The Historic Chicago Cubs Bullpen and Other Bullets

travis wood cubsThe Little Boy gets ear tubes in an adenoids out today, which will hopefully help him out with the constant spate of congestion and sickness he’s dealt with the last couple years.

  • Just as everyone should have been after what they did yesterday, Joe Maddon was over the moon about his bullpen’s performance in shutting down the Dodgers after Jason Hammel departed early (CSN, Cubs.com). In particular, Maddon fawned over what Travis Wood did in relief of Hammel, throwing four efficient, perfect innings, which allowed the rest of the bullpenners who came in – Justin Grimm, Pedro Strop, and Hector Rondon – to operate in otherwise “normal” roles, like they would on any other day. When Wood came into that game, you were probably thinking as I was that if he could give the Cubs three innings of one or two-run ball, that would be fantastic. What he did instead was absurd. It speaks to the value in having a guy like Wood available in the bullpen at a moment’s notice. Also: Wood has given up an earned run just once in his last 10 appearances.[adinserter block=”1″]
  • Here’s a taste of that bullpen performance, if you missed it:
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  • Thanks to that performance, the Cubs really aren’t in terrible shape for the rest of this series, despite losing their starter after just two innings yesterday. Normally, that would wreck a bullpen for several days. I suppose it doesn’t hurt that the Cubs have Jake Arrieta going tonight, and he can usually be counted on for at least six or seven innings. (His last start notwithstanding.)
  • Lots of fun historical tidbits from that performance, collected here in the Tribune. For example, that was the first time the Cubs have had the bullpen finish a game with 7 innings or more of no-hit ball in almost 70 years.
  • Hammel made a great point after the game about how the starts by Kyle Hendricks (a complete game) and John Lackey (7.0 innings) in the last two games set up the bullpen to be very comfortable coming into a game where they had to throw seven innings (ESPN).[adinserter block=”2″]
  • The heel issue that gave the Cubs an opportunity to rest Dexter Fowler yesterday – that’s how I’m choosing to phrase that – has him officially day-to-day (Tribune). Hopefully he’ll be good to go by tonight’s game, and, as of yesterday, that was Joe Maddon’s expectation (Cubs.com).
  • Miguel Montero’s been hot since returning in mid-May from his back issue, and hopefully that’ll carry forward (CSN). When Montero’s hitting like he can, the Cubs’ lineup looks all the more imposing.
  • This team:
  • If you’ve been looking for a quality blow-up mattress, this one is 50% off today.
  • written by

    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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