CHICAGO -- After a freefall that lasted the entire season, the Chicago Cubs finally bottomed out with a thud Monday.

The 2012 squad became just the third in franchise history to lose at least 100 games and the lemon juice on the open wound was the fact that it came against the Houston Astros, the only team in baseball with a record worse than theirs.

“Nobody wants to be a part of it, but the bottom line is we’re going home like a lot of other teams with a lot better records,” manager Dale Sveum said. “If you’re not going to the playoffs, a lot of times the wins and losses don’t matter.”

That might be how Sveum consoles himself, but the fact was that it was a number the manager tried to avoid, setting it up its avoidance as an artificial goal. It wasn’t like 99 defeats was much better, but it was one of the few causes Sveum had left to rally his troops around.

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