Oh, what a night. Some of you picked up on me coming out of Thursday’s loss as low as I’ve been all year. For me, the dam broke. My ability to stay calm and steady crumbled and I mentally threw in the towel. You can only dismiss so many things as noise. This week has been a particularly difficult one for that. This last week and watching the Cubs drop six of seven games to two Wild Card contenders was a particularly bitter pill to swallow. But if we’re being fair and balanced, there have been some
really encouraging signs out of the offense and that carried through to today. Miles Mikolas is not anywhere near the guy he was when he was representing the NL in the All-Star game twice. But the Cubs have scored 34 runs in their last four games.
Friday afternoon’s game was so much fun. All three of the Cub 30-homer guys went deep in one game, two of them to reach that mark. Michael Busch was an unlikely choice to lead the Cubs in homers this year, but he almost certainly will after hitting number 32 to maintain a lead of two over Seiya Suzuki and Pete Crow-Armstrong who both homered to reach 30. For PCA, it cements his 30/30 season. But if we’re being honest, that part is 30/35. And he’s also got 37 doubles for the first 30/30/30 season in Cub history. 71 total extra base hits has him in some pretty rare air too. For Suzuki, he reached 30 homers and his grand slam pushed him past 100 RBI on the year, the first Cub to reach that plateau. PCA is second at 93 and would have to go ballistic this weekend to get there.
The roller coaster of baseball was an amazing ride of its own. Then it was Friday night bowling. As our first game was ending, a shouting match broke out to my right and just kept escalating. I ended up arriving on the scene just as one of the two males involved in the verbal altercation was lunging to throw the first punch. I was able to pull him out. I can only imagine how wild that would have been. There were two women and a man on one side and a man and woman on the other yelling some pretty awful things at one another and a good 20 people within about five feet, including a handful of young children. I predict it would have been a full out melee had intervention not happened right when it did.
Super wild. It’s been that kind of week. I slipped and fell on Tuesday, suffering severely wounded pride. Then my wife and I were rear ended, suffering severe irritation. The car was fine. Somewhere between all of that we had some kind of insect infestation and I’m not really sure how that happened. So we ended up with an exterminator midweek. If you were to hypothesize that all of that had something to do with my rant after Thursday’s game, I’d have trouble arguing with you.
In case everyone ever wondered, bowling with a large dose of testosterone and adrenaline running through you body was a positive experience. I bowled the best game I have in a few weeks. Not something I could duplicate. Just a crazy week all around for me.
I’m having some trouble seeing the Cubs as having won two of three and the offense showing some really positive signs. My instinct still wants to see that they’ve dropped six of eight. I’m not sure pummeling the Cardinals is going to be great therapy for me at this point. Sure, it’ll lock down the top Wild Card spot. At the end of the day that, and getting healthier, was all that actually mattered out of these last 10 games of the season. Tucker played. Palencia has pitched. Both look better than when we had seen them previously. Cade Horton is going to probably throw the Wild Card opener. Getting the top spot and having all of the guys who were the biggest contributors to you being there available is a victory onto itself.
Oh — before the season I predicted the Cubs would win 91 games. This blind squirrel is hot on the trail of a nut.
Pitch Counts:
- Cardinals: 171, 40 BF
- Cubs: 129, 34 BF
We’ve had some mirages lately. This was not one. The Cardinals throw 21.375 pitches per inning and face 16 extra batters. The Cubs throw 14.33 pitches per inning and face just seven extra batters. Cardinal pitching was overmatched. They allowed 12 hits, four of them homers, three walks and a hit batter. The Cubs stayed hot lately with RISP. They were 6-10 in this one and only left four in scoring position. Cub pitching was extremely efficient. They allowed five hits and two walks while striking out 14. They kept the ball in the park on a favorable offensive day.
The Cardinals threw three relievers, all of them going over 20 pitches and two going past 30. They’ll be down a few pitchers over the weekend. None of the Cub relievers threw even 20 pitches. The Cubs positioned themselves for a battle of attrition.
Three Stars:
- Very much like Wednesday’s win, this one was close early. So Colin Rea’s 5.2 innings of scoreless ball (two hits, one walk) felt huge. Colin falls just shy of the 162 innings necessary to qualify for the ERA title. He finishes with a 3.95 ERA. A vastly underrated performance.
- Michael Busch had a double, homer, walk, two runs driven in and two runs scored
- Nico Hoerner got the scoring started with a first-inning solo homer. He added a single, scored twice and drove in one.
Throw a dart. 16 Cubs appeared in this one and pretty much all of them made contributions. Nine Cubs had hits. Six doubles, a triple, four homers, seven different players drove runs, nine different Cubs scored a run. Caleb Thielbar was the only pitcher to struggle.
Game 160, September 26: Cubs 12, Cardinals 1 (90-70)
Reminder: Heroes and Goats are determined by WPA scores and are in no way subjective.
THREE HEROES:
- Superhero: Colin Rea (.265). 5.2 IP, 2 H, BB, 0 ER, 7 K (W 11-7)
- Hero: Pete Crow-Armstrong (.163). 1-3, HR, HBP, 2 RBI, R
- Sidekick: Nico Hoerner (.084). 2-5, HR, RBI, 2 R
THREE GOATS:
- Billy Goat: Seiya Suzuki (-.054). 1-4, HR, 4 RBI, R
- Goat: Reese McGuire (-.039). 0-4
- Kid: Ian Happ (-.017). 2-4, RBI, R
WPA Play of the Game: PCA’s 30th homer of the year was a two-run shot with two outs in the fourth and extended the lead from one to three. (.184)
*Cardinals Play of the Game: Thomas Saggese had a single with a runner on second and no outs in the seventh. It cut the Cubs lead to three. (.058)
Cubs Player of the Game:
Yesterday’s Winner: Seiya Suzuki received 111 of 116 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.
- Kyle Tucker +29
- Jameson Taillon +22
- Matthew Boyd +20
- Cade Horton +18
- Michael Busch +17.17
- Julian Merryweather -15
- Ben Brown -19
- Dansby Swanson -22.33
- Carson Kelly -26
- Seiya Suzuki -29
Scoreboard Watching: The Cubs have clinched a berth in the 2025 postseason. We will no longer actively monitor any of the teams who can no longer catch the Cubs. The only other team that matters in any way at this point is the Padres. Padres (WC 2) win (Cubs up 2). The Cubs magic number relative to the Padres is 1. The Cubs can still clinch by winning one of their last two or the Padres losing one of their last two. The Diamondbacks were eliminated Friday and are only playing a spoiler role for the final two games against the Padres.
Up Next: A year ago, Jameson Taillon and Craig Counsell did a press conference where they talked about the Cubs needing to be a team winning 90 games. They’ve done just that. Jameson will have a say in pushing that total to 91 and clinching home field in the Wild Card game. Jameson is 10-7 with a 3.78 in 123.2 innings. He’s been very consistent, with a 3.65 over his last seven starts, 3,75 over 15 and 3.78 over 22. He was a hard luck loser last time, throwing seven innings and allowing a run on five hits and no walks. He got rocked in St. Louis in June, allowing eight runs in just four innings.
25-year-old Michael McGreevy (8-3, 4.65, 91 IP) will be making his 16th start (17th appearance) for the Cardinals. The Cards’ first round pick in 2021 (18th overall) is in his second year in the majors. He’s been a very bright spot for this team. He has two starts against the Cubs, both in St. Louis. In one, the Cubs scored five on him in 4.2 and in the other he threw six scoreless. He’s just 2-1 with a 4.91 in September (22 IP). His results are very hit or miss. He has nine appearances where he has allowed three or more runs. He has eight appearances where he has allowed two or less. It has been home starts (5.22) and day starts (6.23) that have been his downfall.
The Cubs continue to excel against right-handed starters (71-47). Let’s get one more and not worry about Sunday’s result.
