The Chicago Cubs were stymied on both sides of the ball on Monday, as the Los Angeles Dodgers tidily defeated them 6-0 in Game 3 of the NLCS, taking a 2-1 series lead. The Cubs offense failed to show up for the second time in the series and the club’s pitching wasn’t much better.
Manager Joe Maddon said his team’s mental strength wasn’t where it needed to be following back-to-back shutout losses.
“It’s more of a mental trend than a physical trend,” Maddon told FOX Sports’ Ken Rosenthal of his club’s offensive woes following a 6-0 loss at Chavez Ravine on Tuesday. “You have to be able to push back mentally as much as anything right now. Because when it comes to work, you don’t need any more batting practice or video study or data information. You just have to mentally hang in there and keep pushing back until you get it.”
The Cubs need to get back to the basic which made them the best MLB team in the regular season. Maddon’s squad is a dominant offensive powerhouse with incredible starting pitching – that hasn’t fully materialized against the Dodgers.
Credit is certainly due to the Dodgers pitching staff, but with baseball’s best lineup, no runs in two games is shocking. Mentally, Chicago players might be overanalyzing things and Maddon just wants the team to push back and put up the necessary mental wall to get back into the series.
Chicago isn’t down and out just yet. Being down two games to one isn’t where the club would like to be, but Maddon is trying to refocus the clubs mentality back to where it was this season and early in the playoffs. We’ll see how Cubs players respond.
[theScore]
