What You Need To Know:
That’ll do.
Next Level: I suppose it’s here that I would say something like, “Cubs fans might want to get used to this from Lester,” or “This won’t be the last time, I don’t know,” or something like that. Ok, we shouldn’t expect to see THIS from Lester, who didn’t have anything today and the Cards made him walk the Unblinking Eye and Crossing The Desert and The Paddling Of The Swollen Ass. And if this isn’t going to be the only one, that market correction we’ve been talking about is going to make for some hard watchin’. Like the corn field scene in Casino hard watchin’.
Scary enough, Lester got one whiff today. One. Solo. Uno. Out of 86 offerings. He couldn’t locate, he couldn’t fool, he couldn’t do nothin’ for nobody.
As discussed here a lot recently, Lester has been skating by on his defense. He’s been walking too many guys, giving up too much good contact, and a lot of it isn’t on the ground. So there are going to be days when that contact is just not going to be at defenders, or over the wall as it was a couple times today. It’s not that Lester is going to be bad, but there’s been some regression coming unless he makes some adjustments/changes. Getting one whiff is not exactly an encouraging sign.
I suppose the game could have been different, or at least treated differently, had things gone differently in the third. It was 5-1 at that point, but at least that’s reachable. The Cubs loaded the bases with two walks and a HBP (Kris Bryant took the hit, Anthony Rizzo and Jason Heyward worked free passes). Jack Flaherty was rocking, doing that Cardinals pitcher thing where at the first sign of trouble they become terrified of the strike zone and basically pitch with their eyes closed and hope hitters help them out. Lucky for Flaherty, Javy Báez and Willson Contreras were in that mood.
After two walks and a HBP, you’d like to see the following hitters prove Flaherty can throw strikes. Here’s what Báez swung at:
Here’s what Contreras swung at:
You take my point.
Not that it would have helped much, because the Cubs had to turn to Anthony Bass and someone I’m going to insist on calling “Scott Norwood.” The thing about that is they’re occasionally going to turn back into things called Anthony Bass and James Norwood (or Scott). That’s how a mere mess becomes something epic with a goat on it.
Anyway, that’s enough of this.
Top WPA Play: They’re gonna make me do this? Seriously? Ok… fine. It was Heyward’s walk in the third that loaded the bases (+.059).
Bottom WPA Play: When everyone walked into the park this morning.
Onwards…
Lead photo courtesy @Cubs