The Cubs bounced back from last night’s low-scoring loss with a low-scoring win of their own. They didn’t do a LOT against Adam Wainwright, but they did make a decent bit of hard contact, plated two, and the pitching made it stand up.
You can never take too much away from any one pitching appearance, much less a young pitcher’s big league debut. So caution all across the board on Javier Assad’s first game.
But you could see some general things: Assad has six pitches, at least three of which look like “big league pitches,” but his command of them was definitely spotty today. His cutter, one of his most used and most important pitches, was frequently absent for him (especially the first two innings – I would say at least 50% were completely non-competitive out of the hand). The four-seam fastball location was really inconsistent, too. That 3000 RPM curveball could really be something if he can throw it for strikes.
All that said, when you ARE talking about a young pitcher’s big league debut, most of what you’re looking for are multiple big league caliber pitches (like I said, check), and a guy who doesn’t seem phased by the enormity of the moment. That was also a check for Assad, whose wildness early may have been a mild nod to nerves, but he never lost his composure, despite facing some of the biggest bats in baseball in thorny situations.
A fun aside, his first ever strikeout came against a future Hall of Famer:
By the 5th, he was clearly losing steam, and there was also the risk that his lack of command was going to get him lit up the third time through. So you couldn’t, for that reason, call it a “great” outing. But it was successful insofar as wanting to see Assad clear the baseline threshold stuff mentioned above. Next time? More command, because big league hitters aren’t going to offer at the non-competitive stuff.
The Cubs needed multi-inning appearances from Michael Rucker and Erich Uelmen thanks to the short Assad start and the double-header, and both delivered. Rucker has looked really good since he came up this last time, and Uelmen is looking more comfortable each time out there (like he feels he belongs).
Today was a very nice day to spotlight this: