Top Play (WPA): Miguel Montero has earned a reputation among Cubs fans—deservedly so—for his hard-nosed play, his Twitter glories, and his #OppoPop. The last of these was on fine display today, as he untied the game in the seventh inning with a blast to left field that barely made it into the basket (+.281). That brought the Cubs to an 87.9 percent chance of winning a game after their odds, at one point, had bottomed out at 9.4 percent. It just seemed like one big hit after another kept piling up: Montero’s blast; Russell’s one inning earlier (described below, +.208); Bryant’s double in the fifth (+0.141); Montero’s double one batter later (+0.134); Rizzo’s third-inning home run (+0.133); Russell’s single in the second (+0.113). This is a team that, from some half-remembered reserve, has learned how to win.
Bottom Play (WPA): The Braves, meanwhile, keep learning new ways to lose. In the seventh inning, Pedro Ciriaco came to the plate with a runner on second in a tie game. At this point, Ciriaco’s head was presumably swimming with visions of a towering, majestic home run to left field. Pedro Strop had other plans. On the second pitch of the sequence, he managed to get a pop out to short left, ending the threat (-0.075) and taking the game to the eighth inning.
Key Moment: The WPA chart for this game was crazy. The game see-sawed back and forth throughout, but by the time the sixth inning rolled along, with the Cubs down by one, there was just a sense in the ballpark that the offense would come through and tie the game. Sure enough, they did. All it took was one Addison Russell. The Cubs’ newly-minted shortstop got a pitch up into the wind in left field, which bounced past the outstretched hands of some soon-to-be-former denizens of Wrigley Field and into the basket, tying the game. The Braves asked for a review, claiming fan interference, but it was not to be. Home run, and a tie ballgame. The Cubs didn’t look back.
Trend to Watch: There’s two things here; forgive me for writing about both. First, it’s worth noting that Joe Maddon continues to manage games as if he’s already in the playoffs. With one out in the fifth, runners on the corners, and starter Dan Haren tiring, Maddon went to Travis Wood. He was hoping (one imagines) that Wood would, as he has so often this season when relieving a starter who has failed to go deep in the game, limit the damage—and perhaps avoid any at all. That wasn’t quite what happened. Freddie Freeman doubled on a scorched line drive to center, scoring Nick Markakis. Cameron Maybin held at third after some uncertainty on his part about whether Dexter Fowler would catch the ball in center. One batter later, the Cubs’ old nemesis A.J. Pierzynski singled to center, scoring two runs and putting the Braves up by two. The inning didn’t end there: Nick Swisher hit his second homer of the day, and the Cubs left an inning they’d started up by one down by four instead. It turned out to be a momentary shadow on a sun-kissed day. The point remains: Maddon is not willing to stroke any egos if it gets in the way of winning a game. Today, it didn’t work out for him. Tomorrow, it might. Either way, it’s the right way to manage.
On an unrelated note—at least insofar as anything in baseball is unrelated, which is not very far—the Cubs’ offense continues to hum along. Over their last 14 games (dating back to August 7th) the team has scored six or more runs 10 times, and seven or more seven times. That’s the kind of offense that wins championships, and if the Cubs keep it up—and stay rested; ‘American Legion’ weeks will be key—they’ll be poised to go a long way in October.
Coming Next: The Cubs will look to build on their baby three-game winning streak as they face the Braves’ Matt Wisler. Wisler, 22, has performed reasonably well since his callup on June 19th, recording a cFIP of 115 and a DRA- of 127 over 62 innings pitched. His four-pitch mix—fourseam fastball, sinker, slider, and changeup—nonetheless shows all the potential that made him the centerpiece of the deal that sent Craig Kimbrel to San Diego on Opening Night of this season, just hours before Jon Lester toed the rubber against the Cardinals at Wrigley Field. The Cubs will counter with Jason Hammel (89 cFIP, 96 DRA-), who’s really struggled over the last month or so. Since July 26th, he’s made five starts, lasting less than five innings three times, and putting up a 6.14 ERA over 22 ugly innings pitched. This fits a trend for Hammel: over his career, he’s recorded a 5.17 ERA in the second half, up from 4.06 in the early part of the season. If the Cubs intend to go far in the postseason this year, he’ll need to turn that around.
Lead photo courtesy Caylor Arnold—USA Today Sports.