And now, the end is near. Cubs lose 7-3 to Brewers in a near carbon copy of Game 1. Once again, the Cubs had one bright, shiny moment in the top of the first and then watched the game drift away. How far
and how fast they fell varied, but the result is the same. If you are one of my regular readers, you know that during the last days of the regular season, my optimism crashed out and I let out some frustration. That frustration is entirely because this was all becoming foreseeable.
The Cubs continue to not have Cade Horton. Kyle Tucker continues to be a shadow of himself. It sure is going to be interesting to see what Kyle gets paid in the offseason. If I were his agent, I would be recommending he at least consider a one-year deal to rebuild his value and I would be soliciting both long term deals and one-year deals. I personally would be terrified to give Kyle Tucker a long-term deal. I have a really deep thought that I share from time to time. Players who get hurt tend to get hurt. But prior to this year, I would have included Nico Hoerner in that. He seemed to always come up with an injury that cost him some time. But he was fully healthy this year. I think I’d need to see a healthy Tucker before I’d give him a large long term contract.
Anyway, you could see this team tailing off. This offense has worked as kind of a unit. Kyle Tucker was the engine of a high octane Cubs offense. Once that went away, the Cubs were a combination of outstanding individual performances and crushing of mistakes. Seiya Suzuki remains an elite mistake crusher. His three-run homer kept the game interesting way longer than it otherwise would have been.
Some years ago I stopped enjoying basketball because it was increasingly becoming a series of isolation plays for one play maker. Team basketball with passing and aggressive defense were slowly eroding. I feel like I’m a similar spot with baseball. The evolution of an ever increasing run of guys who throw 95+ is making the game less entertaining. Baseball is getting less interesting as we see more and more guys with a two-pitch mix that feature a 100 mile per hour fastball and a 90 mile per hour slider.
Of course, that frustration is all the worse given that the Cubs have been decidedly behind the curve in getting their hands on those guys. We are five games into watching the Cubs flail away at guys with elite stuff. Meanwhile, the Cubs rely on deception rather than elite stuff. And this postseason, all too often, the Cubs haven’t deceived anyone.
My last thought heading into the Cubs offseason is that I would be trying to identify someone to counter sc0ut the Cubs. I would have someone going over every inning of video. I’m seeing more and more videos of players on the bases making hand gestures that don’t seem congruent with baserunning. There was at least one last night from a Brewer, preceding the Daniel Palencia homer. We are fairly certain the Yankees have locked in on things several times this year. I’ve seen it from the Dodgers and Phillies. I’m not accusing anyone of cheating, but I feel that somewhere along the way, the Cubs are, at times, giving away something. In the PitchCom era, I’m not sure what is being picked up on. It could be signs from the dugout, catcher and/or defensive positioning. Something, but I suspect the Cubs are occasionally tipping some of what they are doing.
Let’s breeze through the gory numbers.
Pitch Counts:
- Cubs: 133, 36 BF (8 IP)
- Brewers: 152, 35 BF
These two numbers are pretty similar. The Cubs threw 16.625 PPI and the Brewers 16.88. Both of those are what I would call “yellow zone.” That is 15-20 PPI. In this area, there is some flirting with disaster, but still a good number of games are won in this range.
The Cubs were fairly efficient for allowing 11 hits and two walks. Of course, that is very much related to the Brewers’ aggressive plate approach, putting a lot of first pitches into play. The Brewers had a pretty high pitch count for only allowing four hits and four walks. 11 strikeouts runs the count up some. The largest parts of that were starter Aaron Ashby and bulk pitcher Jacob Misiorowski.
Neither team will have any trouble finding ways to fill innings on Wednesday at Wrigley Field coming out of a day off.
Star Performances:
- Seiya Suzuki had a three-run homer and a walk.
- Drew Pomeranz with a perfect inning while the game was still tight.
- Nico Hoerner with two singles and a run.
- Justin Turner with a single in two plate appearances.
- Colin Rea was a tight rope act, but did get through 3.1 innings without allowing a run.
NL Division Series Game 2, October 6: Brewers 7, Cubs 3 (0-2)
Reminder: Heroes and Goats are determined by WPA scores and are in no way subjective.
THREE HEROES:
- Superhero: Seiya Suzuki (.217). 1-3, HR, BB, 3 RBI, R
- Hero: Matt Shaw (.014). 0-1, 2 BB
- Sidekick: Drew Pomeranz (.013). IP, 3 BF, K
THREE GOATS:
- Billy Goat: Shōta Imanaga (-.280). 2.2 IP, 13 BF, 5 H, 0 BB, 4 ER, 3 K (L 0-1)
- Goat: Daniel Palencia (-.195). IP, 6 BF, 2 H, 3 ER, K, HBP
- Kid: Pete Crow-Armstrong (-.067). 0-4
WPA Play of the Game: Andrew Vaughn’s three-run homer with two outs in the bottom of the first to tie the game. (.254)
*Cubs Play of the Game: Seiya Suzuki’s three-run homer in the top of the first gave the Cubs an early three run lead. (.217)
Cubs Player of the Game:
Game 1 Winner: Aaron Civale with 65 of 119 votes.
H&G Top/Bottom:
- Colin Rea +5
- Andrew Kittredge +4
- Ian Happ -6
Up Next: Game 3 Wednesday in Chicago. Jameson Taillon (11-7, 3.68, 129.2 regular season and 0-0, 0.00, 4 IP postseason) is charged with trying to keep the Cub season alive. Quinn Priester (13-3, 3.32, 157.1 IP) starts for the Brewers. He’s finishing strong, with a 2-1, 2.79 over his last seven starts. The Cubs got him pretty good in a May 2 start in Milwaukee, scoring seven runs in 4.1 innings. But in his two other starts, he held the Cubs to three runs over 10 innings.
It’s a tall order for the Cubs to keep this season rolling. Keep the faith. Let’s not go down without a fight.
