Tomato, tomahto. You say pitchers’ duel. I say boring. You might counter point that I’d have viewed the whole thing differently if my team had the two runs. Or if it had held on to the four-run lead Tuesday. Or the lead on Saturday. In the end, it’s just a series of disappointments and questions about what might have been. I suspect none of this is going to do any long term damage to the Cubs. I never thought they had a very good chance of catching the Brewers and I don’t really think the Phillies are going to pass the Cubs. Recall that the Cubs have the tiebreaker and the Phillies will have to pass, not just catch the Cubs. While you might look at a bunch of games with the Brewers and see potential disaster. They have a similar bunch of games with the Braves and equal possibility of disaster. Or even switching spots with the Braves and wrecking them.
I’ve said it elsewhere in posts, at the end of the day I will hat tip Jed Hoyer and the terrific job he did bringing this team together. I continue to believe that this team has a non-delusional chance of winning the World Series. I also think, at best, they are running way on the outside against two (or more) very good horses on the inside. It’s not going to be easy and everything would have to break right. To think otherwise, you are into that delusional territory.
At the same time, one can raise an eyebrow at Jed. Pitchers with injury history are not any new market inefficiency. Yes, there is some value to picking up some discounted value for damaged goods. You are almost silly not to. I see the Brewers and Brandon Woodruff that way. A calculated risk at value for a guy who can be great but has injury issues. The problem is, so much of the Cubs pitching staff had injury history. At some point, you gotta get some horses who can pile up some effective innings. The Cubs got burned because seemingly every one of those guys with the injury history spent time injured. Compounding that, almost all of them had worst cased scenarios on the severity of their injury and/or the difficulty rehabbing the injury. At this late date, a key pitcher had his return pushed back due to a setback with his recovery.
You can give a guy kudos and a sideways look. There is a lot of good and some foreseeable missteps. Still, even with all of that. With one of the largest collections of pitcher injuries I’ve ever seen one team have, there was the Cub pitching rolling into Arizona. The club had a rough trip to Seattle and were looking to bounce back. The bright side? Arguably the team’s three best pitchers were lined up to start the three games in Arizona. Collectively they gave you 20 innings of one run baseball. Three Superhero awards for the starters in three days. That’s going to feel like it should be a sweep for the good guys. Worst case? Two out of three.
Darn. They only got one. That stings a little. This trip could easily have featured four wins and it’s not insane to imagine five or six. They got two. Three bullpen losses on the trip. Just when everything seemed to be settling down, old wounds reopened. Not optimal.
Still, this is a hat tip game. Diamondback pitching was fantastic. Diamondback defense was very good. Diamondback hitting was good enough. Come home, regroup. Get back after it.
Matthew Boyd threw six innings of one-run ball. Nice bounce back after a couple of rough ones. Final decision in fewer than 30 games, but in some order this series probably had your three pitchers for a three-game series.Pete Crow-Armstrong had the only extra-base hit out of two total team hits. He should have scored, save for a missed balk call that he forced with aggressive baserunning.Tyrone Taylor continues to impress. He had a single and stole a base.
Game 134, August 26: Diamondbacks 2, Cubs 0 (76-58)
Baseball Savant
Superhero: Matthew Boyd (.169). 6 IP, 20 BF, 3 H, 2 BB, R, 5 K (L 8-3)Hero: Trent Thornton (.045). IP, 4 BF, H, KSidekick: Pete Crow-Armstrong (.017). 1-4, 2BBilly Goat: Nico Hoerner (-.153). 0-4Goat: Alex Bregman (-.149). 0-3, BBKid: Gabriel Arias (-.119). 0-3
WPA Play of the Game: Jordan Lawlar’s solo homer in the sixth off of Boyd. (.166)
Cubs Play of the Game: Pete Crow-Armstrong’s double leading off the top of the sixth. (.092)
Game 133 Winner: Clay Holmes received 61 of 62 votes. I did not think this was a unanimous choice situation. The Holmes start has long term implications. The Happ homer gave them their best chance of winning that game and was a terrific plate appearance.
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.
Pete Crow-Armstrong +26Alex Bregman +20Ben Brown +13.5Carson Kelly +12.5Javier Assad/Trent Thornton +12Edward Cabrera -12.5Jameson Taillon -13Nico Hoerner -14Dansby Swanson -17Caleb Thielbar -18.5
Scoreboard Watching: Will return following Friday’s game.
Up Next: An off day Thursday, then 13 straight games. So we go to Fangraphs for the pre-stretch look at potential record. Fangraphs had the Cubs at 4-2 on the trip, winning three close ones in Arizona before the trip, if I recall. They have this stretch at 6-6-1, breaking down to 4-3 at home and then 2-3-1 on the road with a pure 50 percent in the opener of the road trip being a pure coin flip game.
The Reds come to Wrigley at 63-71. An unusual thing ahead of an off day, but both teams have listed starters on MLB.com. They are showing David Peterson (7-7, 5.17) for the Cubs. David is 4-1 with a 3.93 as a Cub, significantly turning around his season. Ironically, his ground ball to fly ball ratio has actually dropped a bit as a Cub. So the Cub infield defense is not solely responsible for the improvement. David pitched well in Seattle in one of the games that got away, allowing two runs over six.
The Reds start 24-year-old righty Rhett Lowder (5-8, 5.13). Rhett is holding pretty steady at 2-2, 5.54 over his last seven starts. He allowed three runs over six against the Diamondbacks and won his last start. The Cubs had more luck against Lowder as a starter (3 runs in 3 innings) than as a reliever (2 scoreless innings).
I’m betting the Cubs offense bounces back in a big way in this series. The Reds are sometimes a target for Ian Happ’s big weekends. The Reds are 25th (4.53) in bullpen ERA, 25th in bullpen WHIP (1.43) and have the seventh most bullpen losses (27). So the bullpen can be beat if you can get starters out of these games. Fangraphs really likes the Cubs in this series, with this first one topping out at about 65 percent. The Cubs have a tricky September, it would be very beneficial to grab three right away (though those would obviously be August wins).