Before watching Adbert Alzolay and his bullpen cling to a 4-3 win over the rival Cardinals, Cubs (46-51) manager David Ross was asked how his players deal with late-July headlines that increasingly project them to join new teams within the next two weeks.
“Distractions are a part of our game,” said Ross. “They understand they’ve got to go to work, and this is their job.”
Former NL MVP Cody Bellinger’s demeanor certainly does not project a man weighed down by outside stressors. Nor do his deeds, as Bellinger’s three-hit Friday afternoon included a towering blast to right for his 13th home run of the season. The two-run shot helped power a four-run Cubs third inning which proved to be just enough to make a deserving winner out of starter Justin Steele (10-3), after Alzolay and Mark Leiter Jr. both wriggled out of jams in the final two innings.
“A lot of it is out of my control: if I go, where I go, whatever happens,” said Bellinger of the mounting trade rumors. “I can only focus on the game.”
“He doesn’t overthink things,” Ross said of Bellinger. “He handles everything the same. Even when he’s scuffling, he feels like he’s locked in.”
Brought to the north side on a one-year make-good deal after two-straight down seasons in Los Angeles, Bellinger has been operating under the pressured premise to demonstrate his value to the league all year. Going by the all-in-one offensive metric weighted runs created-plus, the 28-year-old Cubs cleanup man has demonstrated himself to be once again top-20 hitter in the sport, and few of the players above him can offer above-average center field defense on demand as well.
“Everybody in the clubhouse would say he’s amazing, love having him here,” said Steele. “It’s also sick that he smacks homers, too.”
Utilityman Miles Mastrobuoni echoed the endorsement of Bellinger as a teammate, on the heels of lifting his first career home run in the third: “I’ve been picking his brain lately, just swing stuff and whatnot, and he’s been great to me from the start.”
Pending free agents on non-contenders playing half as well as Bellinger are typically trade chips this time of year. If Bellinger’s easygoing approach had afforded him any lingering unawareness that his contract situation, his .317/.371/.542 batting line, and the Cubs’ eight-game deficit in the NL Central will make him the subject of compelling bids from rival clubs, that naivete was flattened by postgame scrum focused on little else.
“I’ve never been in this situation before, so I don’t know what to say or not to say,” Bellinger said, as he was asked about how much the front office has talked through their plans with him. “We’re a very open communication group here. I’m in the loop on what can happen.”
Amid a somewhat inconsistent season for the team’s power production, Bellinger controlling what he can control in the middle of the order has propped up a viable offensive attack. Removing him, or certainly Marcus Stroman, or any player part of making the Cubs a better team right now, can lend a feeling of surrender to the final two months of a season.
That can be a difficult environment to play, or manage in, if you’re the type of skipper who hates losing as much as Ross.
“What gives you that impression?” Ross said with a wry smile. ““I’m unaffected by the trade deadline, I’m affected by the losses.”
Jokes aside, Ross offered that the fully-involving task of trying to win games daily is a salve for when deadline moves might suggest the season is effectively over. And he recounted with pride that the Cubs played over .500 baseball in the second half last season, even after the front office traded the core of his bullpen away.
A soft ending schedule, Ross noted, sets up for a similar finish. But reversing the franchise’s direction is likely one of those things that the Cubs clubhouse can no longer control.