3 Chicago Cubs most to blame for untimely Braves sweep

No. 1 Chicago Cub most to blame for Braves sweep: David Ross

David Ross is one of the main reasons the Cubs lost. For instance, instead of using a healthy starting pitcher during Game 3, they decided to use an injured Marcus Stroman, who has been pitching previously out of the bullpen for the past few games.

In the first game of the series, Ross decided to use both of his best relievers, Javier Assad and Jose Cuas. This played a major role in the terrible ending to the second game. Since they both pitched the night prior, Ross decided to put in a below-league-average player in Daniel Palencia, who not surprisingly allowed Acuña to knock the runners on second in, then he stole his 70th base before allowing Ozzie Albies to walk it off.

A few of his bullpen decisions were quite questionable, and even the lack of pinch-hitters was quite questionable too, as they failed to replace struggling hitters in situations where they needed to create runs.

The Cubs needed some big hits, but in Game 1 and 3, the best hitter was Seiya Suzuki. In those two games, they had two extra-base hits total, both of which came from Suzuki, and the rest of the team was only able to get singles, leaving many runners on base.

In this series, they went 8-for-30 with runners in scoring position, leaving 22 runners on base. One of the main reasons they couldn’t score was because they couldn’t stop being struck out, having seven in the first game and 10 apiece in the final two, leaving Atlanta with 27 strikeouts.

Prior to this series in Atlanta, manager David Ross said, “That’s not a good team that just took 2 out of 3 from us. Or not our caliber of team I believe. We have to turn it around. It's on me. It's on the guys in the room,” about the Pittsburgh Pirates.

That comment started much drama prior to this series which has been drawn into this series. The team complained about losing to a “bad team,” but now they lose to a good team because they decided to have players on the team who aren’t even good role players.

In the past 19 games, the Cubs have completely collapsed, holding a record of 6-13. The sad part is four of those wins came from the Colorado Rockies and one versus the Pirates and Diamondbacks.

When it comes to facing teams that are somewhat competitive, the Cubs aren’t ready yet, at least not with Ross, because in the big situation you need a good manager who makes the right decisions, but Ross hasn’t done that. Against teams over .500, they are only 33-46, and they have a Brewers series coming up, making it even more unlikely they will make the postseason now.

Pythagorean Win-Loss is used to estimate how many games a team should have won and lost. With the Chicago Cubs, they have an 88-71 record, but in reality, they have an 82-77 record, meaning they lost six games they should have won.