Just about everything naysayers want to say about the Cubs showed up on Wednesday. In reality, you should tip your hat to the Padres who had a strategy and executed that strategy to perfection. Perhaps
the pinnacle of modern baseball was on display. I presume the average fastball the Cubs saw today was at 100 miles per hour or better. And if memory serves, something like two thirds of the pitches they saw were fastballs. The game has been evolving towards max effort all of the time and this feels like the Padres reached 1.21 gigawatts. Back to the Future indeed.
Looked at otherwise, the Padres climbed K2. They broke the 4 minute mile. However you want to paint it. They revolutionized speed optimization. This was what they have created. And like Frankenstein’s monster, it lived and walked. It dominated. The only thing more impressive than the Padres pitching performance Wednesday afternoon was that they seemed to find new ways to gush over it with each passing inning.
I have a call into the MLB headquarters. I don’t have official confirmation, but I don’t think this somehow makes the win count as more than one. It’s one/one. You aren’t going to find me moping after the loss. I had the series going three. Certainly winning the first game didn’t magically convince me that the Cubs would sweep a very good Padres team. This was always going to be a hard-fought series. If you thought otherwise, you probably haven’t been paying attention.
Could it have been different if Cade Horton was available? Who can know. I’d sure love to have been able to find out. I haven’t run any searches recently, but I’m still pretty certain that no team has ever won a baseball game while scoring zero runs. So I’ll assume even with Cade, it would be split. Or I don’t know, could he have lost and somehow the Cubs were swept? This is the problem with going down rabbit holes. My simple hope is that Cade is healing well and should the Cubs be fortunate enough to reach the Brewers series, he might be able to go early in that series. But that’s a fight for another day.
I will say this. From about Pete Crow-Armstrong’s first plate appearance on, I thought the Cubs did an above average job getting into grind mode. I do think the Cubs were going to get to Dylan Cease and I compliment Mike Shildt on being aggressive there. It worked, so hindsight supports it. But he didn’t take any chances with his season on the line. Spoiler alert, Craig Counsell and Shildt are going to throw a metric ton of relievers at one another tomorrow. These guys are going to go down hoping and praying. They are going to play for every microscopic edge they perceive.
Anyway, with frustration mounting, I thought Cub hitters did a nice job of working counts and making the three-headed monster of nasty Padre relievers work hard. Two of those three have now pitched back-to-back. You know they’ll say they are good to go again tomorrow. Adrian Morejon, at least, I’d have to question, not the least of which he’s likely to have a very sore foot/ankle whatever that Nico Hoerner shot bounced off of. I imagine they’ll lean heaviest on Jeremiah Estrada and Robert Suarez tomorrow. Let’s hope they aren’t protecting a lead.
Pitch Counts:
- Padres: 147, 32 BF
- Cubs: 135, 37 BF
For the Padres, they end up in the “yellow zone” (15-20 PPI). That’s where things can start to go sideways. Obviously, they did not. But again, the Cubs made them work. The Cubs faced five more hitters and threw 12 less pitches. I had to double check my math to make sure I actually had that number right. That’s right on the green/yellow zone border. The Cubs were pretty efficient despite facing 10 hitters over the minimum. Seven hits, three walks, but they kept it under control.
Here’s where I hope things are important. All year long, I’ve monitored this. Craig Counsell has been elite at making the Cubs not go into games behind the 8 ball. Do some games go sideways anyway? Of course. But how many of us remember past seasons where the Cubs went into the game with a back of the rotation guy starting, a 40-year-old reliever and one kid down in the pen who is often a rule 5 guy and only pitches when the game is already a blow out in one direction or the other? You just knew that starter was going six no matter how bad he pitched and the game was lost before it started.
Craig Counsell made the decision after Game 1 to start Andrew Kittredge, who would be throwing in back-to-back games. I still like the methodology. I try to only first guess decisions. I liked the idea. It didn’t work out great. There is no way of assuming Shōta Imanaga would have even held the Padres to 1. Maybe he does, maybe he allows a crooked number and the Padre bullpen doesn’t have to work as hard. We’ll never know. Aside from Kittredge, none of the relievers who threw yesterday threw today. You have your two top righties fresh and your top lefty. The Cubs will have all hands on deck with Kittredge and maybe Colin Rea being the only guys who you would have any pause about throwing back out there.
On the other side, Adrian Morejon threw 33 pitches on the second of back-to-back games. He also took a wicked shot off of one of his feet and I’m going to bet that swelled up as soon as the shoe came off. He looked to me like he landed awkwardly a couple of times right after that. He also originally got up in the third inning to get loose. I can’t imagine he will be available. Mason Miller threw 27 pitches averaging 103 mph on his fastball (which he used heavily) on the second of back-to-back games. The A’s did use him once this year in three straight. And he threw 27 in the first game and 21 in the second. For what it’s worth, he allowed three runs in the first game, one in the second and earned a save for a scoreless inning in the last. He does historically have a 0.40 ERA when throwing on 0 days of rest.
So there it is. Wishful thinking? That’s what you come here for, right? Suarez didn’t throw in game one, but did throw 18 pitches in game two. They will, of course, have the rest of a very good bullpen available. Again, playing very small edges.
Stars of the Game:
- Taylor Rogers and Mike Soroka faced a total of five batters and retired them all.
- Nico Hoerner hit into some tough luck, but had an early single.
- Seiya Suzuki hit into a double play, but also had the only extra-base hit.
- Dansby Swanson had a single.
Playoff Game 2, October 1: Padres 3, Cubs 0
Reminder: Heroes and Goats are determined by WPA scores and are in no way subjective.
THREE HEROES:
- Superhero: Colin Rea (.046). 1.2 IP, 6 BF, H, K
- Hero: Dansby Swanson (.013). 1-3
- Sidekick: Taylor Rogers (.011). IP, 3 BF
THREE GOATS:
- Billy Goat: Ian Happ (-.099). 0-4
- Goat: Pete Crow-Armstrong (-.078). 0-3
- Kid: Seiya Suzuki (-.065). 1-4, 2B, DP
WPA Play of the Game: Manny Machado’s two-out homer in the fifth. (.196)
Cubs Play of the Game: Andrew Kittredge struck out Manny Machado with first and second and no outs. (.053)
Cubs Player of the Game:
Yesterday’s Winner: Dansby Swanson 107 to 84 over Seiya Suzuki.
Up Next: The Cubs had the best record in baseball this year after a loss. They are good at bouncing back. Jameson Taillon (11-7, 3.68, 129.2 IP) starts for the Cubs. He was 4-2 with a 1.85 ERA over his last seven starts. He had a 3.05 ERA at home and a 2.67 ERA in day games. He pitched once against the Padres this year allowing two runs over 5.1 innings in San Diego. He didn’t face them in 2024, so there isn’t a ton of familiarity over there.
39-year-old Yu Darvish isn’t that guy anymore. I remember his time in Chicago fondly. But he was 5-5 with a 5.38 ERA in just 72 innings this year. He was 3-2 in his last seven starts with a 4.72 (34.1 IP). So we’re looking at a guy who was throwing less than five innings in the regular season. Don’t expect him to throw more than three or four innings. He didn’t even pitch until July, so the Cubs never saw him. He had a 7.26 ERA away from home this year (31 innings). The Dodgers and Mariners each got to him on the road, but the Cardinals really blew him up in late July (8 ER in 3.1 IP).
Yu hasn’t pitched a full season since 2023 and has thrown 153.2 innings over the last two seasons. Crafty veteran and all, this isn’t the guy we remember. The Cubs have to get to him. They have to score early and play downhill. Taillon was really pretty good this year aside from the month of June and his start in Arizona in March. Ironically, his start was also against the Cardinals on the road. His last six starts were Brewers, at Angels, at Braves, at Pirates, at Reds, and Cardinals. In those six starts, 6 earned runs in 34.1. You’re looking for one run over four to five innings and the offense to hand the bullpen a 3-1 lead in the mid game.
Ominous Stat: If I’ve counted right, the Cubs are 7-14 in the divisional play era in games in which a win would advance them. And, of course, a huge number of those wins came during the 2016 season.
The Cub Stars need to be STARS today. Or this is the end.
