The Braves are annoying the crap out of me these days, and I know that they don’t OWE the Cubs any losses … but why did they have to finally get hot at the same time the Cubs finally got hot? The timing is just optimized to frustrate me.
- The Cubs put up another big number last night, and those seven runs added to quite a total:
- OK, so that’s obviously an extremely arbitrary, almost esoteric collection of numbers, but it’s still fun to think that the Cubs have done something no other team has ever done.
- Craig Counsell on the win:
- The Cubs are holding Jordan Wicks for now, playing it a bit by ear when he’ll make a start, and how that’ll coordinate with the rest of the rotation. He had been scheduled to start for Iowa last night, but the team instead elected to bring him to Washington to be available to start sometime this weekend if they choose to do that (and I suspect they will). Javier Assad is currently scheduled to start today, with Jameson Taillon scheduled to go tomorrow.
- As for what happens with Kyle Hendricks – six-man rotation? bullpen? – that is also still TBD.
- Opposing Assad today is old friend DJ Herz, who’ll likely strike out a crap load of Cubs, but hopefully they can get to him. Herz, 23, was the Cubs’ 8th rounder in 2019, and was traded last year at the deadline in the Jeimer Candelario deal. He’s posted a 3.84 ERA over 65.2 big league innings this season (7% better than league average by ERA-), and has been able to strike out his usually large complement of hitters (near 30%) while walking very few (8.4%, after being in the mid-teens in the minors). Something REALLY clicked for him with the Nationals, because I think the Cubs thought his future was in the bullpen if he’d stayed.
- Praise for Nate Pearson, who was excellent over two scoreless innings last night: “I think Nate’s been really great on the attack,” Craig Counsell said, per The Athletic. “Just go after hitters with your stuff. Power slider, good fastball, just go after hitters. He’s pitched really well. You throw the seventh and eighth in a winning game, big two innings for sure. He did great and set us up.”
- Over his 15.1 innings with the Cubs, Pearson – who has increasingly been used as a multi-inning guy – has a 2.35 ERA, a 26.8% K, a 3.6% BB(!), and then the one wart being the three home runs he’s given up. He was touching 100 mph last night.
- Dansby Swanson continues to be a little better than he’s getting credit for. Yes, he had a deep slump, but now you can go all the way back to July 10, and he’s hitting .279/.349/.422/116 wRC+. Moreover, even in a “bad” year, he’s still going to easily top 3.0 WAR for the fourth straight season. The Cubs will want and need more from him next season, but if this were his floor for the next few years, that’d be pretty awesome.
- Pretty awesome play:
- This was not even close at the plate, which is crazy when you look at the positioning:
- PCA over the last two weeks: .372/.471/.651/206 wRC+.
- Fun win last night for the South Bend Cubs, with Pedro Ramirez hitting a walk-off grand slam:
- Ramirez, 20, hasn’t quite continued his big breakout from last year, but he’s still pretty young and more than holding his own at High-A (.278/.342/.371/106 wRC+, 8.6% BB, 18.0% K).
- Extremely fun fact:
- Cubs outfield prospect Alfonsin Rosario homered twice last night for the Pelicans, pushing his season line up to .237/.348/.437/131 wRC+:
- Rosario, who just turned 20, is in his first full pro season, so you give a little grace for the elevated strikeout rate (32.6%), but you’ll need to see that come down in time if he’s going to stay productive up the ladder. It is at 29.5% since July 11, though, with a .254/.363/.451/139 wRC+ slash. So he’s been improving as the year has gone on, which is what you most want to see.
- Again, arbitrary-but-impressive:
- This is pretty sweet, actually: