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The Cubs need help on offense, and other various and sundry things

Here are the latest SB Nation FanPulse survey results.

By Al Yellon

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Photo by Justin Berl/Getty Images

Welcome to SB Nation FanPulse, a survey of fans across MLB. Each week, we send 30 polls to plugged in fans from each team. Cubs fans, sign up HERE to join FanPulse.

This week, we added one question to the SB Nation FanPulse survey for Cubs fans, to wit: “What is the team’s biggest need for the second half playoff drive?” The choices were: Starting pitching, the bullpen, or offense. By a significant margin, you said offense:

(Specifically: 45.65 percent offense, 30.43 percent bullpen, 23.91 percent starting pitching.)

You know, the Cubs’ offense hasn’t been bad. Even after some recent struggles they still rank fifth in the National League in runs (437) and runs per game (5.02). They’re still on pace to score 814 runs, which would be the most since 2008 and third-most since 1930. To me, the starting pitching is going to have to do better, go deeper into games to keep pressure off the bullpen.

Here are the other Cubs-centric results for the week:

It is, I suppose, not surprising that confidence in the Cubs is at its lowest point of the season, just 49 percent, significantly down from 73 percent last week. A 1-5 road trip will do that (and the survey was taken before the last couple of losses).

Joe Maddon’s approval rating was 77 percent. This reflects my feelings as well. What’s happening now isn’t Joe’s fault. He’s just playing the guys the front office has given him. I still have full confidence in Maddon.

Here are the results from the national question asked this week:

That’s a pretty close vote. I’d say yes. One of the points of the All-Star Game is to get everyone to watch. If you leave teams out, the fans of those teams are going to say, “Why bother?” You can always find at least one deserving player on every team, I think. Looking at the rosters, even the awful Orioles, Marlins and Royals have players who have played well enough to be All-Stars.

It’s not too late to have your voice heard! Sign up for FanPulse at the link at the top of this post.

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