A week ago, I wrote this article about the troubles of this year’s Cubs and how they were beginning to remind me of some of the travails the team went through in 1970 and 1985, years they were supposed to contend but wound up short of a division title, the only playoff spot available in those years.
This year’s Cubs haven’t really done any better since that article posted a week ago Tuesday. They’re 3-4 since then and, apart from three games where the offense woke up a bit, they’re now in an offensive funk again, scoring just once in each of the last two games.
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This year’s Cubs peaked (so far) at 27-12, following the team’s second 10-game winning streak of the season. (Feels like a long time ago, doesn’t it?) Since then the Cubs are 5-17, tied with the Royals for the worst record in baseball in that span. They’ve been outscored 108-70 and have had a 10-game losing streak as part of that stretch. At 27-12 they led the NL Central by 3.5 games. Now they trail by 6.5, so they’ve lost 10 games in the standings over that 22-game stretch.
I’m here to tell you that a long-ago year was even worse. The 1973 Cubs, the last of those great 1960s-1970s teams that never won anything, roared out to a great start. After defeating the Mets 4-3 in 10 innings June 29, the Cubs were 47-31 and led the NL East by 8.5 games. Many of us felt that would be the year that would finally redeem that star-crossed group.
Well, nope. They then went on a run of 9-33. No, that is not a misprint — a 42-game stretch when they won nine and lost thirty-three. That included losing streaks of six, seven and 11, and in the last of those, the final two games were thrashings by the Braves, 15-1 and 10-2, both at Wrigley Field. It got so bad that after the ninth of those losses, right before those two demolitions by Atlanta, Fergie Jenkins, normally the most mild-mannered of men, threw bats onto the field in frustration. That was a shocking thing in those days, something players just didn’t do.
The Cubs were 56-64 after that horrid run and 5.5 games out of first place, so over 42 games, they lost 14 games in the standings. The season seemed over.
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The ‘73 Cubs then went on a run of sorts. They won eight of 10 and moved to within two games of first place in what was a pretty weak NL East. By the season’s final weekend they still had an outside chance, but failed against the Mets, who won the division with what is still the fewest wins ever by a full-season division champion, just 82. I’ve chronicled that crazy weekend here a couple of times, most recently on its 50th anniversary in 2023.
Here’s the final play of the 1973 Cubs season, a double play hit into by Glenn Beckert, the last at-bat he’d have as a Cub:
The parallels between the 1973 Cubs and 2026 Cubs aren’t exact. That was a pretty old team, with only two regulars (Rick Monday and Jose Cardenal) under 30. The pitching staff was also old, though they had three decent young starters in Burt Hooton, Rick Reuschel and Larry Gura — if only they’d kept Hooton and Gura instead of trading them away in more of the awful deals that were a hallmark of that era.
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This year’s Cubs have better, and somewhat younger, players. Two of the biggest stars on the team, Nico Hoerner and Pete Crow-Armstrong, are in their 20s and several others still should be in their prime years (and it would be good if they started hitting like that). The starting rotation this year is in tatters, but that’s due mainly to injury, not age, and the injured starters should be back soon.
The other thing that’s different is that this bad 5-17 run has come more than a month earlier than the Cubs’ awful collapse in 1973. By the time the Cubs were done with that 9-33 run, it was Aug. 16 and there were only 42 games remaining in the season. There are 100 games remaining in the 2026 season, and one other thing this year’s Cubs have that they can go for that the 1973 team didn’t — more playoff berths. Sure, we’d love it if the Cubs could win the NL Central, and they’re not out of that race by any means, but there are three wild-card spots to play for and last year’s Cubs made the most of theirs, winning their wild-card series against the Padres.
I’d be remiss if I didn’t remind you that even the 103-win World Series champion 2016 Cubs had a run similar to this year’s, though they began from a higher point. After defeating the Pirates June 19 at Wrigley Field (the day Willson Contreras homered in his first MLB at-bat!), the Cubs were 47-20 and led the NL Central by 12.5 games. They then went on a 5-15 run in which they were outscored 123-88. At the end of that span they were 52-35 and had lost six games, almost half, of their division lead.
That team, of course, recovered. They had the best record in MLB — 51-23 — the rest of the way, won the division by 17.5 games, and of course went on to win the World Series.
There’s a lot of time left in the 2026 season. I continue to believe this Cubs team is too good to keep losing the way they have. It would be nice to start the turnaround tonight against the A’s.
