The final game of the Cubs four-game series against the Brewers saw the Cubs eke out a series split on the back of a pitcher’s duel. Kevin Gausman and a pair of Ryans (Zeferjahn and Rolison) combined to hold the Brewers to one run while striking out 10, walking just one and surrendering five hits.
It’s exactly what you want from a bullpen on the back of a great start from Gausman, who threw seven innings, giving up the one run (it was a solo shot to Andrew Vaughn in the fourth). He gave up five hits
and one walk, but stranded all of them while striking out nine. The bullpen was flawless, delivering two innings of scoreless, walkless, no nonsense or shenanigans relief. Let’s take a closer look at Gausman’s gem [VIDEO].
It was a radically different look from the pitching adventures of the prior two games, and while there is a lot of blame to go around for both of those outings today I want to zero in on the struggles Daniel Palencia has faced this season. A lot has been made of him “needing more time” to come back from injury, or whether a trip to the minors would help, but I have a sinking suspicion neither of those is the key to Palencia returning to closer form.
To be clear, there are signs that Palencia isn’t all the way recovered from injury. For starters, his four-seamer velocity is down, and while he stills throws gasolina, it’s worth noting that he’s only thrown one four-seamer over 100 miles per hour since returning from the injured list. That pitch averaged 100.3 miles per hour last July, and 99.9 miles per hour before he hit the injured list in May. Admittedly, these are tiny sample sizes, but it’s down to 99.1 miles per hour in August and 98.1 miles per hour so far in September. That is a meaningful dropoff and could explain some of the magnitude of different outcomes we’re seeing from Palencia since he’s returned from injury.
But the bigger issue for Palencia are his splits against left handed batters, and unfortunately, that’s an issue that predates 2026 as you can see from the table with his results by handedness below:
Palencia has had pretty drastic splits against lefthanded hitters almost every season he’s pitched in MLB. 2023 is an outlier, but even last season, there were hints that lefties were seeing the ball better against Palencia. That .340 OBP and .473 SLG jump off the page relative to his results against righties. This is where wOBA is particularly interesting, because as a solid proxy for OBP with slugging incorporated, we can see that the on-base and slugging advantage lefties have against Palencia has been pretty consistent through his, admittedly young, career.
While the Cubs pitching lab surely has thoughts on how to fix this over the long-term, the Cubs postsason chances and hopes in 2026 are extremely short-term. Even with Thursday’s victory over the Brewers they’ve fallen half a game off the top Wild Card spot. That is the difference between hosting the Phillies at Wrigley or having to play Philadelphia in Citizens Bank Park. Not all home field advantages are created equally, but it’s hard for me to imagine a bigger gap than playing the Phillies at home or on the road.
Unfortunately, with the Cubs desperate for innings due to the slings and arrows their pitching staff has suffered over the course of the season, that likely moves Palencia into lower leverage situations where he doesn’t have to face lefties down the stretch. He can still help the Cubs in September and October, but it may be a different role than we all envisioned at the start of the year.
