Look, I want to be more excited about this. Really, I do. It’s been a while since the Cubs had rookies lighting up scorebooks and winning major awards. And Patrick Wisdom winning NL Rookie of the Month for June is a legitimately impressive, exciting, and well-deserved honor.
Congratulations to @PatrickWisdom5, the NL Rookie of the Month!#CubTogether pic.twitter.com/z4sxJE4sce
— Chicago Cubs (@Cubs) July 2, 2021
But there’s so much context that brings me back down to Earth.
For one, Wisdom is a 29-year-old “rookie” who’s played in parts of four seasons now, just barely preserving his rookie status. So his win doesn’t quite mean as much towards his future with the Cubs as a 23-year-old rookie on his first tour of the league. For another, Wisdom’s strikeout rate in June was 41.6%. FOURTY-ONE POINT SIX. If he had enough plate appearances to qualify, which, itself, is something notable, he would have had the single worst mark in MLB for June. So. That’s not nothing.
There’s also the fact that he’s generally been trending in the wrong direction after a hot first few weeks:
First 59 PAs: 232 wRC+, 35.6 K%
Next 38 PAs: 108 wrC+, 44.7 K%
Then again, he’s got a four-game hitting streak brewing heading into tonight. So at least there’s that.
But even setting all of that aside, the Cubs just lost six games in a row, falling 6.5 games out of first place at the half-way point. That’s not Wisdom’s fault. In fact, without him, they’d be MUCH worse off overall (he really, truly carried this team for like two weeks). But combined with everything else, it’s just tampering the excitement. Sorry to be a buzzkill. This is supposed to be an individual award and Wisdom did earn it with his insane month. But the broader context of the team is weighing on me.
I think a monster weekend in Cincinnati would help, though. And, hey, Wisdom is back in the starting lineup tonight after appearing to be hurt in Milwaukee. Maybe he can make some more fireworks and extend this streak another month … or year or four.