The Good-News-Only Cubs/Brewers Recap

We've heard enough bad news this month, right? Enough of losses and bad pitching and fielding misplays and lack of hitting?

Thus, this recap of the Cubs game in Milwaukee Monday night will only include the good things! (Note clever omission of actual game score in that link.)

Here we go!

• Josh Vitters hit his first major-league home run. See, Dale? He can hit righthanders!
• David DeJesus doubled and drove in two runs.
• Anthony Rizzo went 2-for-3, including a double.
• Welington Castillo also went 2-for-3, raising his BA to .288.
• The back end of the bullpen, Michael Bowden and Lendy Castillo, threw a combined three scoreless innings, striking out four.

You can go past the jump, but don't say I didn't warn you.

Aw, who am I kidding? This was an awful game; Justin Germano got the Cubs into the fifth inning nursing a 3-1 lead, the only run coming on a Jonathan Lucroy home run. And then... all hell broke loose in Milwaukee, with the Brewers scoring eight runs. I'll spare you most of the gory details; Germano was mercifully lifted for Jeff Beliveau after he gave up a bases-loaded single to Corey Hart.

Mercy, however, was not granted by the Brewers; Beliveau retired just one of the three hitters he faced. The others -- Lucroy and Carlos Gomez -- both hit home runs.

The Cubs are 4-15 in August. The worst month in recent team history was May 2006, when the team went 7-22. That could be eclipsed, as could the worst August in Cubs history. That happened in 1999, when that team, that appeared to have quit on manager Jim Riggleman, went 6-24.

Want more? Probably not, but here it is anyway. The Cubs are 27 games under .500, the low mark of this season. The last time a Cubs team was more than 27 games under .500 was the last day of the 2006 season, which they finished 66-96, 30 games under .500. The low point of that year was the day before at 31 games under, and since we're probing the depths of the standings, here are some other, um, milestones to remember:

Last time more than 31 games under: 33 games under, 9/30/2000, 64-97
Last time more than 33 games under: 34 games under, 10/5/1980, 64-98
Last time more than 34 games under: 44 games under, 10/2/1966, 59-103
Last time more than 44 games under: 45 games under, 9/29/1962, 58-103

If you want to keep note of that, 45 games under .500 is the most games under .500 in Cubs history. That 1962 team finished 42½ games out of first place, the most games out of first place in team history. It's different now, of course; that was a single league and now we hav divisions, but this year's team currently stands 26 games out of first place (and, for the record, 28½ games back of the league's best mark, now held by the Washington Nationals).

The Cubs are 17-46 on the road; in order to not break the team record for worst road record since the 162-game schedule went into effect in 1962, they'd have to go 10-8 in their 18 remaining road games. You don't have to be the proverbial rocket scientist to realize that's not going to happen.

We are headed to an historically bad Cubs season, even if they don't break the team record for defeats, which they still might.

All right, now even I have had enough of this, for this morning, anyway. Chris Rusin will make his major-league debut Tuesday night in Milwaukee, and Alex Hinshaw will be added to the 25-man roster as well; roster moves haven't yet been announced, but I'll get them posted here when they are.