Despite winning stretch, Cubs defense is in a slump: ‘We're better than that'

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Over the last month, the Cubs have the best record and the best pitching staff in baseball. 

They entered play Thursday leading the National League in runs per game and run differential on the season.

Yet their defense is in a slump. 

Baseball is strange, man.

The Cubs committed errors in four straight games from Sunday through Wednesday, totaling 8 defensive miscues in that span. It hasn't changed the overall outcome much — the Cubs are still 3-1 in those games — but it's definitely an ominous trend.

"We started out, we were on a good run," Joe Maddon said, sighing. "Just little things. It's not like difficult plays, either."

Maddon pointed to Kyle Hendricks — who is normally a very good defensive pitcher — making a throwing error to start off the game Wednesday night (that runner came around to score) or David Bote dropping a throw from Javy Baez at second base earlier in the week. 

"These are, like, easy plays," Maddon continued. "These aren't things that require all kinds of new methods or, 'let's work a little bit harder.' I don't know if it's a product of being very cold out recently — it could be. I do believe we're gonna get back to that standard."

Maddon also pointed out plays that haven't been ruled as errors recently, like Javy Baez waiting back too long on a ground ball hit by Starlin Castro in the sixth inning Tuesday night, which officially went into the scorebooks as a hit.

"That's not an error, but it's an error," Maddon said. "Stuff like that. We're better than that and we know that. [Cubs infield coach Brian Butterfield] is like ready to commit harikari sometimes; I gotta talk him down. We're much better than this on defense and I really expect it to happen."

The lapses this week have been weird to see from a team that boasts players who have won multiple Gold Glove Awards (Jason Heyward, Anthony Rizzo) and features several young players who seem destined to win a Gold Glove in their future (Javy Baez, Albert Almora Jr., maybe even David Bote).

It's even weirder that the miscues have happened when the team has been playing so well. But it's also not like the team has been sloppy every inning for a week. They've made some incredible defensive plays recently, from Ben Zobrist's diving plays in the outfield against the Cardinals to Almora's run-saving throw Tuesday night to Rizzo's aggressiveness and heads-up plays Wednesday night.

But that's also been paired with some defense behind Jon Lester that the veteran pitcher wound up having a good laugh about:

"Everything comes in bunches. I don't know why," Maddon said. "Home runs do, walks do, errors do — it's just a weird part of our game. I don't even know if it happens and everybody's noticing that and all of a sudden they fall in line in a bad way and then in a good way. I mean, hitting's contagious. I don't know. 

"It's a long year and you just gotta work your way through it. You know your guys are good and you just gotta walk 'em through it, support them, remind them of the little thing they had done wrong to maybe avoid it the next time. We have good defenders and it's going to play."

 

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