The video of Anthony Rizzo striking out Freddie Freeman became a kind of personality test for Cubs Twitter. Reactions ranged from appreciating the light-hearted interaction between two All-Star first basem*n to wondering why the Cubs were clowning around while losing by 10 runs.
It wasn’t old school vs. new school as much as the conflicted feelings about how a team with so much recent success can sometimes be such a tired act. It is a long season, as the Cubs keep reminding us, but sometimes one moment can encapsulate many different ideas about the franchise’s direction or lack thereof.
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Context always matters and the Cubs are in a period of great uncertainty. All-Star catcher Willson Contreras exiting Friday night’s 8-6 loss to the Reds at Great American Ball Park with mild right thigh tightness was not an encouraging sign. One of the trade-offs in having a large, passionate fan base is that people pay attention and remember.
That’s why any change around Wrigley Field becomes a potential hot-button issue. While the Cubs had valid reasons for keeping Nico ho*rner off the Opening Day roster — and could point to fast-tracking him to the big leagues in 2019 and carrying him while he struggled through last year’s 60-game season — it’s impossible to forget Kris Bryant’s service-time grievance. Rizzo’s 61.4 mph curveball to Freeman on Wednesday night at Truist Park didn’t travel in a Statcast vacuum.
Sports are supposed to be fun, but the Cubs (11-15) have not played a particularly entertaining brand of baseball, entering the weekend with the lowest batting average (.213) and the highest ERA (4.79) in the National League. The Cubs have been shut out five times and 11 of their 26 games have been blowouts (decided by five or more runs). Their fantastically talented pitcher, Yu Darvish, was traded to the Padres in an offseason deal widely perceived to be some version of a salary dump. The franchise’s cost-cutting approach actually worked to Rizzo’s advantage in the court of public opinion when he broke off contract talks at the end of spring training.
Winning cures almost everything and that recent five-game losing streak magnified all of the team’s issues, especially when set against a Braves team loaded with young talent and power hitters. It’s not like Sinclair Broadcast Group will lower your cable fees when position players are pitching on Marquee Sports Network or the Cubs will slash ticket prices once the team fully enters rebuilding mode.
While there have been moments that screamed out for edgy personalities like Miguel Montero and John Lackey, the World Series hangover stopped being the explanation years ago. All the urgency is built into the roster now and playing through a pandemic has fundamentally changed the clubhouse dynamics and team-bonding activities.
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The Cubs are not one of the nine teams that have hit the 85 percent COVID-19 vaccination rate for Tier 1 personnel, manager David Ross said Friday. Major League Baseball announced four clubs reached that 85 percent threshold and will be able to loosen the health and safety protocols. Five additional clubs have reported at least 85 percent of its Tier 1 individuals have received a final dose and will be considered fully vaccinated within the next two weeks.
The last time Ross checked, the Cubs were “getting close to 80” percent during the previous Wrigley Field homestand. Ross, who has repeatedly stressed to the team the importance of getting vaccinated against COVID-19, also acknowledged “I don’t know if we’ll get there” in terms of the 85 percent incentives.
If anyone should get the latitude to request pitching to Freeman, it’s Rizzo, the team’s longest-tenured player and most consistent hitter on an annual basis. Rizzo is a Gold Glove defender and a face of the franchise who has played in 95 percent of the team’s regular-season games since getting called up to Wrigley Field in the middle of the 2012 season.
“I don’t ever have to worry about the work these guys are putting in,” Ross said. “The challenging part is to continue to understand that this is a long season. If we get down on ourselves now, it’s going to be a really long year. We got too many good baseball players to go down that road this early.
“We’re not playing up to our ability or the way we want to play. That’s obvious. I don’t think anybody wants to make any excuses for that. But I think our best is ahead of us. We’ve got to continue to work to be better and never change that work mentality to try to find some kind of advantage each day and win a ballgame.”
Rizzo’s enthusiasm once helped deflate some of the pressure that surrounded the Cubs before they ended that 108-year championship drought. This is his 10th season with an iconic team in a big market. He has always represented the Cubs brand well and never generated any real off-the-field controversy. Whatever happens this season, he’s not going to ride the roller coaster.
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“It just depends where you’re at in your career,” Rizzo said. “When I was younger, you see everything. You have rabbit ears and everything makes you sensitive. As you get more seasoning and more of a track record, you kind of don’t really get fazed by a lot of it. There’s no secret — we haven’t been hitting the fastball as much as we’d like to. We weren’t hitting at all. In this game, your numbers will stick out real fast like a sore thumb if something’s alarming. It comes with the territory. It comes with what we signed up for. It’s about being professional through the good and the bad.”
Seeing Rizzo on the mound was a reminder of what he walked into during that 2012 season. Dale Sveum, the manager at the time, brought a hard-nosed attitude to a 101-loss team and empowered the coaching staff that set up an effective game-planning system and marketed players for the trade deadline. Even bad teams pour an incredible amount of energy and concentration into every game because that is the job.
There were more than 1,400 players in Rizzo’s 2007 draft class. This is where they all wanted to be. It’s extremely hard and expensive to build and sustain a winning team. There’s no doubt the Cubs need to change. But it makes you wonder if the organization — from top to bottom — truly appreciates how difficult it is to find star players and maintain a competitive culture.
“I just play first base,” Rizzo said. “I don’t make those decisions. That’s above my pay grade.”
(Photo: Todd Kirkland / Getty Images)
Patrick Mooney is a senior writer for The Athletic covering the Chicago Cubs. He spent eight seasons covering the Cubs across multiple platforms for NBC Sports Chicago/Comcast SportsNet, beginning in 2010. He has been a frequent contributor to MLB Network, Baseball America, MLB.com and the Chicago Sun-Times News Group. Follow Patrick on Twitter @PJ_Mooney
