Top Play (WPA): This one was close right up until it wasn’t. Going into the bottom of the eighth inning, both teams had scraped their way to scoring two runs despite numerous missed opportunities on each side. Pedro Strop was on the mound for the Cubs, and the game seemed very much within reach for the North Siders. Then Nick Markakis flew out, Kelly Johnson doubled, and Juan Uribe lined out to first to bring A.J. Pierzynski to the plate with two outs in a tie game. He was intentionally walked, Andrelton Simmons was unintentionally walked, and Eury Perez hit a bullet down the left-field line to score two and put the game fully out of reach for the Cubs. That Perez hit increased the Braves’ chances of winning the game by 32.6 percent, and decreased my chances of having a peaceful night’s sleep by about the same.
Bottom Play (WPA): Baseball is a game of ups and downs. The bottom play of the game (by WPA, at least) came courtesy of the same man who delivered the game-winning hit. In the bottom of the sixth inning, with the bases loaded in a game he would later untie, Perez came to the plate against Justin Grimm and promptly grounded out to Starlin Castro at shortstop. There wasn’t a great deal that was good about this game, so I’ll link to that play here in the event you want to watch a fairly complicated defensive maneuver be pulled off very nicely:
Key Moment: There were lots of these, but the one that stuck out to me was Kris Bryant’s third at-bat of the game, which came in the fifth inning against Braves’ starter Julio Teheran. In his first two at-bats, Bryant had struck out on eight pitches combined, six of which were swinging strikes on sliders down and away. In this at-bat, Teheran started him out with two sliders, just as before. This time, Bryant spat on them. (Not literally, of course. It’s a saying.) On the third pitch of the contest, Teheran conceded the zone (fearful, perhaps, of Anthony Rizzo’s presence on deck), and threw what looked like a fastball, still down but over the middle of the plate. It was, like its immediate predecessors, called a ball. On the fourth pitch of the at-bat, Teheran stayed in the zone once more, still trying to avoid a walk. Bryant made contact this time, and lined out to third base. It wasn’t the result he was looking for, but it was representative of something we’ve seen from Bryant time and time again this year: an ability to make adjustments in-game, from at-bat to at-bat. There’s a reason he’s one of the best in the game already, and this is it.
Trends to Watch: As you can tell from the discussion above, I don’t think results-based analysis is a very useful analytical tool. But with respect to the offense, there’s no getting around it: the results haven’t been good. Tonight’s game did nothing to suggest that that has changed. It’s hard to say what’s happening, mostly because so many bad things are happening all at once. Individual players aren’t hitting (Dexter Fowler and Addison Russell prominent among them), the team as a whole hasn’t been capitalizing with runners in scoring position, and at times–for example, tonight–the strike zone gets entirely away from them. The worst part is that it’s a particularly troublesome time for an offensive slump, because with Miguel Montero out until further notice the pitching staff is likely to see a bit of regression in its performance. I don’t remember the last time more pressure to score helped an offense get back on track, and I doubt that this will be the exception that proves the rule.
Coming Next: Tomorrow, Jon Lester takes the mound for his 19th start of the season. He’ll face off against the Braves’ young Manny Banuelos, who made his big-league debut just before the break (July 2) and who currently sports a 0.75 ERA across 12 major-league innings pitched. The Cubs will seek to update that ERA for the second half, as they run their new-look (now with added Schwarber!) offense out for a second consecutive day against a Braves team that should be selling off most of their meaningful parts in the next few weeks. Lester, meanwhile, will try to build off of a first half that was good at times, bad at others, and inconsistent throughout. To some degree, I’m sure that that’s a product of trying to live up to the expectations engendered by his huge contract, but the days where that’s an acceptable excuse are pretty much over. The season starts now for Lester.
Lead photo courtesy of Jason Getz-USA TODAY Sports