Good teams are supposed to beat bad teams, so you can’t ding the Cubs for taking advantage of a weaker part of the schedule, especially when those missed opportunities doomed previous seasons. The Athletic’s Sahadev Sharma and Patrick Mooney explain what’s going right for a first-place club that has overcome a lot of adversity and shown real signs of growth. Upcoming series in Detroit and Philadelphia should also be a better gauge as the Cubs figure out what they have – and what they will need at the trade deadline.

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