Top Play (WPA): Wow—what a crazy win, and what a positive way to finish up what ended up as a successful 4-3 road trip. It will be hard to do this game justice in a recap, but I’ll do my best.
When the Cubs went down 5-0 in the bottom of the second, it looked like a really rough night was in the cards. After an afternoon blowout loss and an extra-innings game on Tuesday, it looked like the Cubs might both lose and be subject to some serious bullpen attrition. The bullpen did have to work hard tonight, but this Cubs team, man, they keep fighting. After the Cubs rallied to tie the game, Taylor Teagarden—of all people—singled off of a 101 mph Aroldis Chapman fastball to give the Cubs an incredibly improbable 6-5 lead (.354).
Jason Motte would finish off the Reds in the ninth, but the real story was how the Cubs got to that point in the first place.
Bottom Play (WPA): The Cubs’ bullpen was fantastic after a shaky start by Dallas Beeler (more on that in a bit), but the Reds loaded the bases with one out in the eighth against Hector Rondon, and it looked like they would be able to take back the lead with the heart of their order coming up. But Todd Frazier’s hard groundball struck Hector Rondon’s hindquarters and bounced directly to Anthony Rizzo, who was able to get the force out at home (-.145). Rondon, who has been fantastic over the past couple months, was then able to induce a fly ball by Jay Bruce and get out of the inning (-.129).
Key Moment: You would normally expect the key moment from a one-run game to come in the later innings, but last night it came in the top of the third. A Chris Denorfia double cut the Reds’ lead to 5-3, and David Ross was coming up with runners on second and third with two outs. Even with Dallas Beeler struggling and Travis Wood warming in the bullpen, Cincinnati manager Bryan Price elected to intentionally walk Ross (who is hitting .173 this year) to face the pitcher’s spot in the order. Price could have been thinking two things here:
1) Price didn’t believe that the Cubs would actually remove Beeler this early in the second game of a double header, and he wanted the pitcher to hit.
2) Price wanted to get into the Cubs’ bullpen at any cost—even if it meant facing Kris Bryant with the bases loaded.
Neither of these lines of thought made sense to me at the time, though, because I wasn’t sure that Beeler would have been able to go much deeper into the game anyway. He had a bit of bad luck behind him, but overall he was being hit very hard by the Reds, who had gotten five runs off of him in just the first two innings. After Ross was safely on first base, Joe Maddon called Beeler back to the dugout and sent Bryant to the plate as a pinch hitter against the laboring Tony Cingrani. Bryant tied the game with this single to left and set up what would prove to be a dramatic finish in the later innings.
Trends to Watch: This was a great win, but it did draw my attention, once again, to the Cubs’ fifth starter situation. The Cubs DFA’d Clayton Richard before the doubleheader, and the rough performance by Beeler helps show exactly why the Cubs—whose starters are second in the MLB with a 3.20 FIP—are still looking for rotation help. Tsuyoshi Wada is rehabbing and could be back soon, but beyond him. any sort of depth is lacking, and it is still hard to know whether he can be 100 percent healthy and effective. The back end of their rotation is still, to me, the most upgradeable part of the roster, and so I will be watching to see how this situation develops over the next few weeks. Honestly, I’d be more comfortable with a trade sooner (read: hopefully before the next start) rather than later. In the meantime, though, the Cubs will be relying on a Beeler/Wada combination that is looking less and less sustainable over time.
I would be remiss if I didn’t also mention the fantastic performances of Wood and Pedro Strop out of the bullpen in this one. Both pitched two scoreless innings in relief of Beeler, and both deserve credit for saving an extremely depleted pitching staff. Wood really seems to have found a niche, and although Strop has gotten a lot of flak over the past month or so, he still has a 3.14 ERA/3.74 FIP/3.21 DRA out of the ‘pen this season, and his stuff still looks nearly unhittable when he is on. New addition Rafael Soriano also pitched a scoreless seventh.
Coming Next: I’m sure that the Cubs weren’t looking for a series split, but this comeback win will have them feeling better about themselves heading into Thursday’s off-day and a weekend series against Philadelphia. This should be a chance to beat up on a bad team, but the lowly Phillies are on a (relative) tear. They’ve won five of six games since the All-Star break and brought their record up to 34-63. Despite this flash of mediocrity, the Cubs will be looking to throw their weight around a bit against the worst team in the league. They might have gotten a bit unlucky with pitching matchups—they will have to face probably the Phillies’ best pitchers in Cole Hamels and Aaron Nola—but at least they will get a close-up look at one of the league’s top trade targets and one of its top prospects. On the bright side, Jon Lester, Jake Arrieta, and Jason Hammel are slated to pitch for Chicago, so the team should hopefully get a chance to really rest its taxed bullpen and pick up some wins against a team with -152 run differential for the season.
Grab your bucket hat, and enjoy some summer weekend baseball from Wrigley.
Lead photo courtesy of David Kohl-USA TODAY Sports