Today’s shocking fact is that the Cubs weren’t quite good enough against the Mets in New York in a series where they were without Justin Steele, Shōta Imanaga and Ian Happ. Ryan Pressly hasn’t worked out at closer and the Cubs are at the tail end of what has been and probably will remain the toughest stretch of games that any team in MLB will see this season.
But they were close. Sunday’s game could have gone either way and was tied into the eighth inning. I love that I appear to be on the same page as Craig Counsell: Have your best reliever face their best hitter in their (presumed) last time up. It didn’t work. I don’t love the strategy any less. I am not any less excited by Porter Hodge. This is already a small handful of times this year that Craig has pushed some aggressive buttons at just the right time but had them not work out. I’m loving seeing a more aggressive Counsell in year two. This was the guy I saw them hiring. This is the guy who I thought was the best in the business.
It’s obviously a little disingenuous to include Justin Steele on my list. He’s been gone a while and won’t be coming back, at least not this season. They have to move on from that, but with all due respect to Colin Rea, that’s all pretty new and he wasn’t entirely stretched out when he was pushed back into the rotation. If I told you the Cubs would win the Cade Horton “start” in New York, you probably would have guessed the Cubs would win the series.
Early in this season, the Cubs went to Sacramento. They saw a team that wasn’t playing particularly good baseball (then) and swept it. Battered them while doing it. That is the next test for the Cubs. Over the next 40 games to close out the first half, things lighten up. Some of those teams will be playing well when we see them and some won’t. Now comes the new challenge of win the series and bury them if you catch a team playing badly.
I look forward to the next challenge. This last two weeks have a lot of wishy washy Cubs fans defaulting to giving up on this team. Don’t make them right. I was one of the first to stand up and say this team is going to be a special one. I still believe that. I’ve devoted a lot of years to following this team good and bad. I’ve never had any trouble looking at them and seeing a bad team coming. So I don’t think I’m looking through powder blue Cubbie glasses.
Now it’s time to find out.
Pitch Count:
Cubs: 128 (8 IP), 35 BF
Mets: 132, 32 BF
The recent trend has been the opposition making the Cubs work harder. To be fair, these numbers were pretty identical through six. The trouble was in the bullpen and particularly with Hodge throwing 10 pitches and recording only one out while allowing three runs. I’m not positive it was Hodge, but I recall the Mets flipping a game on the Cubs last year in a small handful of pitches. That team is explosive for sure.
The Cubs need Ian Happ and his strong plate approach back in the lineup. And they need to get back to that methodical plate approach. It goes unsaid here (and as the major theme in Al’s recap) that the bullpen needs to come together. There are flashes. I’m expecting Tyson Miller back soon. He was a key piece of the pen last year. Hopefully, he can add some length. I’m loving the early returns on Drew Pomeranz.
Three Stars:
The Cubs managed only three hits and two walks. So that this game was competitive was almost solely the work of Matthew Boyd. He was terrific again, allowing two runs over six. He battles Carson Kelly for the best offseason add not named Kyle Tucker.
Pete Crow-Armstrong had another big series. He joins Tucker in the 10-homer, 10-steal club before May 15. Only Shohei Ohtani joins the two Cubs among other MLB players. That’s some elite company. If PCA were to more or less replicate this quarter season three more times, he would be firmly in the MVP conversation.
Nico Hoerner had an RBI double. I can’t restate how slim the pickings are on this one. The game wasn’t as close as the score.
Game 41, May 11: Mets 6, Cubs 2 (23-18)
Fangraphs
Reminder: Heroes and Goats are determined by WPA scores and are in no way subjective.
THREE HEROES:
Superhero: Nico Hoerner (.162). 1-3, 2B, RBI
Hero: Brad Keller (.084). IP, 3 BF, H, K
Sidekick: Pete Crow-Armstrong (.068). 1-4, HR, RBI, R
THREE GOATS:
Billy Goat: Porter Hodge (-.344). ⅓ IP, 4 BF, 3 H, 3 ER
Goat: Jon Berti (-.146). 0-3
Kid: Kyle Tucker (-.112). 0-4
WPA Play of the Game: Francisco Lindor’s homer leading off the eighth broke a 2-2 tie. (.273)
*Cubs Play of the Game: Nico Hoerner’s one-out RBI double tied the game at two in the seventh. (.204)
Cubs Player of the Game:
Poll
Who was the Cubs Player of the Game?
0%
Pete Crow-Armstrong
(0 votes)
0%
Someone else (leave your suggestion in the comments)
(0 votes)
0 votes total
Yesterday’s Winner: Dansby Swanson received 65 of 132 votes (and 45-48 wins received 73 of 126 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.
Kyle Tucker +18
Shōta Imanaga +11
Ian Happ +8
Miguel Amaya +7
Nico Hoerner +6
Matt Shaw/Dansby Swanson -7
Ben Brown -9
Seiya Suzuki -9.5
Julian Merryweather -10
Up Next: In recent years, we’ve increasingly seen instances of a team playing the White Sox for three and then meeting a returning to home Cubs team. I haven’t, but I wonder if anyone has tracked how this shapes up. Surely it’s been frequent for years for the California teams and for a while for the Texas teams that share the same league. But with increasing interleague play, this has become more possible for the Cubs and Sox.
The Marlins are 15-24 and coming off of a loss to the Sox on Sunday. Their “ace” dropped to 2-5 and I’m frankly happy that the Cubs don’t have to deal with the underachieving former star. Colin Rea (2-0, 2.43, 29⅔ IP) has sparkled so far as a starter. He is coming off of his worst start yet though, allowing four runs in five innings last week against the Giants. It will be interesting to see how he bounces back.
It pains me to type that Cal Quantrill is 30 years old. I certainly watched his Dad’s career. I noticed for the first time that he’s also the son-in-law of Andy Ashby. There are surely some lively family gatherings discussing pitching philosophy. The former first-round (eighth overall) pick of the Padres in 2016 is 2-3 with a 7.11 ERA. He’s coming off of one his best starts, holding the Dodgers to one run over five. That’s an achievement. I would not classify Cal as a former star, but he has been better than his numbers this year, even when he threw for Colorado last year (4.98 ERA). The Miami transition isn’t going well. He’s a former 15-game winner and the first round pedigree says that at one point he projected to be a star.
Get back into the groove. Start stacking series wins. Right now.