We turn to sports for various reasons. It helps us escape the daily routine and frustration that life can be. If watching the Cubs these past few weeks has been an escape, give yourself a pat on the back. Because this has been more frustration than enjoyment. The Cubs’ season high is eight games over .500. They reached that point on April 26. They are now 8-12 since then.
This was and is a roster capable of winning the NL Central and has enough pitchers to keep them in a playoff series. At some point, you have to wonder if the team can recover enough to make a good run. Given a reasonable level of health, a team is expected to play at its level over time. But with poor health, you can’t be sure what you will achieve or what the consequences will be.
Prolonged periods of ill health pushed minor actors into larger roles. There is a natural psychological effect of healthy kids trying to overcompensate for the losses around them. This team is in a really bad spiral right now and facing all these elite young arms certainly doesn’t help.
Of course, if you can stay afloat, you can always cut in more than one direction. There’s always a chance that a guy like Tyson Miller or Miles Mastrobuoni emerges as someone who might never have gotten an extended opportunity and then becomes a bigger contributor as part of a healthy team. Certainly, the 2023 Cubs were nowhere near snakebitten with injuries, but Mike Tauchman fits that description perfectly. A guy who was meant to be a spare piece to provide some depth who is finding it increasingly difficult not to consider him part of his plans.
No matter how bad things have gone at times, we continue to see a team that has not lost three consecutive games at any time. Today they will try to avoid that distinction. I don’t think the Pirates have a third player who has the tools to potentially become a future superstar they can launch. I don’t know what the short- or long-term outcome will be for either of the last two guys to pitch for the Cubs. I do know that, at least at times, they are also going to give other teams headaches.
For seven innings, I wondered if I would find anything positive to talk about in this game. When you lose 7-0 and don’t get a hit, do you give credit to the couple of guys who put the ball in play? There was at least some damage control at the end, so I think I can squint and find a couple of positive performances.
Game 46, May 17: Pirates 9, Cubs 3 (25-21)
fangraphs
Reminder: Heroes and Goats are determined by WPA scores and are in no way subjective.
THREE HEROES:
- Super Hero: José Cuás (.003). 1⅔ IP, 7 hitters, H, BB, 3 K
- Hero/Child: Hector Neris/Luke Little (.001). Neris: IP, 4 hitters, H; Little ⅔ IP, 2 hitters, K
THREE GOATS:
- Kyle Hendricks (-.301). 4⅔ inputs, 11 H, 8 R, 7 ER, 4 K (P 0-4)
*For Hendricks, that’s six Billy Goat appearances in seven starts this season.
- Goat: Mike Tauchman (-.037). 1-4, R.
- Child: Nick Madrigal (-.031). 0-4
WPA Gameplay: This game was actually scoreless until the third inning. That’s when Jared Triolo hit with a runner on first and no outs. He hit a two-run home run and with the way Paul Skenes was pitching, this game was over. (.174)
* Cubs play of the game: With a runner on second and one out in the fourth inning, Kyle Hendricks got Jack Suwinski to ground out, at least temporarily keeping the line two runs down. (.036)
Cubs Player of the Game:
Survey
Who was the Cubs Player of the Game?
80% Cristóbal Morel (83 votes)
10% Someone else (leave your suggestion in the comments) (11 votes)
103 votes in total Vote now
Yesterday’s winner: Tyson Miller (53 percent) over Cody Bellinger (25 percent)
Rizzo Award Cumulative Standings: (first 4/last 4)
The award is named after Anthony Rizzo, who finished first in this category three of the first four years of its existence and four times overall. He also posted the highest season total ever at +65.5. The point scale is from three points for a superhero to three negative points for a goat.
- Javier Asad +12.5
- Shota Imanaga +12
- Mark Leiter Jr. +10
- Hayden Wesneski +7.5
- Happy Ian -7
- Miguel Amaya-9
- Adbert Alzolay -10
- Kyle Hendricks -17
Until next time: Third game of the four-game series. The Cubs have to win on Saturday to have a chance to split the series. They have the right man on the mound to try to flip the script. Shōta Imanaga (5-0, 0.96, 46⅔ IP) sends baseball historians back to the record books seemingly every time he pitches. He hasn’t been a winning pitcher since May 1. But he has pitched well enough to win in all eight of his starts. He had 36 hits, eight walks and seven runs (five earned) in those eight starts. 51 strikeouts. He has been nothing short of phenomenal to date.
Bailey Falter (2-2, 4.15, 43⅓ IP) starts for the Pirates. He pitched reasonably well against the Cubs last Sunday. He allowed five hits, two walks and two runs in six innings of work. He only struck out one and with only 27 strikeouts this year, he doesn’t strike out many guys. He has a pitching streak of seven starts at least five innings. Except for a start in Miami to start the year and a start in Oakland in late April, he has kept his team in the game. I can’t even begin to explain how, at least in numbers, his two worst starts were against the lowly A’s and Marlins.
“Need” is mentioned too often in baseball. There are so many games that the axioms used in other sports just aren’t really accurate. But at least proverbially, the Cubs need to win this one. They have a really favorable pitching matchup and the best team. They still haven’t lost three games in a row. Don’t start now.
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