Sunday was a Game 162 that will have an enhanced footnote in Cub history. Games in Japan. Games in England. A game against the Astros in Milwaukee and now a game against the Red Sox in Tampa. It hits a little different when the game has a footprint that steps outside of the normal unending march of baseball games that make up a season. Somewhere on Twitter I occasionally see the posts of someone who has a log of every homer they’ve ever seen live and as I recall they are approaching 500. I started
going to games with some frequency at 11 years old as I had a best friend growing up whose dad had season tickets. I was in the short rotation of people that would fill in if one of the family members had something else going on. Accordingly, I have no idea how many homers I’ve seen live.
First world problems, for sure. But I remember seeing Mark Bellhorn homer from both sides of the plate in the same game in Milwaukee. I remember Larry Walker crushing a ball in Colorado such that it struck a seat in the upper deck and I swear the ball was still going up (which is surely impossible, but it left the park SO fast). I remember seeing Ryne Sandberg and Andre Dawson and Sammy Sosa hitting SO many homers. I’ll now never forget seeing Alex Bregman hitting two homers in Tampa. Neat.
I definitely would have liked to have seen more of Pete Crow-Armstrong. Also, I’d love to see the Cubs win a Wild Card series. Those two wishes don’t necessarily run concurrent to one another. Just a week ago, I had fears that Alex Bregman would miss the postseason. That he might not be the same again after getting hit in the face. Granted this wasn’t a pitched ball, but we’ve all seen players who got hit high and weren’t the same again. I well remember the brutal injury Dickie Thon suffered. I knew when that happened that there were a range of outcomes for Alex included some very bad ones.
But he was in top form on Sunday. A hat tip to the press photographer who grabbed the photo of Alex and Pete together. For Heroes and Goats purposes, they were 1 and 1a for a good chunk of the year. Even when Alex struggled, he didn’t get buried by H&G and he was in contention for the Rizzo award before he got hot. When the injury occurred, it looked like it would be Pete’s award to win. And Pete did pull ahead in the last week of the year. Why wouldn’t Pete win this award? He’s going to win so much hardware this offseason. He should win a Platinum Glove, a Silver Slugger and the NL MVP.
I should mention on the off day Saturday, I found a corner of social media that I somehow haven’t seen. If you aren’t aware, there is an unironic section of social media that has decided that Pete is a bad defensive player. They’ve seen his errors and shared them far and wide, of course. But they’ve also decided that he often takes bad routes to balls in the air. It somehow isn’t meaningful that he gets to more balls than literally any other outfielder. It somehow isn’t meaningful the number of five star catches he’s made. It somehow isn’t meaningful that current and former players rave about him among the best center fielders ever to play the game.
Anyway, enough about that group of people and their opinions. It’s unfortunate that Pete (and Craig Counsell) weren’t aware there was an award still to be decided on Sunday. You see, Pete went into the last game with a 2.5 point lead on Alex for the Rizzo Award. Alex either had to be the Superhero or a lower podium needed to be combined with a negative one for Pete. And Alex went out and won the Superhero. Congratulations to Alex for winning the 13th annual Rizzo Award. He becomes the 10th different player to win the award. Only one player has won the award more than once. Anthony Rizzo won the award on four separate occasions. Bregman is the first third baseman to win the award and sixth infielder (Rizzo four times, Frank Schwindel and Bregman).
A big congratulations to Alex. I hope somewhere in the wild world of Cub fans that at least one self-aware Cub fan who wrote off Alex early in the season will learn to be a little more patient. Without going and digging for numbers, I feel confident that this was one of the really great Cub third base seasons in their storied history. I’d assume there are a few Kris Bryant seasons better than this and probably some from Ron Santo, but this was an all-time good season. He had a terrific season, bounced back in a big way in his career and ended up with one of his better seasons. The man has been a winner everywhere he’s gone and this isn’t the year that ends.
The other notable last day occurrence was Braxton Garrett becoming the 52nd different player to appear in H&G this year. It was 47 last year, but was 52 in 2024. A record that might never be broken was 65 in 2021. That required a very peculiar formula that is going to be hard to ever match. For perspective, 62 different players actually appeared in games for the Cubs this year. I didn’t take a fine-toothed comb to any of this, but I believe of the 10 to not appear in H&G, seven are pitchers and three position players.
Three Positives:
- It’s gotta start with Alex, right? Four hits and a walk. Checked in with an 820 wRC+ game. That has to be one of the top games by any player for any team this season.
- I didn’t hear Craig tell the media what he was planning with the pitching or see the roster move, but did watch Garrett warm up less than 20 feet away from me. He was warming up for just as long and just as hard as actual starter Shōta Imanaga did and so I knew what was coming. It wasn’t the prettiest five innings thrown by a Cub this year, but he provided the length Craig was looking for. Someone had to book a lot of innings and Garrett was probably the best choice.
- Tyrone Taylor played most of this game in center field and stayed hot against lefties. He had two hits and scored two runs. A hat tip to Pedro Ramirez who also enjoyed a game against lefties with two singles and a scary looking hit by pitch (just off of how far it bounced).
Game 162, September 27: Cubs 6, Red Sox 2 (89-73)
Reminder: Heroes and Goats are determined by WPA scores and are in no way subjective.
THREE HEROES:
- Superhero: Alex Bregman (.380). 4-4, 2 HR, 2B, BB, 4 RBI, 3 R
- Hero: Braxton Garrett (.225). 5 IP, 21 BF, 4 H, 3 BB, 1 R, 2 K (W 1-0)
- Sidekick: Colin Rea (.158). 2 IP, 0 H, 0 BB, 0 R, 1 K (Sv 2)
THREE GOATS:
- Billy Goat: Michael Busch (-.135). 0-3, DP
- Goat: Ian Happ (-.091). 0-5, 3 K
- Kid: Dansby Swanson (-.063). 0-3, BB
WPA Play of the Game: The Cubs were leading 3-2 in the sixth when Caleb Durbin batted with runners on first and second and one out. Garrett got Durbin to ground into a double play to end the inning. (.154)
Red Sox Play of the Game: The Cubs were also leading 3-2 in the fifth when Michael Busch batted with runners on first and second with no outs. Pablo Sandoval got Busch to ground into a double play. (.105)
Cubs Player of the Game:
Game 160 Winner: Miguel Amaya received 25 of 38 votes.
Game 161 Winner: David Peterson received 42 of 49 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.
- Alex Bregman +26
- Pete Crow-Armstrong +25.5
- Shōta Imanaga +15
- Ben Brown +13.5
- Carson Kelly +11.5
- Jameson Taillon -13
- Seiya Suzuki -17
- Dansby Swanson -17
- Caleb Thielbar -17.5
- Nico Hoerner -18
Up Next: An off day Monday and then the Cubs take on the 91-71 Padres ,who won eight of their last 10 and are 51-30 at home. So the Cubs are exactly where they were a year ago, except on the road. The winner of Padres-Cubs plays the Brewers. Winner of that ostensibly faces the Dodgers for a trip to the World Series. That woefully underestimates the other half of the NL bracket, but you get the picture.
The Cub offense was No. 1 in the NL in scoring, the Padres were No. 9. The Padres allowed the fourth-fewest runs in the NL. You might be surprised to know the Cubs were sixth. A lot of negative words about the Cubs, particularly focused on the lack of WAR accumulation. But they did fundamentally succeed at their overall job which is keeping runs off of the board. The Cub bullpen allowed the fourth-fewest runs. This is, of course, a misleading stat. The Padre bullpen threw 85 more innings than the Cubs did. But again, the Cub bullpen did a pretty good job of keeping runs off of the board. The Cub offense had a .747 OPS on the road. Cub pitchers allowed the fifth-fewest number of runs on the road.
That’s a long paragraph to say that the Cubs are not in any way overmatched. The Padres are a good team and they are playing well. They aren’t what you are looking for in October. Or, as it is this year, late September. They have a bullpen that makes you feel like you have to be winning after six. With the Cub bullpen, we all feel that way anyway and rightly so. The Padres will be favored and I don’t raise my nose at that. Also, I think there’s a pretty fair chance the Cubs win this. I’d say it’s like a 55/45 series at best for San Diego. That’s a healthy amount of time you win the series.
Let’s get it done.
