With yesterday’s win, this is the first time the Cubs are two games over .500 since June 26, and the team has its first four game winning streak since June 6. That time, the Cubs made it up to five games, which, sadly, was their longest winning streak of the year.
Jon Lester had himself a game last night, throwing seven strong innings with six strikeouts, one walk, and just three hits. After the worst start of his career the last time out, it was good to see Lester come back with a typical, head down, strong outing. If any pitcher in baseball would be completely unaffected by a disastrous outing, it’s Jon Lester.
Lester was charged with a really tough earned run when a Javy Baez throwing error on a double play attempt allowed the runner going to first to get to second base. That runner subsequently scored on a two-out hit after stealing third base. But without the throwing error, that runner would have been on first base to begin the sequence, not second base. Is the official scorer to assume (1) the runner would have stolen second base, and (2) would thereafter have scored from second on the hit? The answers to those questions are apparently yes and yes.
Baez’s throwing error demonstrated his pure hatred of tablets, by the way:
He also did a crazy thing at the plate to avoid getting wrecked by a pitch:
Hey, how about that game-saving block by Willson Contreras last night with the tying run on third base? Wade Davis really spiked one that had disaster written all over it, but Contreras got his body up and big enough to slow it down. I had been critical of Contreras’s blocking earlier this year, but it seems like there’s been improvement. Props.
Home plate ump CB Buckner was getting a lot of grief last night for his strike zone, which was certainly not good, but, upon review, it wasn’t one of those times where it was brutally inconsistent in a way that stands out. Instead, what stood out was just a handful of truly awful calls that you can see at Brooks. The Cubs missed out on a couple strikes that were extremely in the zone, got one that was extremely out of the zone, and Ian Happ got rung up on a pitch way out of the zone.
(By the way, that final pitch to Sean Rodriguez was solidly out of the strike zone, in case you were wondering. Didn’t matter, though, because he *OBVIOUSLY* offered at the pitch. I don’t really see how both the first base ump and home plate ump blew that one.)
John Lackey makes his first post-break start today, and we’ll see if the rest did him a solid like it seems to have done for everyone else. Joe Maddon is confident that Lackey will be better in the second half (ESPN), but a regression in his velocity, movement, and command make you a little uneasy that the 38-year-old will be able to bounce back this time.
Luke has been tracking long-time Cubs pitching prospect Dillon Maples for years (he was a big money draftee back in 2011), and we’ve all been thrilled to see how he’s broken out in a relief role this year, dominating at High-A and AA before, as Luke mentioned this morning, now being promoted to AAA. That was initially reported by Patrick Mooney, who has a full write up on Maples here, and you’re gonna want to check it out. I especially love hearing that Maples honed his slider this year in the relief role, and was encouraged by the Cubs to throw it more often, believe it was an 80(!) on the 20-80 scouting scale. The reason I love hearing that is when a breakout is paired with something tangible like that, it often becomes sustainable. Consider Maples on your radar for the big league bullpen later this year.
On the not-so-good side of things on the pitching prospect front, I didn’t realize how long Oscar De La Cruz had been out – since late May – with another elbow injury (Tribune). De La Cruz has the frame, the command, and the fastball you’d want from a frontline starter, but he’s not been able to stay consistently healthy.
This is such an enjoyable video on so many fronts:
The added markdowns at the official MLB Shop (a wonderful partner of BN’s, which supports this place when you make purchases via our links, cough cough) last through today, so check it out:
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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