RISPy Woes, Slappy Joc, Achey Players, and Other Cubs Bullets

Two off-days sandwiching a mini-series sweep can really turn you around quickly. The Cubs have lost three in a row – all by one run, and all short-handed. Really not THAT big of a deal, in isolation. But you throw in those off-days, and the Cubs haven’t won a game since Saturday. And you throw in the context – where you were already concerned about how competitive the Cubs needed to look in order to keep the band together – and it feels so much worse to see the Cubs drop these three after winning five in a row.

•   The Cubs went 2-27 with runners in scoring position in Cleveland, which is one of those things that’s so bad it’s hard to pull off even on accident. And stop me if you’ve heard this before: the Cubs are really bad this year with runners in scoring position, posting an 85 wRC+, the 6th worst mark in baseball. HOWEVER, unlike years past when this issue showed itself again and again and again, this time it isn’t because the Cubs are striking out all the time in those situations and hitting for no power. To be sure, their strikeout rate (24.2%) and ISO (.161) with RISP aren’t great, but they’re right around middle-of-the-pack. Instead, the reason for the Cubs’ terrible RISP numbers is the dreadful .252 BABIP, third worst in baseball. And that part isn’t really just bad luck – their hard contact rate in those situations is bottom third in baseball, and their 47.9% groundball rate is second worst in baseball. BABIP on grounders just isn’t what it used to be; so, yeah, you desperately want to put the ball in play with runners in scoring position – we know that drill! – but you still have to balance it against aiming to make quality contact.

•   The banged up lineup didn’t help the last two days of Cubs RISP woes, of course, since they were wholly without Nico Hoerner, Ian Happ, and Jake Marisnick, mostly without Kris Bryant, and partly without Javy Báez. That’s a lot of your key guys not taking those at bats.

•   As of this moment, while Marisnick is going to be out for a good bit, Báez is already back, Bryant’s HBP to the wrist isn’t expected to cost him time, Hoerner is expected back on Friday, and Ian Happ is not far behind (Cubs.com). So the Cubs could be much closer to fully healthy – Jake Arrieta returns tomorrow, too – as soon as this weekend, when they really need to beat up on a rebuilding Tigers team.

•   After another big game, Joc Pederson is looking increasingly Joc Pederson-like. In his seven games since returning from the IL (wrist, but also a mental reset), Pederson is hitting .444/.484/.481 with a 169 wRC+. And heck, you can now go all the way back to the second week of the season – chopping off that first miserable week – and he’s hitting .292/.382/.385 (118). What’s been interesting since then, though, is that his BABIP is a crazy .409, which is *COMPLETELY* out of whack for him. Historically, Pederson is a low-BABIP, huge walk huge slug guy. So far with the Cubs, he’s been a slappy singles hitter. You’ll be unsurprised to learn that, while he’s still hitting the ball roughly as hard has he usually does, his average launch angle is way down, and his line drives (as opposed to fly balls) are way up. I suspect we’re just seeing some flukey small sample stuff, but I guess I don’t want to forget that he did apparently make some changes to his swing and setup over the offseason. We’ll just have to keep observing. Wonder if he’ll get more starts as the leadoff hitter against righties, given what he’s doing right now.

•   Fun fact on Pederson’s hot stretch? At least yesterday, he was using one of Anthony Rizzo’s bats, as caught by the Marquee broadcast. Rizzo uses Matt Szczur’s bats, Pederson uses Rizzo’s bats – who’s gonna get hot by using Pederson’s bats?

•   MacBook Pros, grills, smokers, and more are your Deals of the Day at Amazon. #ad

•   Don’t party too hard, gents:

•   Brewers ace Corbin Burnes did indeed have COVID-19, and he’ll return today against the Cardinals after missing two weeks, despite the infection being asymptomatic the whole time. All the more reason for teams to try to max out vaccinations: while they aren’t 100% effective at preventing an infection, we do know that the chances one vaccinated person gives it to another vaccinated person are extraordinarily low – so the more vaccinated folks in your clubhouse, the better your chances of not having to miss time when you’re not actually even sick. The Brewers, by the way, passed the 85% vaccination mark during Burnes’ absence.

•   The Astros are doing something good that every organization should obviously be offering:

•   We’re running an EXTREMELY EASY contest over at our Bears Twitter page, so if you want to win a free Justin Fields jersey, hit it up:

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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