2026 Cubs Heroes and Goats: Game 40

TL;DR

The Cubs suffered a disappointing loss in Texas, marking only their 13th defeat of the season. Despite this setback, their strong performance earlier in the season keeps them on track for a potential playoff spot.

Key points

Cubs lost to Texas, marking their 13th defeat of the season.
The team's strong performance keeps them on track for over 100 wins.
88 wins is generally enough for a postseason spot in recent seasons.
Cubs face a tough matchup on Sunday after the loss.
They have only two off days in May, with 29 games scheduled.

CubsTexas

It’s a real credit to how well this team has played over the first quarter of the season to see how rarely they’ve come up empty. But on Saturday night in Texas, that’s exactly what happened. Not only was this just the 13th time they’ve lost this year, but it was one of an even smaller subset of games that they came up completely empty. The offense more or less came up with nothing. Their pitchers struggled to work clean innings. All things equal, this was one of the least effective games we’ve seen from the Cubs all year long.

This team has been so dominant, we just haven’t had to deal with this very often. This wasn’t much fun. It’s early in the season and things are still being sorted out. However, it feels like this might be one of the worst teams the Cubs have faced all year. So this loss is a bit vexing. It’s all the more vexing given the rough matchup Sunday afternoon. There is a very real chance this team goes to Texas and leaves with only a single win. That said, even if they leave town with just the one win, they’ll still be on pace for more than 100 wins. This team could tail off a lot and still be a favorite to make the playoffs based upon the work they have done to date.

As it stands right now, if the Cubs played exactly .500 ball the rest of the way, they’d win 88 games. In the handful of seasons that have allowed three wild cards in each league, 88 wins has generally been enough to make the postseason, though 90 is the lowest number of wins that has made the postseason every time. So the Cubs have to just play nominally over .500 the rest of the way to be a postseason team. This despite a rash of early season injuries, largely focused on the pitching staff.

So the long and the short is that this one will have little bearing on the season as a whole. This is one of the days that you thank the heavens that this team has been very greedy and it has snapped up every win available to it. This one hurts less as a result. It wasn’t any fun, but it feels like a one off and it doesn’t derail the larger goals. And so, we turn the page quickly. We get back after it on Sunday afternoon. Then we finally get an off day on Monday. That’ll be just the second off day in 25 days, a welcome respite ahead. It’s one of just two days off for the Cubs in May. This is the most games (29) they’ll play in any month this year.

Three Positives:

Ethan Roberts threw two scoreless innings, facing seven batters and walking two. The game was pretty out of reach before he got in there. But he kept it where it was and kept the Cubs for having to get any further into the bullpen.