CHICAGO _ In early May Cubs President Theo Epstein stood in front of the dugout before a game at Wrigley Field and addressed his club's second straight mediocre start to the season.
The Cubs had turned it on in the second half of 2017 to easily win the National League Central Division title, and I asked Epstein if that was part of the problem.
Maybe the players know they can turn it on when they need to and lack a sense of urgency?
"Maybe," he replied. "There's that theory that last year reinforced those habits. I don't know. You can sit here and say 'yes' and then we'll go run off 10 in a row and then it was just psychobabble, trying to create a narrative.
"If you want to write that story, I'll give you the quote. But I'm not sure it's true."
Five months later, during Wednesday's postmortem after the Cubs blew the division title to the Brewers in the final week and lost to the Rockies in Tuesday's wild-card game, Epstein conceded the theory was not just psychobabble after all.
"Again, 95 wins is tremendous, but sometimes divisions aren't lost on that last day of the season when you only score one run and you don't get in," he said. "They're not lost in that last week and a half when the other team goes 8-0 and you go 4-3 and you needed to go 5-2.
"Sometimes they're lost early in the season when you have an opportunity to push for that sweep, but you've already got two out of three and you're just not quite there with that killer instinct. You know what that makes us? Human."
In light of that candid admission, here are five Cubs losses before the final-week collapse that ultimately contributed to the Cubs blowing the division title:
