If you had Javier Assad as the first Cub to have a real “shove” game, kudos. There are no must-win games 11 games into the season. In general, each win is a little more valuable than the one before it. There are definitely some wins against teams that are pretty clearly mailing it in that don’t have much weight to them. But in general, as soon as the dust settles on today’s win, you are looking to win another one just as soon as feasibly possible.
The old cliché is that championships aren’t won in
April, but they can be lost. With the first back-to-back losses of the year and the frustrating news of Cade Horton’s injury severity, you really felt like you needed to go out there and get a win. You don’t want that cloud lingering any longer than it has to. It was good to blow one out, maybe get a few guys going and just reset things a little. Of course, you can’t just have one circle the wagon game. You have to start picking up the pieces, recognizing that you have to find ways to win with the 26 guys down there in the locker room.
Perhaps the biggest performance on a night with a lot of really encouraging ones was that of Javier Assad. Javier had gotten knocked around in his two starts for Iowa after pitching well for Mexico in the WBC. Pitching for Iowa isn’t always the easiest thing. They play in a lot of offense-friendly environments. Certainly, the scores coming from Iowa games have felt a little more supercharged than those coming from the MLB version of the Cubs. Regardless of the case, Javier had his longest outing of the year. He finished one out short of adding another quality start for the Cubs.
Make no mistake though, this was a high quality start. It was more than I would have even realistically hoped for. I wavered in the fifth and thought they should get someone loose in a hurry. But then, as he’s done so many times, he wiggled out of trouble and escaped unscathed with a little bit of help from his defense. An inning later, he left to a very nice ovation from the Cub faithful in Tampa.
The crowd seemed to be maybe 40 percent Cub fans on a night when the Trop was the most packed it has been in any of the four games I’ve now seen there. I’d previously seen an Oriole game, a Yankee game and a Cub game. The Yankee game had been the largest crowd and was perhaps 60 percent or more Yankee fans. Or the Yankee fans were just that much louder. But this was a pretty full house. I’ve not seen anything like that. They wound up with 21,377 for the game. The normal capacity for Rays games is 25,000. Unless they ever routinely open the upper deck (increasing capacity to over 42,000), this was almost 85 percent capacity.
Things looked back to normal in the park. It has always been a very clean park and the staff friendly. I got two tickets down the third base line in short left and near the back for less than $30 each. The team gave all April ticket purchasers $10 in stadium credit. So I spent around $60 for two tickets and then less than $15 for two large beers.
I got burned for the first time not pre-paying for parking. I’d done it in the past and found I had pre-paid more for parking than it was going on gameday. But with a crowd this large, all of the lots filled. I was able to find private parking cheaper than stadium parking and not too much further, so I was only out time.
Traffic was terrible. More maddeningly, the traffic didn’t appear to be caused by gameday traffic. They have to eventually get a new park. I’m far from the only person willing to spend money on their games that is put off by having to drive more than an hour to get to the game. There isn’t much of any way to use public transportation to get there if you are outside of the city either. For those not familiar with the Tampa-St. Pete area, Tampa is the northern part of twin cities. I live in the suburbs north of Tampa. So I have to drive north to south across the entire city, generally in rush hour, past an airport and then basically across onto an island. It’s all so bottlenecked and there are a million places for traffic to snarl.
Enough of the rant. Again, the Rays staff is friendly and helpful, at least from what I’ve encountered. They have plenty of police presence around the game trying to direct people and trying to be helpful. Their fans are good natured. It’s no doubt frustrating that on any given night such a large percentage of fans are rooting for the other side. It’s a melting pot city. People move here from all over the country, primarily the northeast, but there is a large Midwest group too. There’s a not small number that come down from Canada. So there aren’t a ton of roots to the team.
The Rays are such a well-run organization. They are easy to root for, and the other 159 games of the season, I do. If the Cubs don’t win a championship, my second choice will always be the Rays. As a game day fan, I love that I can make a decision to go to a game and not need to map that decision out months ahead of time. I love that I can get parking (generally) easy. I used to love that about going to see the White Sox or Brewers play back in the 90’s. I love the Cubs, but if you aren’t a season ticket holder, it can be a bit like planning a vacation to get to a game. And I’ve spent more for me for a single game than I did to take my wife and I and have a drink tonight. So it’s a different experience.
For however long, baseball is back at the Trop. The roof looks a little funky. Apparently, some of the ceiling tiles were hard to match and will need time in the sun to get all the way back to the right color. It looked to my eye like a couple of Cubs had trouble picking up fly balls Monday afternoon. They looked fine in this one. But I’m sure everything will be business as usual sooner than later. They know they need the stadium until the next chapter is written. So everyone is playing nice. They’ll be a different entity in Tampa and draw from a little different local base. I think in the long run it’s a bigger base. But stadiums are tricky business (and politics). I will forever be hopeful that everyone plays nice and the team is here a long time.
Thanks for bearing with me. Back to what matters: A Cub win.
Three Positives:
- Javier Assad was the star of the show. Everything that could realistically be expected out of him.
- Alex Bregman with three hits including a double. Finally, a few balls found some space.
- Pete Crow-Armstrong. A baseball oddity, a homer and a bunt single among three hits. Stole a base for good measure. One of three for the Cubs.
An honorable mention to Miguel Amaya and Javier Assad. Miggy didn’t have any hits. Someone had to make the outs, I guess. But the Rays didn’t get any kind of motion going on the bases. In their three-game winning streak that just ended, they had been running a lot. Javy limited the traffic and together, there was no motion on the bases.
Game 11, April 7: Cubs 9, Rays 2 (5-6)
Reminder: Heroes and Goats are determined by WPA scores and are in no way subjective.
THREE HEROES:
- Superhero: Javier Assad (.235). 5.2 IP, 19 BF, H, 2 BB, 0 ER, 3 K (W 1-0)
- Hero: Matt Shaw (.115). 2-5, 2B, RBI
- Sidekick: Alex Bregman (.111). 3-5, 2B, R
THREE GOATS:
- Billy Goat: Michael Busch (-.073). 0-5
- Goat: Miguel Amaya (-.057). 0-5
- Kid: Phil Maton (-.014). 0.2 IP, 6 BF, 3 H, 0 BB, 2 ER, K, HBP
WPA Play of the Game: Matt Shaw batted with a runner on first and two outs in the second, the Cubs up one. He doubled, driving in a run. (.107)
*Rays Play of the Game: Chandler Simpson batted with a runner on first and no outs, the Rays down fourth. He singled, giving the Rays two on with no outs. (.057)
Cubs Player of the Game:
Game 10 Winner: Nico Hoerner received 86 of 102 votes.
Rizzo Award Standings: (Top 3/Bottom 3)
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.
- Edward Cabrera +6
- Hoby Milner/Ian Happ/Nico Hoerner +4
- Michael Busch/Alex Bregman -4
- Matt Shaw -5
- Phil Maton -6
Up Next: The third and final game of the series. Colin Rea (0-0, 4.26, 6.1 IP) gets his first start of the season for the Cubs. He does own a save. He’s pitched twice, so he’s stayed relatively stretched out. Each of the last two seasons he’s appeared in 32 games, starting 27. 26-year-old Joe Boyle (0-0, 3.18, 11.1 IP) gets his third start of the year for the Rays. The 5th-round pick of the Reds in 2020 out of Notre Dame (143rd overall) pitched in 13 games, nine starts for the Rays last year. He was 1-4 with a 4.67 in those games. He’s pitched reasonably well against the Twins and Cardinals to start the year with nothing to show for it. He struck out nine in just 5.1 innings against the Twins last time out. This is no gimme to say the least.
Colin Rea won a lot of big games in 2025 for the Cubs. Hopefully, he does it again.
