PITTSBURGH -- The long goodbye began Tuesday night at PNC Park when the Cubs started a six-day, season-ending trip to Pittsburgh and St. Louis.
After a day off to process the meltdown against the Cardinals that burned down the 2019 season, things were back to semi-normal in the Cubs clubhouse.
Kris Bryant insisted the season was not over and said he wanted to return from his sprained ankle, even though it makes no sense to risk playing him if the Cubs are eliminated by the weekend.
Craig Kimbrel retreated into his shell, declining to talk after his lost weekend at Wrigley Field.
And Joe Maddon was his usual upbeat self, refusing to act like a dead manager walking.
The autopsy of the season won't begin until it's officially over Sunday night, but the media, as usual, was busy dissecting the corpse before the body was cold.
The most obvious factor in the Cubs' demise was their 20-36 record in road night games entering Tuesday, which Maddon referred to as a "freakish" occurrence.
"At night on the road, we get our butts kicked," he said. "If you could actually take a good look at that yourself, please [do] and give me a good reason and I'll take it. Because that's been the mystifying part about this season."
"If you want to look into it any more deeply, it may have to do with behavior before the game, what you do," he said. "I'm not accusing them of going out at night, because I wish they would. That's the one part of this game we're missing is that guys don't go out and have a beer and talk about stuff.
"That's not [being] old school or anything. That's just social. Everybody is more [comfortable] wanting to stay in their room and play video games. Part of it is just not to expose them to social media and the weirdness of the world outside of their room. That's just us. I know there are other good teams that have had great road records at night. I get that.
"But every team has a different personality. And I'd just love [if] our guys interacted a little bit more away from the hotel at night."
Maddon mentioned former Cubs John Lackey, David Ross and Miguel Montero, who all were known to enjoy a cold beverage after games.
"I'm just grasping," he said. "I don't know if that's the reason."
Well, Lackey was in New York when the Cubs swept the Mets in three road night games last month. Just saying. Then again, if not for the beer and fried chicken episode featuring Lackey and Jon Lester that ended the 2011 Red Sox season, Theo Epstein might have stayed in Boston, and the Cubs' drought would now be at 111 years.
Pitching coach Tommy Hottovy mentioned modern players are hotel-bodies when I asked him recently if the Cubs cared about Yu Darvish answering his critics on Twitter after games.
"Back in the old days you had to worry about a lot of other things with your players, worrying about off-the-field stuff," Hottovy said with a laugh. "Now some guys get in more trouble sitting in their hotel rooms on their phone than going out. That's just the way the world is now."
More beer? Less video games and tweeting?
There's a lot for Epstein and his minions to research this offseason to try to solve the road-night game problem.
"I believe when you have an issue like that, you open it up and you talk about it," Maddon said. "It doesn't necessarily require strategy. I think the players on their own will try to do something different or better about it next year.
"Some things are unexplainable. Some things just happen in this game that are just bad baseball luck."
Whatever the problem is, Maddon said it's unfair to question his players' heart. He told a story of a player years ago whom he accused of not giving his best effort. A few days later, Maddon realized he was wrong and apologized. He said he learned a lesson and hasn't done it since.
"So when it comes to questioning heart, stay away from that unless you're 100% sure," he said.
Forget the heart. Focus on the beer.
Sports on 09/26/2019