Last things first, I thought maybe Javier Assad would coast to the finish line and become the 10th different Cub with a save. How is that stat even possible? Not just that 10 different guys have saves. But that there are only 14 total saves. If it were someone like the Rays with 32 total saves, it would feel different to me. But there just haven’t been many saves and two of them were of the three innings in a blowout variety.
Assad didn’t reach the finish line and didn’t become that lucky number 10.
Then it was Tyler Ferguson who picked up some very large outs. At some point in time, I’m going to try to determine exactly who Tyler Ferguson is and why he is on my favorite team. I think maybe he is a visitor from the 70’s. Or maybe that’s just his hairdo. He’s definitely not the guy from a Saturday Night Live skit that used to wear an oversized hat. All joking aside, but he’s struck out eight of the 20 batters he’s faced so far. So the former sixth rounder is at least a little interesting.
Thus it was actually Ryan Rolison with the infamous one-batter save. I was starting to make a joke about matching a record for fewest batters faced in a save. Then I realized one of you really smart people was probably going to find someone who was summoned from the bullpen and picked someone off to close out a save without retiring a hitter. I mean it has to have happened, right? Kudos to Rolison who has been quite good. He’s 5-1 with a 1.97 ERA over 27 appearances and 32 innings and is part of the illustrious group of players who have started and finished games for this year’s Cub team.
Look, I see and I understand the reasons people get frustrated with Jed Hoyer. Ironically, one of the single biggest reasons to be frustrated with him this year is that NOW he went and splurged on some relievers after basically refusing to do it in the past. And he got Phil Maton, who has been one of the least effective Cub pitchers this season. Dodgers style thinking for one minute, Maton still has time to get healthy and record key outs in the postseason where it really matters most.
The point is, Jed has generally not been willing to pay relievers for past success. And when you see guys like Ferguson and Rolison having success, you can understand why. He gets a lot of mileage out of scrap heap relievers. Every single year. I also get that the game is more and more reliever intensive every year and that if we’re thinking like the Dodgers, it is those innings in the postseason where elite arms matter the most. It’s hard to reconcile. This strategy works. It has worked nearly every single year since the Cubs brought Theo Epstein and Jed Hoyer to town. Year in and year out they’ve consistently had a top 10 bullpen. The rub is that it’s never a top 5 pen. And sometimes it is those top 5 pens that win championships.
Amazingly, I’ve filled out 500-plus words talking almost exclusively about the bullpen and bullpen strategy. I was hoping that wouldn’t be the case. The Cub offense slugged five homers and scored nine runs in the first six innings of this game. This could have been an easy one. The Cubs were well on their way to checking off another item on their in season shopping list. Winning the season series from another Wild Card contender. They already got it from the Phillies and they needed a win in this one or the next one to get it from the Padres.
In the end all that matters is that they got it. They got the season series. They won their fourth straight. They completed their third non-overlapping and compact stretch of games at 10 over .500. They have two 10-0 stretches and one 14-4 stretch. It is absolutely frustrating how hot and cold this team runs. Three stretches of games that would run out to a 34-4 stretch if placed end-to-end. And just 14-35 in all of the not peak periods of the season. Cue national media pointing out at some time later in the season during a broadcast that no one wants to face this Cub team in the playoffs. I can’t imagine, even in my wildest dreams, this team winning a championship. But you better believe that I think this team could beat any team in the league in a series.
I know they don’t have that kind of bulldog starter that you want. I know that the flurry of no-name relievers is just not intimidating. But you know it happens when your hitters just all start hitting the ball in the general direction of a very good player and the other team finds a few holes. This team looks lost when they are out of their groove and like world beaters when they are in it. I would not fall over in shock if this team won a series from the Dodgers or Braves and I would totally get it if they play in a Wild Card series and don’t score a single run. That’s this team.
Anyway, it’s a shame that this piece wasn’t about two Dansby homers, a much needed Bregman homer, a Busch bomb and one more Pete Crow-Armstrong homer to finish an insanely productive month. Pete interrupted his newly deployed patience to launch another majestic shot to remind us how many weapons he has. He now reminds me of vintage peak Sammy. They didn’t want to walk him because of his tendency to get anxious and chase. They go after him. They’d pound pitch after pitch just out of the zone. He leaned to take them. And as he started working longer counts, every now and then, even a very good pitcher would just lose one in the zone. And then there was the hop and the trot. With Pete it is that long swing, tossing the bat away and then the electric tour of the bases. He’s so fun to watch play.
I’m going to get back to Jed again before wrapping. I see some of you talk about that man like he’s forced you to watch the original Ishtar on loop with the Barney soundtrack in the background. I get the things he isn’t. I see the perception that his career just follows the coattails of Theo Epstein. This team has won a lot of games on Jed’s watch. A ton of them when he was #2 and a not insignificant while he’s been #1. He’s made a lot of very good moves. Have some of them failed? Yeah. Some of them quite spectacularly.
Remember a few things. First, it used to suck to be a Cubs fan. Maybe that shouldn’t be part of the grading scale, but seriously do you remember waiting around and hoping that this would be the year that they’d catch lightning in a bottle and sniff the playoffs? I realize the expanded playoffs makes it easier, but this team is competitive nearly every year. Second, what did the championship core teach us? To win a modern championship, you have to pull together a special group of guys and THEN they have to get lucky along the way. That 2016 team, as great as it was, was on the ropes at one point in every round.
Am I disappointed that this era of Cub baseball has only produced one championship? Absolutely. Do I think it is the most amazing thing in my lifetime that I’m disappointed by ONLY one Cub championship over any period? There was basically no real expectation of anything before Theo and Jed came to town. Do I think he should get an infinite honeymoon period as a result? No. Also, I think they won a playoff series just last year. I’m not going to blame him for the abomination that is (checks notes) 13 pitchers on the injured list today. A whole damn pitching staff on the IL at once. And yeah, that number includes Shelby Miller who actually came that way.
Do I want to see them ask some questions as to if there are any non-bad luck causes of all of the injuries? Absolutely. I actually think the team has done a better than usual job of not carrying injured players this year. They’ve generally pulled the trigger. Along those lines, they seem to be erring on the side of caution. Are some of these IL stints preventive like the Dodgers have been doing for years? I don’t know the answer to that and I’m not making that excuse for them. This whole thing is definitely curious.
Also, Matthew Boyd, Shōta Imanaga and a whole lot of guys casual baseball fans have never heard of are coming soon to an MLB stadium near you and they just might beat whoever they’re playing. Jed was the man at the helm when virtually every one of them was brought here and they have tied for the fifth-most wins in baseball and look headed back to the playoffs.
Three Positives:
- Dansby Swanson had a three-hit, two-homer game. That’s going to put him up here. He wasn’t there tonight, but my favorite team’s nine hitter is on a bit of a tear.
- Alex Bregman had a three-run homer and drew a pair of walks.
- I thought Tyler Ferguson recorded the three biggest outs of the game, starting with an inning-ending strikeout of Manny Machado representing the tying run. That would have been a disheartening loss if it had gotten away.
Game 86, June 30: Cubs 9, Padres 7 (48-38)
Reminder: Heroes and Goats are determined by WPA scores and are in no way subjective.
THREE HEROES:
- Superhero: Alex Bregman (.200). 1-3, HR, 2 BB, 3 RBI, R
- Hero: Dansby Swanson (.173). 3-4, 2 HR, 3 RBI, 2 R
- Sidekick: Tyler Ferguson (.094). IP, 3 BF, K
THREE GOATS:
- Billy Goat: Ian Happ (-.041). 1-4, R
- Goat: Matthew Boyd (-.041). 5 IP, 24 BF, 8 H, 0 BB, 3 ER, 2 K (W 3-1)
- Kid: Nico Hoerner (-.035). 1-5
A quick couple of WPA notes. Carson Kelly just missed the top three. Also, looking at the shape of this game, the Cub offense poured it on early. Boyd took hits for giving away some of the lead and for departing with runners on base. Assad had a big, late lead when he gave up late runs. So WPA was quite a bit harder on Boyd. Only four Cubs even had negative WPA numbers in this game because despite the final score, the Cubs controlled this one more or less wire to wire.
WPA Play of the Game: Alex Bregman’s three-run homer with one out in the second extended the early lead to four. (.184)
Padres Play of the Game: Manny Machado’s homer with two outs and a runner on third in the fifth to get the game back to two. (.118)
Cubs Player of the Game:
Game 85 Winner: Seiya Suzuki (178 of 199 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.
- Pete Crow-Armstrong +17
- Michael Busch +15
- Ben Brown +13.5
- Trent Thornton +12.5
- Carson Kelly +11.5
- Edward Cabrera -9.5
- Phil Maton/Dansby Swanson -10
- Caleb Thielbar -13
- Seiya Suzuki -14.5
Up Next: The Cubs can complete a three-game sweep of the Padres Wednesday afternoon. They have an off day Thursday and didn’t use much pen in this one. Colin Rea (5-5, 4.80) squares off with Walker Buehler (5-3, 3.81). Another tough matchup, but no tougher than some of the wins these Cubs pulled off this past weekend.
This is a plus series regardless, but it sure would be sweet to cap this one off.
