NEWSLETTER
Matt Mervis was the player-of-the-game yesterday for the Iowa Cubs, launching his second and third homer of the season in St. Paul. But he’s on a bona fide heater, because in the top of the first inning this afternoon, after Patrick Wisdom doubled, Mervis launched his fourth homer of the season.
This wasn’t wasn’t a no-doubter, Statcast had it at just 350 feet and 100.9 MPH off the bat, but he had the perfect launch angle (27-degrees) to get it over the wall. Mervis followed up this plate appearance with two strikeouts and a walk, and the game is on-going.
All together, Mervis has 4 homers and a 1.133 OPS through 58 plate appearances this season. We had a lengthier discussion about his future earlier this afternoon, and it all still applies.
The rub here is that we already knew Mervis could destroy Triple-A pitching, even if not quite to this extent. And regardless of what the Cubs may say, their addition of a similarly aged, also-left-handed, also first-base/DH type (Michael Busch) this offseason really reveals what they think of his future. And with Pete Crow-Armstrong potentially moving Cody Bellinger to first base at some point this season, the DH opportunities may not really be there either. So I really don’t know where the Cubs go from here.
I guess no matter what, it’s good to see Mervis succeed. Injuries happen, underperformance happens, and so on. And he’s right there in Iowa, waiting for his next opportunity. For now, I’m just happy to see him succeeding. And I hope the Cubs don’t actually need to insert him into the lineup until they actually want to because he’s forcing the issue. And I’ll tell you what, if he keeps up a 173 wRC+ for another 50-100 plate appearances, that time may come sooner than we think.
In significantly less good news, Cubs pitching prospect Kohl Franklin left this game with an apparently serious arm injury.
