our best every day, we have a really strong chance of going to the postseason and accomplishing something that a couple months ago a lot of people thought was impossible.”

One of the persistent issues throughout the previous 10 games was a lack of clutch hitting. The Cubs hit .205 with a .527 OPS and 45 wRC+ as a team with runners on base in that stretch. It was a far cry from the explosive offense that helped carry Chicago for most of the second half.

“Something will make it turn,” Ross said. “One player will step up and get a big knock in a big situation and guys will take a deep breath. And we’ll get back on that roll that we’ve been on for a pretty good while now.”

The first deep breath arrived in the opening frame, when Swanson attacked an 0-2 fastball that Pirates lefty Bailey Falter fired above the strike zone. The baseball arced high over left-center field, dropping into Wrigley Field’s famous basket for a two-run shot. The lineup kept adding on from there, culminating in an eight-run outpouring in the eighth that included homers by Canario and Cody Bellinger.

This all came after Swanson shrugged off pregame questions about the Cubs feeling any late-season fatigue.

“No one on any team feels their best right now,” Swanson said. “But that’s where you like to thrive -- when your back’s against the wall and things are a little bit challenging. That’s when you step up. That’s what you trained all offseason for.

“That’s why you put the pennies in the piggy bank all year -- to be at this point.”

The point? Playing under pressure with a playoff berth on the line.

“We would’ve loved to [know we’d] be in this position in the middle of July,” Hoyer said. “And we’re here right now. We have 12 games to play really well. That’s four series. That’s the nice thing, is we still very much have a situation where, if we play well, then we should be playing in October.”