Boy, I wish that one wasn’t so eminently foreseeable. The Cubs have basically had no games this year where a starter had a small lead when he left and then the bullpen just passed the torch through the end of the game. That’s usually a pretty standard “shape” for a game. You might blow one occasionally. You might pile on in the late stages sometimes. But in the era of short starts and max effort bullpen work, this is a typical strategy. And yet, it hadn’t really surfaced much. When it did, one of those
alternate scenarios basically always occurred.
The side result of that is that there are no real defined roles in the Cubs bullpen. Daniel Palencia was anointed the closer in 2025 and certainly hadn’t done anything other than getting hurt to lose that role. He’s healthy now. Between his 2025 results and his work for his home country in the WBC, his profile has only elevated. So he’s rightly the ninth-inning guy. But how would it line up leading to that? Well, Caleb Thielbar was the first one up after Palencia got hurt. So I guess Craig Counsell feels he’s that number two guy down there.
I’ve won no manager of the year awards nor managed any playoff games. But for my money, Jacob Webb is the number two guy and I would have wanted him for the top part of the A’s order. That would have had Thielbar face the seventh inning. There were two lefties and two righties facing Webb in the seventh. We can expect that the A’s would likely have used Colby Thomas, who homered in a pinch hitting role off of Thielbar in the seventh. So he’d very likely have faced three righties, assuming a four-batter inning (like Webb had). Webb would then have likely faced two lefties and two righties in the eighth.
Back seat driving is fun. I get the benefit of hindsight. Craig’s plan failed. So the bar for my plan is pretty low. Theilbar has been excellent as a Cub and it isn’t a given that your foe will pinch hit for their leadoff hitter. Of course they did. Of course it worked. That is the way everything is going. Seemingly every bounce is going the wrong way lately. If you believe in luck or curses or any of that stuff, then you have to think the Cubs have done something to righteously anger the baseball gods or something. Two 10-game winning streaks that close together broke some bond with reality or something.
There is so much baseball left to be played, but this season is increasingly feeling to me like 2021. Like this Cub team has a lot of players who were good in some past year or perhaps might be good in some future year. But too many of them are not good this year. None of that is cast in stone or immutable. But, I’m just saying all of your engineers have gone below deck and are trying to figure out how to stop the ship from continuing to take on water before the ship sinks in its entirety.
As fun as so much of last year was, this one is becoming torturous to follow. There is a lot of baseball to play is only a comforting thing to say when you expect the baseball to be played in the future to be a good thing. If this June was a test for this team, they’ve gotten the first few questions wrong on the test. I thought they needed to take advantage of this month and win 18 of 27 games. That’s a daunting challenge under any ordinary circumstances. Losing the first two only moved that goal further and further out of reach.
Not great.
Three Positives:
- Ian Happ had a pair of doubles and a run scored. He was the only Cub with multiple hits.
- Hoby Milner faced two batters and struck out one to finish the sixth and preserve a two run Cubs lead.
- Seiya Suzuki hit a long homer to start the mini comeback after the Cubs fell behind 2-0.
Game 62, June 3: A’s 5, Cubs 4 (32-30)
Reminder: Heroes and Goats are determined by WPA scores and are in no way subjective.
THREE HEROES:
- Superhero: Daniel Palencia (.134). IP, K
- Hero: Colin Rea (.080). 5.1 IP, 21 BF, 4 H, 2 BB, 2 ER, 3 K
- Sidekick: Ian Happ (.075). 2-4, 2 2B, R
THREE GOATS:
- Billy Goat: Caleb Thielbar (-.290). .2 IP, 4 BF, 3 H, 2 ER
- Goat: Pedro Ramirez (-.131). 0-4
- Kid: Alex Bregman (-.130). 1-4
WPA Play of the Game: Pete Crow-Armstrong’s strikeout with a runner on third and one out in the tenth, the Cubs down one. (-.249)
Cubs Play of the Game: Pete Crow-Armstrong’s two-run homer with one out in the third gave the Cubs the lead. (.200)
Cubs Player of the Game:
Game 61 Winner: Jameson Taillon received 75 of 145 votes.
Rizzo Award Standings: (Top 5/Bottom 5)
The award is named for Anthony Rizzo, who finished first in this category three of the first four years it was in existence and four times overall. He also recorded the highest season total ever at +65.5. The point scale is three points for a Superhero down to negative three points for a Billy Goat.
- Michael Busch +21
- Nico Hoerner +13
- Ian Happ +10.5
- Michael Conforto +10
- Ben Brown +9.5
- Ryan Rolison/Phil Maton/Jameson Taillon -8
- Matt Shaw -10
- Dansby Swanson -13
- Seiya Suzuki -30.5
Up Next: Shota Imanaga (4-6, 4.37) versus J.T. Ginn (3-3, 2.87). Surely just for fun, the wind will be howling out to left. There were times when the Cubs had really dominant records against righties and at home. But all of that is gone with this downturn.
Win a game. Stop the skid before you face the two worst records in the NL over the next two weeks.
