Traveling to Washington, D.C. this weekend to face what is arguably the worst team in the National League, if not in all of MLB, the Cubs would figure to be good to take two or three games.
But as with so many other things surrounding the Cubs, my sense of history leads me to a negative thought, that the team has traditionally struggled to beat the other NL clubs they "should" beat.
The unvarnished truth?
Here's how our heroes have fared against the NL's worst teams over each of the past ten seasons. The last column indicates whether the Cubs beat the league's weak sister more times (+) or fewer times (-) than might have been expected, given how that team played against the rest of baseball.
| Yr. | Worst NL | Overall Record | Record vs. | Record vs. | Cubs + or - |
| '07 | PITT | 68-94 (.420) | 7-8 (.467) | 61-86 (.415) | - |
| '06 | PITT | 67-95 (.414) | 9-6 (.600) | 58-89 (.395) | - |
| '05 | PITT/COL | 67-95 (.414) | 8-15 (.348)* | 126-175 (.419)* | + |
| '04 | ARIZ | 51-111 (.315) | 4-2 (.667) | 47-109 (.301) | - |
| '03 | SD | 64-98 (.395) | 2-4 (.333) | 62-94 (.397) | + |
| '02 | MILW | 56-106 (.346) | 10-7 (.588) | 46-99 (.317) | - |
| '01 | PITT | 62-100 (.383) | 6-10 (.375) | 56-90 (.384) | + |
| '00 | PHIL | 65-97 (.401) | 3-6 (.333) | 62-91 (.405) | + |
| '99 | FLA | 64-98 (.395) | 3-6 (.333) | 61-92 (.399) | + |
| '98 | FLA | 54-108 (.333) | 2-7 (.222) | 52-101 (.340) | + |
| *Combined Pittsburgh & Colorado records. (They were tied with NL's worst record.) | |||||
All in all, that looks like some decent bottom-feeding: six seasons when the Cubs took advantage of the league's weakest team, four when they came up short. (For some reason, I can actually recall how frustrating some of those games with the Diamondbacks were in '04.)
Time to beat up on the Nats.
Labels: Cubs History
