Cubs faced with remarkably unfair travel schedule before Brewers series
By Bill Felber
Give the current pathetic state of the Chicago Cubs offense, this is a hard argument to make. But the schedule maker was particularly and singularly unfair to the Cubs this holiday weekend.
The Cubs were selected by ESPN to play the national Sunday night game in St. Louis. Then they had to get on a plane, fly to Milwaukee – arriving in the middle of the night – and get ready to play the division-leading Brewers Monday afternoon.
By any reasonable logic, MLB should have required the game to be played Monday night, at least giving the visiting team normal rest and prep time for a change-of-cities game. But that’s not what happened.
The Cubs lost 5-1, Milwaukee breaking open a scoreless game with five eighth inning runs against Chicago’s bullpen. The Cubs were held to a lone run – scoring it in the ninth – and just five base hits.
As noted at the outset, it’s a hard case to make that Chicago’s offense was rendered somnolent by the demanding travel, mostly because the Cubs offense right now appears comatose generally. In their last nine games – seven of them losses -- the Cubs have scored just 22 runs, and six of those came in one game.
That’s an average of two runs per game for the other eight games.
Cubs offense certainly wasn't helped by brutal schedule vs. Brewers, Cardinals
The team’s slash line through that nine-game stretch is Little League level: .179/.243/.258. In some respects, the surprising thing isn’t that they’ve gone 2-7, but that they managed to avoid going 0-9. Don’t think it wasn’t close: both of those two victories were walk-offs.
Still, there is an inherent unfairness to playing a day game following a night game in two different cities. The unfairness is so obvious that MLB schedule makers appear to try hard not to force teams to do it.
Chicago’s Sunday night loss in St. Louis came in the season’s ninth Sunday night game. In none of the previous eight were teams required to play a day game in a different city the next day. Three of those eight involved wrap-around series ending on Monday. In one, the traveling team had a scheduled off day; the remaining four involved night games in the new city.
Perhaps ironically, the place where this kind of thing is most likely to occur is on Chicago’s North Side. That's because a city ordinance prohibits the Cubs from scheduling Friday night regular season games.
Yet while the Cubs will play 14 regular season Friday afternoon games at Wrigley this season, not one of them will require the visiting team to arrive following a Thursday night game in a different city. Seven of those opponents either have arrived or will arrive fresh from an off day, and one will be coming off the All Star break. Four others will be continuing series that began on Thursday.
Only the Cardinals on June 14 and the Angels on July 5 will come in off a Thursday game in another city, and both of those getaway games are scheduled for the afternoon.
ESPN has booked future Sunday night games through mid-June. None will require one of the teams to play a Monday afternoon game in another city.
This is not to argue that a better-rested Cubs team would have beaten the Brewers Monday afternoon. It’s not entirely clear who, if anybody, the Cubs offense can beat right now, asleep or awake. But purely as a matter of fairness, MLB should prohibit teams from scheduling afternoon series openers with teams flying in from a night game in another city.
What's behind the Brewers' surprising showing to begin 2024? (calltothepen.com)