How have the Cubs performed thus far this season after seven innings?

There’s a myth floating around that claims, and I’m paraphrasing because the Cubs had a very amazing record, that if games had finished after seven innings, they would have been 30 games over.500. That was certainly intended to draw attention to the Cubs’ numerous late-game bullpen gaffes, like as the spectacular collapse they had in San Francisco’s ninth inning on Monday. In order to determine what the score was after the seventh inning, compare it to the final score, and determine what the Cubs’ true record would have been if all of their 2024 games had concluded after seven, I decided to look at all 79 of them. These are the outcomes.

As you can see, the Cubs would have finished fewer than 30 games over.500 in 2024, but they would have still had a winning record if every game had ended after seven innings. After seven, they led 35 times and trailed 33 times. They also went 2-9 in the 11 games that were tied after seven. That, my friends, is the actual difference for the Cubs this season: the bullpen’s inability to close out games tied late in the game and the offense’s inability to turn such games into victories. However, you can also see that the bullpen ailments began to accumulate towards the end of May, as seen by both the “seven-inning” record and the actual record. Improved bullpen construction may have removed some of those.