The sharp grounder to first might have been a double-play ball the day before – or even the inning before. Or a foul ball on another day.
But this time it banged off the bag, caromed down the right-field line, and Kyle Schwarber rumbled all the way to third for a three-run triple for the Cubs.
“We needed to have that one break,” manager Joe Maddon said. “We needed something like that to get us rolling in the right direction.”
Just like that, a 24-inning scoreless streak got buried in a flurry of seventh-inning runs, and the Cubs were on their way to a 5-1 victory over the Seattle Mariners – on their way to the kind of victory that’s sure to propel them on a late-season rush of success.
Or nothing close to that.
Big win? Big loss.
Big deal.
That’s not how baseball usually works, and it’s definitely not how this team works this season – no matter how many fans on twitter or credentialed media working the clubhouse seem to believe after every big comeback against the Giants or late-inning win against the Athletics or every walkoff basket shot by Schwarber against the Reds.
“I’m not going to proclaim anything,” Maddon said.
If the Cubs have learned anything about this season after 137 games, it’s at least that much. The predictive value of any big emotional victory – or crushing loss, for that matter – is approximately zero.
They beat a very bad major-league team on Monday after failing to score for six innings against a struggling rookie making his fourth career start and a reliever with a career 5.06 ERA – after his scoreless sixth Monday.
Even after scoring five runs in the seventh for the victory, it meant the Cubs had scored in just one inning since Friday.
Until the seventh, the highlight figured to be especially painful, as in Anthony Rizzo getting hit twice by pitches – the first one, his 138th HBP, breaking Frank Chance’s century-old record.
Cubs starting pitchers the last three games have a 2.30 ERA, allowing no more than two runs in any of those games – and are 0-2.
“I’m definitely not worried about [pitching wins], especially this time of the year,” said Kyle Hendricks, who gave up only three hits Monday, lowered his home ERA to 1.77 but was lifted in the bottom of the sixth for a pinch-hitter because of the extreme need for offense, trailing 1-0.
Maddon was asked before the game whether at this point in the season “what you see is what you get.” And he responded by saying yet again that he believes the team’s success will be found in better work at the plate.
That may get a boost with the return to the lineup Tuesday of veteran Ben Zobrist after four months on personal leave and with the imminent return of All-Star catcher Willson Contreras from a hamstring injury. And having Javy Baez sidelined Monday because of a jammed thumb didn’t help.
But the Cubs seem to know they’re best served by ignoring the noise around their so-called “turnaround” wins and highlights.
Because with 25 games left it’s hard to imagine they’re much more than “what you see.” And that might be good enough in league fraught with parity and a division full of flawed teams.
The Cubs trail the Cardinals by three games in the NL Central, the Nationals by 3½ games for the league’s first wild-card spot and have a 2½-game lead over the Phillies in the race for the second wild card.
Mostly, it doesn’t matter what the Cubs are. Or how they win. Only how often they can avoid losses.
“We’re at a high today, but we’re facing Felix Hernandez tomorrow,” said Rizzo, who also seems to have evolved since he told teammates a crazy comeback win against the Giants was “season defining” less than two weeks ago.
“You [keep your head] down long enough, and hopefully when you look up it’s a nice little streak.”
