(670 The Score) It's already October, according to Cubs president of baseball operations Theo Epstein. Actually it's now November today, now that I think about it. Or something.
The mantra is meant to reinforce the significance of every game mattering equally no matter how early on, despite our completely reasonable awareness that such a prism makes baseball life uncomfortable and untenable, which is how Epstein seems to want it for a clubhouse and manager he saw as mostly fat and happy.
So May is December and June is January and then pitchers and catchers will report to Mesa in July, which is February. This is quickly becoming almost as exhausting as watching the Cubs try to pitch.
I've no idea how I'm supposed to react to what's nothing more than a bad opening series -- or at least was once treated as such. Good teams have bad days, even bad weeks, and some just happen to have theirs at the start of the year in a way that magnifies such a common stretch as opposed to it happening in August. Which is now March, sorry.
So what's the proper way to observe this team with the urgency imposed on it, while not surrendering to utter baseball idiocy? Was the latest bullpen meltdown Sunday a failure in one of the critical and highlighted "trap games" identified as meriting special attention? If so, how concerned should we be about what would otherwise be just one outcome of 162?
Panic has no place in this game at this time, unless the person in charge of the team has made a point of emphasizing or even hyperbolizing what this time means.
I don't like this at all, the imposition of artificial portentousness into the whole operation at the outset. We get that the idea was to respond to the sting of disappointment last year with a refreshed and ready mentality and attention to detail, all while Joe Maddon's bid for a contract extension was rebuffed abruptly and publicly, leaving the appearance of him managing for his job. It was about them, not us.
But the standards set for the Cubs' performance and the subsequent evaluation of it by the front office must inform how we think about it. If there really is a push for postseason intensity, how can we weigh the gravity of everything in its appropriate context without surrendering common sense? We know better than to pretend such things.
Only Epstein may be able to provide the primer on what of this is real and what isn't. The next time we talk to caller Theo from Lakeview, we'll be sure to ask.
Dan Bernstein is a co-host of 670 The Score's Bernstein & McKnight Show in middays. You can follow him on Twitter @dan_bernstein.
