When a pitcher as good as Paul Skenes throws, you hear some wild stats. I don’t take notes while watching, so take it with a grain of salt if I don’t frame a stat right. But Paul Skenes allowed a homer to the first batter of the game, Michael Busch. Apparently no player has hit two homers off of Skenes yet, even over different games. Wild, I imagine that will go away some time next year. Someone from the NL Central will get him eventually. He’s made so many starts against the Cubs, it just might
be a Cub.
The Cubs sent eight players total to the plate in the first inning, ultimately scoring two runs on three hits and two walks and forcing Skenes to throw more than 30 pitches. Two other wild stats, the Cubs left the bases loaded. Apparently in 31 starts, that was just the third batter he faced with the bases loaded. Also, with the two first-inning runs, Skenes has now allowed four of those — total. Four first-inning runs over 31 innings of work. He has a first inning ERA of 1.16. The first inning is so important, it’s frankly surprising his record isn’t better. (Man, the Pirates offense is bad.)
The Cubs added a run in the second and ran that Skenes pitch count past 50. The Cubs added more hits against Skenes in the third and fourth innings without scoring, but Skenes didn’t finish the fourth. The offense looked really great Tuesday night at all. They were dialed in, worked long counts, went with a lot of pitches and generally disrupted the Pirate pitchers all night long. It’s a shame really that they never put the cherry on top. The absence of Kyle Tucker and Seiya Suzuki makes this offense a little less dynamic. Those are probably the two guys who have most punished mistake pitches this year.
On the other side, Cade Horton was maybe a little less polished and/or the Pirates also executed a plan of running his pitch count up. That said, he finished the necessary five innings to win his 11th game, allowed one run on three hits, one walk and six strikeouts. Amusingly, I’ve steered clear of leaning into Horton for Rookie of the Year. I was content to think that there were multiple players who had larger bodies of work. I’m going to be less and less inclined to favor pitchers for MVPs or Rookie of the Year awards as innings pitched drift ever lower.
That said, if Cade continues this through two more starts, it’s getting tough to imagine him not winning the award. Because I was late to the party, I can’t handicap it. But, 11-4, 2.66. A big part in leading this team to what will almost certainly be the third best record in the NL. It’s a really good resume. It’s a tough award to win. But he’s definitely in the team photo.
One other wild stat I caught later in the game is that the Cubs are now 17-16 when they strike out 10 or more times. Even before they won this one, they already had the best record in that situation. The Cubs are now 36-0 when they allow one or fewer runs. I’m not creating an empty stat to be fascinated with. The era of very many losses by 1-0 is long gone. Those games are unicorns these days. But not every team has 36 such games. 13-5 when they allow exactly two. 19-9 when they allow three. When the pitching staff allows three runs or fewer, the team is 58-14. In nearly half their games they hold a team to three or fewer and when they do, they win 80.55% of the time. That’s a 130.5 win pace.
I know this is the second time I’ve circled that point recently. The pitching staff has carried this team. The only question facing the Cubs this postseason is how often they can hold a playoff caliber team to three or fewer. Because if they do, they can win. Skenes is as good as it gets in modern baseball and they’ve beat him twice this year. They can beat good pitching. It doesn’t mean they will. But they can.
Get Tucker and Suzuki right. Maybe PCA locks back in. With Ian Happ and Nico Hoerner continuing to produce, this becomes a lethal team.
Pitch Counts:
- Cubs: 129, 32 BF
- Pirates: 175, 44 BF
The Cubs keep it in green light territory (under 15 pitches per inning) at 14.33. The Pirates only just avoided drifting into red light territory (over 20 pitches per inning) at 19.44. Over and over, the Pirate pitchers were on the verge of disaster. Really two straight days of that for them. You can decide where the Pirate disaster avoidance ends and the Cub ineptitude offensively starts. It’s surely some of each.
The Cub bullpen used Drew Pomeranz, Andrew Kittredge, and Caleb Thielbar who it was plainly obvious would be available. But they also clearly had it in the game plan to have Brad Keller throw the ninth. The Cubs had used him three times in four days and so I wasn’t sure if they might try to pitch around his spot with some of their other leverage relievers unavailable. But they went ahead and used Kittredge in the seventh, so this had to be mapped out. I think Keller has to be down Wednesday.
On the Pirate side, Carmen Mlodzinski threw 55 pitches. The Cubs won’t see him in the finale. I think most of the Cub bullpen other than Keller should be available. Javier Assad and Michael Soroka might not pitch until the Reds series. But Aaron Civale is available if the Cubs have a multi-inning spot.
Three Stars:
- Michael Busch started the game with a bang, with that leadoff homer. He followed with two doubles and drew a walk. Just a monster game and very key against Skenes, particularly with Tucker still down.
- Cade Horton throws five innings and allowed three hits, one walk, one run and strikes out six. It’s so hard to compare anything to Jake Arrieta, just like it would be hard to compare Arrieta to, say, Bob Gibson. Different eras are different eras. But Horton is putting up the modern equivalent of Arrieta’s historic run (that is, with MANY fewer innings).
- Nico Hoerner had three more hits. The Cubs had 14 of them and so a whole lot of guys could have landed here, as could the entire bullpen (three perfect innings out of four and all three were two strikeout innings). But A) Hoerner is my favorite Cub and B) we’ve reached a developing situation. Nico is now hitting .301. A .300 season would be such a feather in his cap (particularly in a year where it looks like the NL will have at most two such seasons). But also, if this hot stretch extends another week, a batting title at least has a long shot chance. It’s been 20 years since the Cubs had a player win a batting title.
Game 151, September 16: Cubs 4, Pirates 1 (87-64)
Reminder: Heroes and Goats are determined by WPA scores and are in no way subjective.
THREE HEROES:
- Superhero/Hero: Michael Busch/Cade Horton (.185). Busch: 3-4, HR, 2 2B, BB, RBI, 2 R; Horton: 5 IP, 19 BF, 3 H, BB, ER, 6 K (W 11-4)
- Sidekick: Pete Crow-Armstrong (.060). 1-4, SF, 2 RBI
THREE GOATS:
- Billy Goat: Willi Castro (-.112). 0-5
- Goat: Dansby Swanson (-.042). 2-4, BB, DP
- Kid: Matt Shaw (-.028). 1-4
WPA Play of the Game: The Pirates were down two in the bottom of the first when Oneil Cruz faced Cade Horton with a runner on first and two outs. He tripled, cutting the lead to one. (.108)
*Cubs Play of the Game: Michael Busch’s homer leading off the game. (.096)
Cubs Player of the Game:
Yesterday’s Winner: Jameson Taillon received 155 of 221 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
- Matthew Boyd+20
- Shōta Imanaga/Jameson Taillon +19
- Cade Horton +18
- Willi Castro/Julian Merryweather -15
- Ben Brown -19
- Dansby Swanson -19.33
- Carson Kelly -21
- Seiya Suzuki -29
Scoreboard Watching: Padres (Wild Card 2) lose (Cubs up 5). Mets (WC 3) win (Cubs up 9; Mets max is 89 wins). Diamondbacks won (Cubs up 10.5; D-backs max is 87 wins). Giants lose (Cubs up 12; Giants max is 86 wins; Giants can no longer catch the Cubs and we will drop them from this space). Reds lose (Cubs up 12; Reds max is 86 wins; Reds can no longer catch the Cubs and we will drop them from this space). The Cubs’ magic number to clinch a postseason spot is 1 with 11 games to go. For what it’s worth, the Brewers won (Cubs down 5). We’ll count down the magic number against the Diamondbacks until the Cubs clinch a playoff spot. Then we’ll turn our attention (presumably) to the Mets and Brewers for magic numbers, and then the Padres.
Up Next: The Cubs clinch a postseason berth with their next win (or Diamondbacks loss). There is a good chance the Cubs leave Pittsburgh locked into the playoffs and can turn their attention to locking down the top Wild Card well ahead of the last series of the year.
A very early game Wednesday afternoon (11:35 a.m. CT/12:35 p.m. ET). Matthew Boyd (13-8, 3.05) faces Johan Oviedo (2-0, 2.81, 25.2 IP) the 27-year-old Cuban makes his seventh start. With the tight publishing time frames for Wednesday, I’ll leave it to Al to bring you the preview on this one. The preview will post at 10 a.m. CT.
It would be great to see the offense bust out and/or Boyd lock it down and proactively clinch the playoff spot.
