It was one of the strangest weekends of baseball that I have seen in a long time. The Cubs played the opening series of the year against the (not very good) Texas Rangers and failed to start off the season on a positive note. They ended the series with a 1-2 record after leading in each game where a 3-0 weekend sweep seemed entirely attainable.

The Good

The bats were firing on all cylinders this past weekend. There were impressive individual performances of note, with Javy Baez going yard twice on Opening Night, Kyle Schwarber hitting a homer in each of his first two starts, and even Old Man Zobrist chipping in two hits and a walk in the series finale.

As a team, the stats are pretty remarkable. Over the course of the three game series, the Cubs scored a total of 28 runs on 39 hits. They slashed an insane .342/.430/.570/1.000 as a unit and they only struck out 21 times compared to 18 walks.

The Bad

Jon Lester got the starting rotation off to a hot start with his six innings of four hit ball, allowing only two runs in the effort. Unfortunately it was down hill from there for the starting pitchers.

Two former Rangers followed Lester, with Yu Darvish starting on Saturday followed by Cole Hamels on Sunday.

Darvish only allowed three runs on a measly two hits which is terrific. But the issue was that he did that in only 2.2 innings of work. He walked seven Ranger would-be hitters while striking out four. His control issues came mostly on his fastball, which he didn’t seem to have any command of. Darvish was missing off the corners mostly, but seven walks are seven walks no matter how you spin it.

Hamels put together quite the clunker too, with most of his five earned runs coming from a grand slam from Delino Deshields Jr. Hamels worked a lot of deep counts during his outing and his day was done after five innings, allowing six hits and three walks along the way.

The Ugly

The bullpen was… not good. At all. The most highly critiqued unit from this offseason’s boring free agent market festivies, the relief arms wore it on the chin in this series, proving that one quick call to future Hall of Famer Craig Kimbrel might be a wise move.

Pedro Strop (one of the Cubs all-time best relievers) had a rough go of it this weekend. In the season opener, he came in during a blowout in the 9th inning and after recording a quick two outs, was pulled by Joe Maddon following a dribbler that found its way through the infield. That runner was eventually charged to him after Nomar Mazara took Mike Montgomery deep. And I do mean deep. He then came in and allowed the walk off run to score on a wild pitch on Sunday after allowing a lead off double in the 9th.

Montgomery also had a rough start to his season as he allowed a couple home runs in the two games he saw action in. He gave up three total runs.

Tyler Chatwood actually looked pretty good in his 1.2 innings on Sunday, but the stats don’t agree with that as he put allowed three runs on two hits and two walks.

Carl Edwards Jr gets the distinction of having an infinity ERA after not recording an out in his only appearance this weekend on Saturday. It looked bad from the start and he gave up two walks, two hits, and gave up a three-run bomb to Joey Gallo. He has now already given up half the amount of home runs he gave up all of last year combined.

Up next is a three-game set with the Atlanta Braves spanning four days.