The Cubs have unexpectedly evolved into road warriors.

On July 30 in Cincinnati, the Cubs lost to the Reds 6-3. That dropped their record to 51-58. They were in last place in the NL Central, 11 games behind the Brewers, and stood seven games behind the Padres, who held the last wild-card spot on that date.

Since then, the Cubs are 23-12. Friends, that is the best record in Major League Baseball over that span — half a game better than the Padres, Dodgers and Diamondbacks at 23-13.

The winning hasn’t helped them make up much, if any, ground. They’ve picked up 2½ games on the Brewers in the division and two games in the wild-card race.

What I’m going to examine here isn’t the playoff races. Instead, it’s the breakdown of that 23-12 record, home and road.

That mark is 12-4 in away games and 11-8 at Wrigley Field. And that 12-4 road record includes being swept by the Guardians in a three-game series at Cleveland.

How and why has this happened? Part of it is playing bad teams on the road (White Sox, Pirates, Marlins, Nationals).

But another factor is the Cubs offense pretty much vanishing at Wrigley Field. Here’s the breakdown of Cubs run-scoring over that 35-game span (19 at home, 16 on the road):

Home games: .218/.276/.377 (132-for-605), 24 doubles, six triples, 22 home runs
Road games: .311/.385/.513 (186-for-599), 49 doubles, three triples, 22 home runs

That’s the difference between a DFA candidate and an All-Star. The doubles, in particular, stand out. The Cubs scored 132 runs in the 16 road games, or 8.25 runs per game. They scored 77 runs in the 19 home games, or 4.05 per game. The difference is stark — no team has ever averaged as many runs as the Cubs in that 16-game road sample in a full season, while the home sample is roughly equal to what the 2024 A’s are averaging. The Cubs have been shut out 15 times this year — 11 at home, four on the road.

The run-scoring difference isn’t just limited to this sample, either. The Cubs have scored 284 runs in 71 home games this year — 4.00 runs per game, so not much different than the 19-game stretch since the beginning of August. They’ve scored 369 runs in 73 road games so far in 2024, 5.05 per game. The difference of 1.05 runs per game home vs. road is the largest of any MLB team this year, as was noted on Monday’s Marquee broadcast. (The Cubs’ runs-scored average in road games was 4.99 before Monday’s 10-run outburst.) And speaking of 10-run outbursts:

Why is this happening? It could be something as simple as the notoriously capricious Wrigley Field winds. Per this Paul Sullivan column, the wind had blown about half the time at Wrigley through Saturday:

The wind blew in on Saturday for the 33rd time at Wrigley in 70 home games, and the Cubs are 12-21 when it does.

None of this explains why the Cubs suddenly become hitting machines when they leave the Friendly Confines. This was not the case last year when more or less the same team scored 432 runs (5.33 per game) in 81 games at Wrigley and 387 (4.7 per game) in 81 road games. From Sullivan’s article:

Last year the wind blew in 43 times, and the Cubs were 22-21 in those games. They are 15-9 with the wind blowing out in ’24 and 12-6 when that happened in 2023.

Maybe it’s the pitching? Cubs pitchers have allowed 250 runs in 71 home games this year (3.52 per game) and 344 in 73 road games (4.71 per game).

I don’t know what the answer is and maybe there isn’t one, maybe it’s just random noise from one season and there’s nothing specific the Cubs can do to remedy this. (Other than changing the weather, which… isn’t possible.) Craig Counsell, quoted in Sullivan’s article, was pretty sanguine about the whole thing:

“The park feels like it has played pitcher friendly more often than hitter friendly,” Counsell said. “But I don’t know how we figure out — ‘Is it going to be like that next year?’ It sounds like from everybody I’ve heard, last year was kind of the opposite. So it’s weather, right? I think the best thing we can do is be prepared to play in both situations as best we can.”

In any case, I thought this was interesting and wanted to share it with you.