Rotation Questions, Stretching Chatwood, Tribal Fandom, Retaliating Pirates, and Other Bullets

May 29, 2018

I don’t really get into basketball throughout the year, but I’ll admit that I do check it out during the playoffs. And since I’m as casual as it gets, I’m fine with a fourth straight match-up between LeBron James’ Cavs and the Warriors. I get that it’s probably boring at this point for a lot of hardcore basketball fans, but for me, it all just becomes one big era to remember.

With Mike Montgomery pitching well yesterday (more on that in a moment), you’re gonna hear a lot of calls for him to stay in the rotation regardless of what happens with Yu Darvish’s injury, because folks will want to see him replacing Tyler Chatwood. On that front, although I’ve always been a big Montgomery booster, I’d preach just a little bit of caution about leaping TOO quickly to pronounce any one guy any one thing. Would I want to see Montgomery get at least one more start, even if it came in place of Chatwood? Yes. Am I ready to make some kind of permanent change? No. (I tend to think Darvish is likely to miss at least one more start anyway, so Montgomery will get that second start regardless of Chatwood.)

To that end, the Cubs are considering having Chatwood pitch exclusively from the stretch, wondering if his windup is unnecessarily complicating his mechanics (Tribune). It is worth pointing out that Chatwood’s ghastly walk rate is 25.5% with the bases empty (i.e., out of the windup), and 15.2% with runners on base (i.e., out of the stretch). For his career, the numbers are 12.2% and 10.5%, respectively, so there might be something there.

Also in that Tribune piece, yes, Chatwood will be working with the Cubs’ mental skills team.

To folks making the point that we’d/I’d be pissed if that same Anthony Rizzo slide happened to Willson Contreras, you’re absolutely correct – and that’s at least part of the reason I said I didn’t think Rizzo’s slide was in the spirit of what MLB is trying to accomplish with its slide rules. But the bigger reason? Tribalism, of course! Let’s at least be honest about it: when a play falls into a gray area, fans are going to instinctively leap to the side that protects the players on the team they care about. I try to be intellectually honest as often and as much as possible, but I gotta be a fan, too – and sometimes being a fan means you see that gray area, and then you let your fandom shade it just a bit. Overall, I’d like to think my comments on the matter would be similar to what they are now … I’d just be a bit angrier about it.

Are we thinking the Pirates are going to retaliate today, by the way? They tend to be one of the most retaliation-oriented teams in baseball, so my default would be to expect a pitch behind Rizzo at the least. Moreover, there have been flaps here and there between the teams going back to the heated 2015 Wild Card Game. I think maybe they hate the Cubs, even as the Cubs have a bit of Don-Draper-I-don’t-think-about-you-at-all going on. Don’t hit Rizzo today, guys. Nothing happened in the 9th inning, so maybe it’s already over? It’s just so annoying that you can even wonder these things and not be crazy.

What do you think Clint Hurdle was saying there? I’m going with he was mid-“That’s hoooooooooooorse[plop]!”

After pinch hitting yesterday (sore shoulder), Ian Happ says he’s good to go (Cubs.com).

This was one of those really random, really fun games at a time when there weren’t that many for the Cubs:

#OTD in 2013: Dioner Navarro haunted the White Sox with three home runs in a 9-3 Cubs win pic.twitter.com/ybKRyjvkP6

— Cubs Talk (@NBCSCubs) May 29, 2018

Swimwear and fancy shoes are among the Deals of the Day at Amazon today, and the Echo is also 15% off.

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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