Top Play (WPA): I wasn’t around for the 1980s, so I can’t say for sure, but I’m pretty confident in saying that this was a pretty ’80s game, in that it was a blowout. (Pause for laughter.) Anyway, moving right along. Into the bottom half of the fourth inning, it actually looked somewhat possible that the […]
Author: Rian Watt
Game 71 Recap: Dodgers 4, Cubs 0
Top Play (WPA): Sometimes things are just that simple. Not 15 pitches into his start Thursday night, everyone in the ballpark knew Jon Lester was in trouble, and men in Dodger blue took their leads at every base. Howie Kendrick was at the plate, and with one out in the inning I suppose there was reasonable cause to hope […]
Travis Wood, Shutdown Reliever
Cubs fans have short memories. Travis Wood was actually really good in 2013, his second full season with the team. I mean, I know you, the educated reader, know he was really good, but perhaps the average reader wouldn’t know that his 4.2 DRA-derived WAR that season—which is a measure of a pitcher’s overall contribution to his team—was 11th […]
Game 69 Recap: Cubs 1 Dodgers 0
Top Play (WPA): Speak of the Devil, and he shall appear. No sooner had the internet dust (also known by its common name, catnip) settled on my piece on the Cubs’ extraordinary record in one-run and extra-inning games, than the Cubs won in extras by one run. It’s nothing much more than coincidence, but it sure […]
How Rare Is That?: The Cubs Late and Close in 2015
When you write about baseball, especially for an analytically-minded site like Baseball Prospectus, you have to be quite clear about what question you’re attempting to answer for the reader in each piece you write. For a game recap, the question might be as simple as “What happened in today’s game?”. For an analysis post, the question […]
Game 67 Recap: Cubs 8 Twins 0
Top Play (WPA): In yesterday’s recap, I noted that Anthony Rizzo was showing signs of breaking out of his mini-slump. Now that I have had the benefit of one additional day on this good, green earth (it was a lovely one, by the way, thanks for asking) let me amend that statement: Rizzo has broken out of his […]
Game 66 Recap: Cubs 4 Twins 1
Top Play (WPA): Sometimes it’s not the guy with the big hit that makes the biggest difference, it’s the guy who set him up to do it. Such was the case tonight. In the top of the tenth inning, with the score tied 1-1 since the third, Anthony Rizzo came to the plate with nobody out and […]
Market Matters: Checking in on Potential Trade Deadline Targets
This week’s call-up of Kyle Schwarber is only the latest in a series of indications that, for the first time in recent memory, the Chicago Cubs figure to be buyers at the July 31st trade deadline. With a record of 35-28 entering play on June 18th (that’s the fourth-best record in the National League), BP […]
Tsuyoshi Wada: Man of Mystery
Three. It’s a magical number. It can refer to blind mice, Musketeers, the members of either Destiny’s Child or Hanson, or, perhaps most relevant to your short time on this earth, the whole number of innings Tsuyoshi Wada, starting pitcher for the Chicago Cubs, has managed to throw in each of his last two outings. […]
Game 56 Recap: Tigers 6 Cubs 0
Top Play (WPA): This wasn’t a particularly fun game to watch and, I imagine, it wasn’t a particularly fun game for the Cubs to play either. The Tigers led off their half of the first inning with a double by Rajai Davis (who would later make a tremendous, leaping, over-the-wall catch on a David Ross fly […]