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Can’t Really Complain About the Pitcher Usage Yesterday and Other Bullets

Brett Taylor Brett Taylor
Apr 11, 2014
Chicago Cubs

travis wood beardPneumonia Watch, Day 5: The Wife is actually home today, helping out with The Little Boy. She and I were going to take a trip to Chicago this weekend, just for fun, so she had already scheduled the day off. Unfortunately we won’t be able to go to Chicago, but I think she’s enjoying the extra time with Clark, who seems to be very much on the mend.

  • Travis Wood was fantastic yesterday, and was brought out to start the 7th inning despite already being at 104 pitches. That’s not what I would have done, but Ricky Renteria told Cubs.com the plan was that, if anyone reached base, Wood would come out. Wood left an ugly changeup up in the zone, Neil Walker ripped it for a double, and Wood was pulled. That started the horrible, game-losing 7th inning … but I don’t really have a beef with it. For me, in April, I pretty much would end any pitcher’s day at 100 pitches in that situation, and I would have started the inning with the bullpen. But Walker is a much better hitter against righties than lefties in his career, so putting Wood in there to face him before going to a righty in the pen is a perfectly acceptable decision. Ditto the decision to go to Brian Schlitter (it was a four-run lead) and then James Russell (lefty-on-lefty). That those decisions didn’t work out doesn’t necessarily mean they were the wrong decisions.
  • Javier Baez, the youngest player in AAA right now, hit his second homer of the season yesterday, but his overall line is just .154/.214/.423 with 10 Ks in 28 plate appearances. And yet I’m not nervous in the least. We always knew there was going to be an adjustment process, and, according to eyes on reports, Baez has missed an additional four home runs in the last few days by a combined 25 or so feet. Imagine the stories if he had five homers in his first week at AAA?
  • Tommy Birch reports that Baez is dealing with a slightly sore back, which apparently is something that happens from time to time, because of his huge swing (watch it once, and you understand). It’s probably not a big deal, but you do wonder if he’ll be able to continue tolerating that kind of physical violence as he gets older.
  • The Cubs are going to improve some local baseball fields for the community, which raises only one question: when is the community meeting so that a few grousers can complain?
  • Everybody loves Super Emilio 64.
  • A profile on Cubs pitching prospect Paul Blackburn, who has added 50 pounds of “good” weight over the past couple years.
  • Sahadev Sharma will be in studio with Connor McKnight on 87.7 The Game at 10 am this Saturday for an hour of baseball talk. You should listen, because they’re both swell.
  • Oh, The Onion. The Cubs are sardonically skewered once again by the witty publication, which seems to take on the Cubs quite a bit, relatively speaking. I suppose when you provide so much fodder for humor …
  • Also, I chuckled:

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    written by

    Brett Taylor

    Brett Taylor is the Lead Cubs Writer at Bleacher Nation, and you can find him on Twitter at @BleacherNation and on LinkedIn here. Brett is also the founder of Bleacher Nation, which opened up shop in 2008 as an independent blog about the Chicago Cubs. Later growing to incorporate coverage of other Chicago sports, Bleacher Nation is now one of the largest regional sports blogs on the web.

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