Has a team taking the largest divisional lead in baseball to the All-Star Break ever needed a win on the final day of the first half more than the Cubs did Sunday? A loss to the Pirates would have completed a sweep, cut their lead to 5 1/2 games and been yet another nail of indignity driven into…whatever wood thing the Cubs would be in a properly phrased analogy.



The last few weeks, but particularly the last eleven days, of watching the Cubs has been like standing on the shore helplessly watching your best friend drown. Nothing has gone right. The pitching has been dreadful, the offense has stopped working deep counts and driving up opposing pitchers’ pitch totals, and on the rare instances they got runners in scoring position, they weren’t driving them in.



How many of us went from making sure we carved out time to watch every minute of every game to ruefully looking at the schedule to see what time their latest humiliation would be televised...