The Chicago Cubs are in the middle of a pennant race. The Washington Nationals, while not officially eliminated are most assuredly not in the race. Perhaps it is the unexpected nature of being out of the race that had Washington's front office mishandle what was a bad weekend of weather in the nation's capital. Whatever the reason for the decisions that led to the Cubs losing both ends of a doubleheader on Saturday, Cubs' manager Joe Maddon is making it clear he's a bit confused by the whole thing.

Cubs would have liked better decisions on Friday

Yes, it's true that Chicago has no one to blame for its Saturday losses beyond themselves. The Cubs didn't play particularly well in either game. They played especially badly in the first game of the doubleheader when they lost to Max Scherzer and company 10-3. That loss was in no small part thanks to Maddon starting a reliever who had been picked up off the waiver wire just days earlier. Jaime Garcia lasted just a third of an inning before he was pulled.

He pitched at all because Jon Lester threw 14 pitches on Friday night before the game was rained out. Maddon was clearly not happy he had to have a bullpen day on Saturday. “We played when we shouldn’t have, and we didn’t play when we should have,” Maddon said Saturday according to the Chicago Tribune.

Maddon added that they were ready to play on Friday when they called the game, as opposed to just delaying it.

Saturday the two teams were in a similar situation. Torrential rains started on Saturday evening and probably should have ended the game when the Cubs had a 5-3 lead. The teams kept playing and the Nationals took a 6-5 lead off some bad bullpen outings.

It was only after the lead change that the game was delayed and then ended.

Cubs' pennant race takes a hit

It's not a surprise why Maddon and the rest of the Chicago Cubs are more than a little annoyed at the way the Washington Nationals have handled the rain. While Chicago is busy losing the first two games of a weekend series to a team no longer really in contention, the Milwaukee Brewers and St.

Louis Cardinals are chasing first place. Coming into Sunday morning the Cubs' lead in the NL Central is down to 2.5 games.

The team might be able to get one more game against the Nats in. There is also a chance the Sunday game will be rained out too. Should they lose on Sunday and the Brewers win, Milwaukee will be just 1.5 games out of first when they come to Chicago on Monday. Then the real pennant race begins.
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