Hopefully, you are a Bears fan and had a lot of fun Sunday watching the team run up and down the field. As a Bears fan in Tampa, I wasn’t able to watch, but did enjoy some highlights and watching the score light up. As someone who feels like it wouldn’t be hyperbole to say I’ve seen years where some of the Cub scores this year would have been pretty good Bear scores, it was fun to see them put what I think of as a college football number on the board.
But you don’t come here for my analysis of football.
The Cubs played a game and they just couldn’t come up with hits at the right times and only managed three runs on five hits and six walks drawn. Had the wind been blowing the other direction, I’m fairly certain this one would have been different. I didn’t think the Pirates hit too many scary flies. There is no question Pete Crow-Armstrong hit one that would ordinarily be a homer. I thought a few others, including one off of the bat of Ian Happ, might have had enough oomph to get out on another day. But you have to play the conditions that exist and as it turned out, the Cubs hit a lot of harmless fly balls on a day where the wind was blowing in pretty hard.
The Cubs also grounded into a pair of double plays, twice stifling promising innings. In the end, the Pirates made pitches when they needed to, the Cubs didn’t. For the first time I can remember, the Cubs used Aaron Civale like a reliever and not a bulk innings guy. By that, I mean they brought him into a dirty inning, with runners on second and third and only one out. The Cubs won on Saturday, in part, because Jacob Webb escaped a similar situation. But Civale failed and let both score.
This does not change the fact that I think Civale should be in the Cub mix for the playoffs. I basically think the Cubs need to manage the postseason like every game is an elimination game. You evaluate batter to batter and use guys potentially in situations where they wouldn’t ordinarily be used in order to maximize matchups and to change looks frequently. No Cub pitcher, save for Clay Holmes when he’s really on his game, particularly has the kind of stuff that wants to be seen over and over again by another team. Use a guy for an inning or two and get him out before anyone gets comfortable. Make sure the pitchers and catchers know that is the plan and don’t save any bullets or tricks. Do what works and attack.
It would have been great to complete the sweep. But this is a day where I’m going to tip the cap. The Pirates really executed when they needed to. I’ve said it a lot lately, but there is another good team in the making. Who’d have believed going into the year that their pitching might not be quite as good as it had been. But if their pitching stays where it is or gets better and that offense continues, that organization might finally be turning around. A lot of ifs, but it’s organization that really just went through a pretty lost decade.
Just not enough positive here to dwell on. I’ll hit the things that there were positive in the three positives section. Bring on the Braves who just had a weekend full of the Phillies.
Three Positives:
- Miguel Amaya. He had two of the five Cub hits, one of them a two-run homer. He also threw a runner out stealing to help keep the game close.
- Daniel Palencia looked good in the ninth. That was the best I’ve seen him look in a while. A hat tip to him bouncing back after allowing a walk with a strikeout to keep the game at one. I’ll say again, there is no functional circle of trust. This is going to be a trust fall this year. Like Webb yesterday, you probably have to throw Palencia in a big situation and just hope.
- Michael Busch seems to be heating up a bit. He had two hits and scored a run. Five hits including a double and a homer over the three-game set. The Cubs could really use his big bat. Without looking, I’m guessing his .396 slug is near the very bottom of all typical three hitters in big league lineups. Interestingly, the Cubs do have a .470 overall from the three spot (.380 from the two). Alex Bregman has a .536 slug when hitting third.
Yeah, I don’t go back into narrative often. I can hear Anthony Rizzo in my head. If you are worrying about getting an extra plate appearance for your best hitter, you probably aren’t a very good team. That would be his argument for PCA batting third, I’m sure. The traditional spot for the team’s best hitter. Regardless of how you do it, Bregman should probably bat behind PCA. That maximizes your offense and encourages them to throw to Pete and then hopefully Breggy bats with more traffic. I certainly wouldn’t move Pete out of the top spot now. It’s worked so well for so long. I think I would hit them 1/2. I’d go PCA/Bregman/Happ against a right handed pitcher. Then Seiya and Busch. I’m comfortably batting Happ third, because I’m pinch hitting with Conforto the second they bring in a righty to face that Bregman/Happ/Seiya combo.
I’ll hang up and wait to be flamed for the above suggestion. Maybe just checking to see who’s paying attention.
Game 150, September 13: Pirates 4, Cubs 3 (83-67)
Reminder: Heroes and Goats are determined by WPA scores and are in no way subjective.
THREE HEROES:
- Superhero: Miguel Amaya (.271). 2-3, HR, 2 RBI, R
- Hero: Daniel Palencia (.041). IP, 4 BF, BB, K
- Sidekick: Caleb Thielbar (.031). 0.2 IP, K
THREE GOATS:
- Billy Goat: Pedro Ramirez (-.205). 0-3, BB, R
- Goat: Nico Hoerner (-.134). 0-4, RBI
- Kid: Matthew Boyd (-.131). 5.1 IP, 24 BF, 7 H, 2 BB, 4 R, 3 K (L 8-5)
WPA Play of the Game: Miguel Amaya’s two-run homer with two outs in the very briefly gave the Cubs the lead. (.309)
Pirates Play of the Game: Nick Gonzales’ RBI double in the sixth tied the game back up with no outs in the sixth. (.220)
Cubs Player of the Game:
Game 149 Winner: Pedro Ramirez received 51 of 75 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.
- Alex Bregman +27
- Pete Crow-Armstrong +24.5
- Carson Kelly +16.5
- Michael Conforto +15
- Ben Brown +13.5
- Jameson Taillon -13
- Seiya Suzuki -15
- Nico Hoerner -15
- Dansby Swanson -17
- Caleb Thielbar -18.5
Scoreboard Watching: Padres won (1.5 behind Cubs and Phillies). Phillies won and moved back into a tie with the Cubs, though the Cubs still own the tiebreaker and would be Wild Card 1 right now. The Diamondbacks lost, they are four games back of the Cubs with 12 to play. The Cubs magic number to make the playoffs has reached eight, since they have the tiebreaker.
Up Next: The Braves come to town at 88-62. They helped the Cubs a bit, winning two of three from the Phillies over the weekend in Atlanta. Their game ended first, so they should be in Chicago plenty early to get as good a night’s sleep as one gets on the road. The Braves are 37-35 on the road, 14-10 versus the Central and 61-42 at night. They are 13th in MLB in OPS. They are 7th in WHIP. But, I do believe they threw their best pitchers over the weekend as one would expect. Their bullpen WHIP is second, and they are fifth in saves, so this is not a series where waiting out the starter is necessarily their go-to strategy.
David Peterson (7-8, 5.28) starts for the Cubs. His Cub numbers are a fair bit better (4-2, 4.41). He’s gotten blasted twice at Wrigley (10 over 3.2 against the Cardinals and 6 over 3.2 against the Brewers). He’s been pretty good at Wrigley otherwise. That is a lot of words to say “hit or miss,” about what you’d expect from a back of the rotation guy.
32-year-old righty Reynaldo Lopez starts for the Braves. Lopez has made 25 appearances but only 12 of them are starts. He’s 2-4 with a 4.47 as a starter, so his numbers (4-4, 4.13) are buoyed a bit by his relief numbers. He just started against Tampa, allowing six runs over 4.2 innings. Before that, he hadn’t pitched at the big league level since July 26. He missed a little over a month after having left knee inflammation. He threw 93 pitches in a rehab outing and 80 last week, so he’s pretty good to go endurance wise.
Fangraphs actually like the Cubs best in the middle game of this series, but they continue to favor the Cubs in all three games. Not totally unreasonable with the Braves fairly ordinary on the road and not using Tyler Mahle or Grant Holmes in the series (and maybe not Chris Sale either). This all assumes Fangraphs has projected their starters correctly.
The Braves have a five-game lead with 12 to play. That’s an enormous edge with no head to head remaining with the Phillies. So they’ll want to be doing things to get guys healthy and rested and lined up for an eventual first round series. They are likely to end up playing a Wild Card series though they could technically catch the recently hot Dodgers. Not having to play in the Wild Card round is enough of an edge to play for. They’d likely get either the Padres and their bullpen or a roller coaster Diamondbacks team. But I’m sure they’d rather just wait out a Wild Card winner instead.
Let’s go get a win in this one. Go Cubs!
