(670 The Score) It's only April 17, but already we may have reached the first on the list of so-called "trap" games for the Cubs that were reportedly identified and circled by the front office.
I hate this, because the whole idea of it seems completely ridiculous to those of us conditioned to understand the way a set of 162 outcomes actually works over six months of Major League Baseball. We have to pay attention to such instances now, however, due to actual guidelines set by the people running the Cubs.
The Athletic divulged in March that specific plans were in place to help facilitate the urgency sought by president of baseball operations Theo Epstein, a stance he articulated immediately after the 2018 season concluded so disappointingly. There would be a more visible front office presence in and around the clubhouse, less access to alcohol and fast food, more mandatory batting practice, lineups pre-posted for each series, expectation of more time in the dugout and lined up for the anthem and "circling 10 or so trap games and challenging the group to win all of them."
"The hope here is that the team will be treating, for example, a getaway day in Cincinnati like a Sunday night game at Wrigley Field," Sahadev Sharma and Patrick Mooney wrote.
And let's let Epstein describe the mentality, as he did last October.
"Sometimes, divisions aren't lost on that last day of the season when you only score one run and you don't get in (the NLDS) or that last week-and-a-half where the other team goes 8-0 and you went 4-3 and needed to go 5-2," he said. "Sometimes, they're lost early in the season where you have an opportunity to push for that sweep but you've already got two out of three and you're just not quite there with that killer instinct as a team."
The Cubs won the first two against a woeful Marlins team in Miami at the start of a full rebuild, one that has a -0.9 aggregate WAR for position players that's second-worst in the league. So Wednesday evening is the proverbial "getaway day in Cincinnati," except in south Florida.
If this one doesn't fit Epstein's ideal criteria for such a critical game, what possibly could?
He stressed that the page of the calendar doesn't matter, since "October begins in March." He also mentioned the equal significance of "Game 1 through Game 162."
The truth is that being 7-9 has changed the context, affording no luxuries whatsoever for a Cubs team expecting to contend to take anything lightly anywhere on the schedule.
But if he's indeed circling games to point out those opportunities for wins that can't become losses due to lack of effort or attention, this must be one of them.
It's as silly as it seems, but we're already here.
Dan Bernstein is a co-host of 670 The Score's Bernstein & McKnight Show in middays. You can follow him on Twitter @dan_bernstein.
