Yankees 18, Cubs 4: That was just embarrassing, continued

Some of you might remember “Breaking Madden,” the series by SB Nation’s Jon Bois in which he would do all sorts of wacky things to the NFL video game in an attempt to produce weird results. It worked. (If you’ve never watched these, you should, they’re awesome.)

Sunday’s 18-4 Cubs loss to the Yankees felt sort of like that. It was if someone went into a MLB video game and turned all the Yankees factors up to “best” and the Cubs factors to “worst.” It was like a MLB team playing an A-ball team. It was like a Spring Training split squad with a bunch of minor leaguers playing the defending World Series champions. It was like... well, you get the idea.

In short, it was a complete and utter embarrassment for the Chicago Cubs franchise, and yes I mean every single person associated with it, from chairman Tom Ricketts to office interns to gameday staff, even though most of the latter two groups had nothing to do with the depositing of this franchise down to the sub-basement of Major League Baseball.

I’m not doing too well myself here, either. Look what I said in the game preview:

Thompson has never faced the Yankees. The only Yankee who’s faced him is Matt Carpenter (0-for-3). I probably jinxed Thompson there, right?

Not only did I jinx Keegan Thompson, who didn’t make it out of the first inning and who walked Carpenter with the bases loaded, I apparently jinxed the entire Cubs pitching staff. Carpenter homered twice and doubled and drove in a career-high-tying seven runs. Guess who he had the other seven-RBI game against? Of course, you don’t have to guess, you know it was the Cubs on July 20, 2018 at Wrigley Field. In that game, after Carpenter went 5-for-5 with four runs and seven RBI, Cardinals manager Mike Shildt — who was literally managing just his third game for St. Louis — pulled him out when he would have had a chance to hit a fourth home run in that game.

It’s like Carpenter sees Cubs blue uniforms and becomes Hall of Fame talent. Even before this game Carpenter had 23 career homers against the Cubs, more than against any other team. He hadn’t been any good since 2018 and had been released from a minor-league deal by the Rangers. The Yankees sign him and boom — he’s hit six home runs in his first 10 games as a Yankee. No other Yankee has ever done that. So you’re welcome, Yankees.

I will spare you the rest of the carnage. The Cubs actually had a 1-0 lead in this game when Ian Happ homered with two out in the first inning [VIDEO].

Then... well, like I said, I’m not gonna go through all of this. You’ve suffered enough.

Happ also singled and tripled and was on deck when P.J. Higgins lined to short to end the game, which pretty much sums up this game and season for the Chicago Cubs. A Cubs cycle in a 14-run loss would have at least been entertaining, but we don’t even get that. Instead, we got Frank Schwindel doing this:

Some numbers:

• The Cubs were outscored 28-5 in this series
• The Cubs were outscored 37-8 on the road trip, in which they lost all four games
• The Cubs simply cannot hit with RISP, as shown here:

(The 1996 Giants lost 94 games, FWIW.)

That included some failed RISP at-bats prior to this series. Even more on that:

• Overall, the Cubs have now lost six straight, their longest losing streak of 2022, and been outscored 49-15 since they last won a game (the first game of the doubleheader June 4 against the Cardinals).

I have more thoughts about the Chicago Cubs baseball team, but I am saving them for an article tomorrow morning. Don’t miss it. It ain’t gonna be pretty.

The Cubs return home to begin a seven-game homestand Monday, starting with a three-game series against the Padres. With an 11-20 record at Wrigley Field, that oughta be fun, right? Justin Steele will start for the Cubs Monday and our old pal Yu Darvish will get the call for the Padres. Game time is 7:05 p.m. CT and TV coverage will be via Marquee Sports Network.