Baserunning Blunders, Assad’s Command, Playing at Coors Field, Anniversary, and Other Cubs Bullets

Sep 13, 2023

Eat healthy for lunch or eat leftover pizza … decisions, decisions …

Gonna use the manager’s brief words as a framing device to talk about last night’s disappointing loss. David Ross to the Tribune: “We could have done a lot of things better. Our signature is getting good starting pitching and we didn’t get that from Assad tonight. He kind of lost command a little bit there. Could have done some things better defensively … made too many outs on the bases.”

Let’s talk about the outs on the bases, because in a two-run game, giving away THREE outs on the bases easily could’ve been the difference. My biggest problem with them is that ALL THREE were situations where I was shouting at my TV not to do it. All had the look of being a bad decision, and all were bad decisions given the situation.

Cody Bellinger’s single in the first inning simply looked like a clear single off the bat, and he was out easily at second base. I was shocked he even tried. It would’ve been first and third with two outs, so his out on the bases needlessly erased a runner in scoring position for a scorching hot Dansby Swanson, who, by the way, tripled to start the second.

In the second, after three straight hits to put Chris Flexen on his heels, Pete Crow-Armstrong ground into a force out to score another run. So he’s at first with one out, in an inning where things are starting to go sideways for the opposing pitcher (after he dealt with traffic in the first). Aggressiveness is good, but you also can’t give away an out when the pressure is on the other side. A pitch in the dirt bounces right to the catcher, who throws PCA out by a mile trying to take second base. I’m sure he was in dirt-and-go mode – I’m not sure I’d want to totally coach that aggressiveness out of him – but, again, in the situation, I didn’t love it, and in the big leagues, catchers can nail you if they glove a bouncer. (Also, someone teach that young man a swim move, because that was two games in a row where a Javy slide could’ve got him the base.)

And then the one that REALLY had me yelling as it happened. Nick Madrigal leads off the 5th, with the Rockies having just taken a two-run lead, and he sends one to the corner in right. He’s clearly thinking triple all the way, but it seemed like he locked himself into that decision instead of really reading the play in front of him. It’s a deep corner out there, sure, but Madrigal was still 10 feet shy of second base when Blackmon was fielding the ball! I suppose the argument is that Madrigal was close enough for a replay (and it sure looked to me like you could see the base start to buckle as the tag was applied), so it’s worth the chance. But the counter there, in addition to the terrible situational awareness (don’t make the first out at third base), is that the relay throw was actually not all that great. So the play was close, but it wasn’t one where it took perfect execution to get him.

As for Javier Assad’s outing, I don’t know what to say beyond what I said in the EBS. It was alarmingly bad, with more or less no indication that his pitches were going close to where they were intended. He got some whiffs and some strikeouts, but that looked to be more a product of the quality of batters he was facing (bad) than anything else. His strike rate was barely 50%, which is just really uncharacteristic. If he hadn’t had serious command issues in his last outing against the Diamondbacks, and if that hadn’t come right after he made the deepest start of his career, I would have a lot easier time handwaving this off as just it being tough to pitch at elevation. It’s not like losses in command are uncommon at Coors. But because of the previous start, it left me a little more concerned. Hopefully home-cooking at Wrigley against the Pirates next time out, with an extra day of rest, will see him bounce back.

A win today and this all feels mostly fine from my perspective, though. Going to Coors, you never expect a sweep. It doesn’t matter how bad the Rockies are, it’s a really hard place to go play. There’s a reason their record is infinitely better at home every single year, no matter how good they are overall – this year they are 9 under .500 at home … and 31(!) under .500 on the road. So you win today, and that’s 2 of 3 at Coors, and that’s a perfectly solid outcome, particularly when you consider that the Cubs easily could’ve lost that first game. So, you know, be good, Jameson Taillon. And bats, please beat up on a bad Ty Blach. Don’t get thrown out on the bases.

It’s very unusual to see the Cubs so low on one of these lists:

How many different pitchers have they used in 2023:

40 TB CIN
39 LAD OAK
38
37 LAA
36 NYM
35 SEA
34 KC COL
33 BOS ARI
32 MIL ATL
31 DET MIA CWS BAL
30 TEX
29 PIT SD CLE NYY
28 STL MIN
27
26 CHC WSH
25 TOR
24 SF
23 PHI HOU— Codify (@CodifyBaseball) September 13, 2023

One of the most surreal games to which we’ve been treated, not only because of who threw the no-hitter and how he accomplished it (almost exclusively balls in play!), but also because it was the pandemic season and nobody was there:

3 years ago today, Alec Mills threw the 16th no-hitter in #Cubs history.

pic.twitter.com/QKDysqoR9f
— Cubs Zone (@CubsZone) September 13, 2023

The Cubs just love them some truly unique and odd no-hitters. Recall that Carlos Zambrano once no-hit the Astros in Milwaukee after a hurricane moved the game out of Houston.

After weeks/months of reports and rumors, Nationals GM Mike Rizzo has finally been extended by the team:

The Nationals and Mike Rizzo have agreed to a contact extension: https://t.co/83NFt7L30F
— Andrew Golden (@andrewcgolden) September 13, 2023

The whole situation – not unlike the Stephen Strasburg one – is bizarre. With the Nationals kinda-sorta for sale for the last couple years, I’m sure it’s awkward trying to figure out the best approach with the front office when a new owner might want his or her own people, but at the same time, ditching the long-time steward at this moment didn’t make a lot of sense either. With the Nationals engaged, at a baseball level, in a multi-year rebuild, I don’t know that I love their chances of getting rapidly back on top in the NL East with all the uncertainty hanging over the organization at the top.

Speaking of front office moves in the NL East, the Mets are finally hiring David Stearns, if you missed it.

Over at BCB, Al Yellon notes that Spring Training ticket prices are out for season ticket holders, and it sounds like most sections will see a 5+% increase in prices. That doesn’t necessarily tell you much about what the regular season ticket price situation will be (there are still tickets available on most days, so it’s not like they’ve reached saturation this year, even as they are competitive). But, suffice to say, it’ll be a little more expensive to see the Cubs in Arizona next year.

And you thought geometry would never apply in your adult life:

It was a 3-2 count, and so no waste pitch available.

Hats off on the runner in figuring out that the edge of the triangle is always shorter than the hypotenuse, and so would easily beat the pitcher back. https://t.co/I87JW9DCc7 pic.twitter.com/MBIkcpM3cL— Tangotiger 🍁 (@tangotiger) September 12, 2023

Trea Turner is more than hot; I have had to read this multiple times to process just how crazy it is:

Trea Turner of the @Phillies is the first player in MLB history to have at least 11 homers and 11 multi-hit games over a 13-game span.
— OptaSTATS (@OptaSTATS) September 13, 2023

Before this 13-game stretch, Turner was hitting just .255/.305/.409/91 wRC+. It was August 28. You don’t turn your season around completely in just two weeks in September. Yet he is now hitting .272/.323/.475/112 wRC+. Dude. 21 points of wRC+ in two weeks at the end of the year in a full season. That’s absurd.

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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