Top Play (WPA): Aramis Ramirez poked a soft line drive to left field that scored Carlos Gomez and Hector Gomez to break the 3-3 tie. Adam Lind advanced to third and Ramirez advanced to second. (.348)
With that clutch, bases-loaded single, Ramirez put the Brewers ahead for the second time Sunday afternoon. Back in the second inning, the damage was a solo home run—his third of the season on the first live pitch he faced since April 29th—on a four-seam fastball. The pitch was on the outer half of the plate, but that didn’t prevent Ramirez from getting the barrel on it and pulling it into the left-center seats.
Bottom Play (WPA): With the bases loaded and nobody out in the top of eighth, Ryan Braun grounded into a double play. Hector Gomez advanced to second base. (-.281)
It’s not a surprise that a double play ball in a bases-loaded, no-out situation in a tie game affected the Brewers’ win probability so much. Unfortunately for the Cubs, right after inducing the ground ball they needed from Braun, they weren’t in the clear yet. In favor of the right-right matchup, Joe Maddon chose to walk the next batter, Adam Lind—who has a career .863 OPS against righties—which brought Ramirez to the plate. Ramirez delivered the broken-bat single mentioned above, off Pedro Strop.
Key Moment: Strop was called upon from the bullpen in the eighth inning of a tie game. From a few angles—namely ERA and FIP—Strop was experiencing the best start to a season that he’d ever had. In April, opponents hit just .067 against the right-hander and through his appearance on May 1, he had yet to surrender a run.
Yesterday’s stint was a rather unsuccessful one. Strop faced seven batters, allowing four to reach base and two to score, breaking the 3-3 tie. For a strikeout pitcher like Strop, it’s hard to do your job well when you’re only able to get one swinging strike. Of the other eight strikes he threw, four were put in play. Hopefully the outing is just an outlier in what has been a great start for the 29 year old.
Trends to Watch: Jason Hammel turned in his third quality start in five tries this season and despite a few shaky spots, he prevented the Brewers from any big innings. One of the keys to his effectiveness and preventing those big innings in 2015 has been his ability to limit the free passes. Hammel issued just one walk on Sunday afternoon. His four-seam fastball, however, has not been doing him many favors in 2015—yesterday especially—and that is troubling for a number of reasons. Through yesterday’s game, batters are hitting .310 against the pitch.
It seems like every hard-hit ball yesterday afternoon was from a mistake that was flat and up in the zone, so I did a little digging. Hammel threw his four-seam 17 times against the Brewers and surrendered a 1.500 slugging percentage against it. Of those 17 pitches, 29 percent were considered grooved pitches, his highest percentage on said pitch dating back to the start of 2014. Not only are those pitches hard hit, but it can drastically limit the effectiveness of his changeup and sinker, two pitches that didn’t produce any whiffs against the Brewers and, by percentage, are down overall in 2015 compared to last season.
Hopefully for Hammel and the Cubs, yesterday’s pitches that ended up high in the zone were the result of grip issues. Hammel mentioned after the game he was dealing with a broken finger nail on the middle finger of his throwing hand.
Coming Next: After losing only their second of eight series this season, the Cubs begin an important road trip in St. Louis on Monday night with a four game set. The Cardinals are sporting an MLB-best 18-6 record after recording their third straight win of the walk-off variety against the Pirates. Fortunately for the Cubs and their slumping offense, they won’t see Michael Wacha and will likely see a spot-starter on Tuesday night in place of the injured Adam Wainwright.
Travis Wood and Carlos Martinez kick things off on Monday night. While Wood has been looking a lot like this 2013 self, Martinez has resembled the breakout candidate some analysts had predicted him to be this season. Wood’s effectiveness has centered on getting ahead of hitters in the count, limiting walks (2.28 BB/9) and his highest strikeouts per nine innings mark of his career (9.89) through four starts. Martinez has been similarly effective striking guys out at a 8.31 K/9 clip, but his 4.43 FIP reveals he may have had some good luck on his side, too.