NLDS Game 1 Recap: Cardinals 4 Cubs 0

In Stephen King’s 11/22/63, which is about a time traveler tasked with stopping the assassination of JFK, basically, the protagonist repeatedly encounters seemingly unlikely obstacles. The more of the past he attempts to change, or even ponders changing, and the closer he gets to actually stopping the killing, the greater the degree to which the universe pushes back. It is, of course, a device that allows King tremendous freedom to mess with and string along his main character, but King’s touch with it is deft. Each time it happens, though, King drops on the reader a not-at-all-subtle mantra the protagonist received from the man who gave him his mission: The past is obdurate. It crops up over and over. Hardly any cruel or difficult twist is allowed to hang on the page without King feeling compelled to club the reader over the head. The past is obdurate. In the narrative style he uses, it’s appropriate, but it’s still aggravating.

So it was on Friday night. One need not believe that the Cubs are cursed, or are set at crossed purposes with history, in order to believe this. It’s not conjecture or superstition to say that the Cubs are fighting history this autumn. They are, and history’s obdurance was in the air in Game One of the NLDS—literally. Dexter Fowler hit a ball on the sweet spot with the tying run on third base in the sixth inning, but it died in the glove of Randal Grichuk, who first chased it into the area where the right-field fence fell fastest away toward right-center, his back in the shadows modern lighting has all but removed from MLB playing fields, shadows now confined to the foot or two in front of walls near the corners. The past is obdurate. Home-plate umpire Phil Cuzzi called a wide strike zone, though not an unfair one, and because the Cubs’ hitters were more reticent to expand their zone than their Cardinal counterparts, that had a greater effect on the Chicago offense. The past is obdurate. 

That said, the Cardinals simply outplayed and out-executed the Cubs on Friday night, and it would be unfair to them to chalk up their victory, in the end, to anything but that.

Top Play (WPA): This game was a pitchers’ duel, and pitchers’ duels tend to lack signature moments. It’s not that they’re boring, per se (though they often are), but that the tautness and tension of them lives in hoped-for action that never materializes, or in never knowing exactly when the killing blow might be struck. The thin margin for error creates the drama there, not any particular play or plays.

So it is that, with a straight face, I can report that the most significant offensive play of this game, by WPA, was a first-inning single by Matt Holliday. Stephen Piscotty had cracked a ground-rule double with one out, and Holliday lined a single back up the middle off Jon Lester to drive in what looked for a long while like it could be the only run of the game. The hit was worth nine percent of a win.

Bottom Play (WPA): The Cubs’ best chance to come back against John Lackey, and even a pretty good chance to take the lead, came in the top of the seventh. Kyle Schwarber, Kris Bryant, and Anthony Rizzo were due, and Schwarber led off with a bunt single against the shifted Cardinals infield. After Bryant struck out, though, Rizzo fell behind 0-2, took a ball, and then bounced a ball right to Mark Reynolds at first base. Reynolds stepped on the bag and made a very good throw to second base, where Schwarber was dead meat, sliding into the tag. Just like that, the rally was dead. That twin killing was worth -0.096 WPA, making it more significant (in a damaging way) than the Holliday hit that was the biggest positive offensive outcome of the night.

Key Moment: There’s an argument that the key moment was the one immediately above. The Cubs had their best hitters at the plate, and the first of them got on base, representing the tying run. Lackey executed his pitches to Bryant and Rizzo, though, and while Rizzo could certainly have done more with the pitch on which he bounced into that double play, he was behind in the count because Lackey put him there. As baseball sometimes does, that half-inning promised high drama, then pulled it away almost in the blink of an eye.

Let’s talk about a couple other moments, though. One came in the top of the sixth. Addison Russell led off the frame with a single up the middle, the Cubs’ first hit of the game. Due up next, as the go-ahead run? David Ross, he of the .203 True Average. Behind Ross, of course, was Lester, so bunting Russell over wasn’t an option. The Cubs could have done worse; a wild pitch got Russell to second, and a Lester groundout got him to third, but Ross and Lester both did make outs, leaving Fowler in need of a hit in order to tie the game.

This will sound radical, but Ross and Lester probably needed to be pulled in favor of pinch-hitters there. This is the playoffs, and considerations like “He’d only thrown 79 pitches” and “There were 12 outs left to get to a win” are much thinner justification for letting the pitcher bat here than it would be during the regular season. Saving the bullpen should not have been a consideration, and Lester was due to face Piscotty, Holliday and Jason Heyward for the third time in the sixth inning. If Lester was going to be pinch-hit for, then Montero should have pinch-hit for Ross. Montero is not only a far superior hitter to Ross, but also a left-handed hitter, which means he would have matched up much better with Lackey:

John Lackey, Platoon Splits, 2015

If Montero and Tommy La Stella get a piece of Lackey before Mike Matheny can get his bullpen ready (and let’s be honest, it’s not in Matheny’s golf bag to go to his bullpen that early in a shutout, no matter how much time he has), that inning might unfold very differently. It certainly feels like they couldn’t have done worse than Ross and Lester did, and it’s doubtful that what Ross and Lester provided from that point onward on the run-prevention side was significantly better than what fresh relief arms might have provided. In particular, it was a poor choice by Maddon to send Lester back out for the eighth inning, and that poor choice led directly to the Cardinals putting the game out of reach.

Trend to Watch: Maddon also seemed to mismanage a bit in the top of the eighth, when Lackey departed and Kevin Siegrist came on. Chris Coghlan was due, and Maddon let him face Siegrist. This was inexplicable and indefensible. Siegrist has reverse platoon splits (to whatever extent a reliever’s split skill is to be deeply trusted in a relatively short career), but Coghlan took only 49 of his 503 plate appearances this season against southpaws. Maddon clearly doesn’t trust him against lefties and hasn’t provided him with chances to get comfortable against them or prepare for that moment, so allowing him to face Siegrist was begging for failure.

Maddon is the superior tactical manager in this series, but he had the worse night on the top step in Game One. The Cubs will have an easier set of decisions in some future games, but it’s crucial that Maddon starts making better decisions, because though the Cubs are the better team in this series, it’s not by so much as to exceed the ability of home-field advantage to balance out, let alone random variance (or, if you prefer, the obdurate past). They need to put their players in better positions to succeed than the Cardinals do, and they didn’t do that on Friday night.

What’s Next: Since I’m leaning on lowbrow cultural allusions tonight, I’ll offer you a little-known line from the Vince Vaughn/Jason Bateman/Kristen Bell masterpiece “Couples Retreat.” See, Vaughn is facing down—you know what, it’s not important. The crux of it is that, in the middle of an important competition, Vaughn decides he’s ready to reveal that he has a trick up his sleeve, and he says to John Favreau’s character, “I think it’s time to show the donkey the snake.” Whereupon he becomes transcendently unbeatable.

On Saturday night, the Cardinals are going to show the Cubs their snake. (Boy, this reference is six kinds of problematic.) Jaime Garcia made 20 starts this season, with a 2.43 ERA. None of those starts, though, came against the Cubs. The Cubs don’t hit left-handed pitching well anyway, so the fact that their young hitters are all about to see Garcia for the first time in their lives is, to say the very least, unencouraging. The Cubs will send Kyle Hendricks, who has been pitching quite well and is generally underrated. The Cubs will still have more talent on the field, and there’s always a chance talent wins out. Garcia is the toughest matchup the Cubs will have in this series, though, however it breaks. A win tomorrow would vault the Cubs a long way toward winning the series.

Lead photo courtesy of Scott Rovak-USA TODAY Sports