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There was no ‘stretch run collapse’ of the 1970 Cubs. ‘69 for sure, but not the ‘70 outfit.

If we count the stretch beginning around 3 August to the end of the regular season, the 1970 Cubs overall---from 3 August forward---were 30-27. Barely above .500.

Now . . . the Cubs had one three-game win streak (18-19 September, including a doubleheader sweep of the Montreal Expos) that kept them within a game and a half of the first-place Pirates, clawing back somehow after having been as far out as six games in mid-August. Their longest win streak of any kind from 3 August to the end was three games; they did it three times, including twice within seven games, but then they went 5-6 between three-streak numbers two and three.

What was the record after that third three-game win streak? 4-7, finishing five games out of first place, not to mention spending three days in third place and falling six games out after losing a second straight to the Mets in the final series of the season; they won their final two games to get to five games out.

It may not have been as epic a stretch fall as the 1969 team experienced, but a 4-7 finish in the final eleven games of the season for a team barely playing .500 baseball following the All-Star break---and spending September itself going 14-13---certainly does qualify as a collapse of some proportion for a team that spent two months (21 April through 23 June) in first place and yet sitting two and a half games out of first when the previously defined stretch drive began in earnest.

(Note: The 1971 Cubs had a twelve-game losing streak---beginning when they were four and a half games up---from 21 June, when Steve Carlton and Bob Gibson beat them to sweep a doubleheader, through 30 June, when Gibson beat them again; the streak was highlighted, if you will, by three doubleheader losses. It probably wasn't a great idea for the Cubs to be playing three doubleheaders in nine days, but that losing streak left them four and a half out of first place. Several times from that point forward, the Cubs were as far as six games out. They were still reasonably in the race, but you could argue that they didn't really recover all that well from that losing streak.)