Chicago Cubs' Anthony Rizzo, center, reacts after being called out on strikes during the first inning of a Major League Baseball season-opening game against the St. Louis Cardinals in Chicago, Sunday, April 5, 2015. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh)
The Chicago Cubs have played at Wrigley Field for a long, long time. Yet no Cubs team has hit as poorly at the friendly confines as this one.
That's despite Chicago contending for a playoff spot, and boasting two players in the Home Run Derby.
The Chicago Tribune delved deep into the numbers to show just how poorly this team has performed at the plate in its home yard. On Monday, they broke out of their slumber at least temporarily with nine runs, including a game-winning blast off the bat of one of those Home Run Derby participants, rookie Kris Bryant.
But just take a look at the numbers pulled by the Tribune:
* The Cubs were hitting .225 at home heading into Monday's game, well below the franchise low of .238 in 2002.
* Their slugging percentage was a measly .345 at home, ranking fourth-worst in club history behind three teams that played nearly a century ago in 1917 (.324), 1919 (.339) and 1918 (.339).
* Their on-base percentage at home was .307, fifth-lowest in Cubs history and close to the all-time low of .303 set in 1915, the year before they moved into Wrigley.
"It's kind of strange," Cubs president Theo Epstein told the Tribune. "Because back in the rebuilding years, we slugged our tails off and led the league in homers and crushed at home. Now this year, with a team that's got plenty of pop, we really haven't hit homers and haven't hit at home. I think we will. I would bet on us hitting at Wrigley, hitting a lot of home runs the next five years. For whatever reason, we really haven't put it together yet this year."
(h/t Chicago Tribune)
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