This team is starting to show that it has a lot of different ways to beat you. Monday night, Craig Counsell talked in his press conference about seven outs saved by his defense in a single game. I don’t know that all of the metrics will find all seven of those, but if you saw much of this game, you surely caught a highlight reel play or two by the defense. The defense sparkled, Colin Rea and a pair of relievers were fantastic and the Cubs offense put enough runs on the board for this one to feel like a fairly easy one.
You are rarely as bad a team as you appear to be when you are struggling. The same goes in the opposite direction. You are rarely as good a team as you appear to be when you are streaking. This team is on fire right now. The things you were worried about last week when this team had lost three of four games to drop to a season-low two games under .500 haven’t really gone away. Facing the Mets and Phillies when they are down is masking a lot of issues. This team is basically devoid of any frontline pitching right now. They also haven’t found their cohesion offensively.
On the other hand, they’ve been getting frontline type pitching numbers for a while now. And their offense is scoring a lot of runs. How well will all of that hold up as the competition stiffens? Well, we’ll start finding out later in the week. I suspect we’ll see a little more out of these Phillies, maybe even before the end of this series. But for now, it’s six straight wins and I’m not apologizing or giving any of it back. Keep taking advantage of timing. Keep adding on. Hopefully, this team starts getting some injured players back and in the interim, some guys earn playing time well into the time when this roster is healthier.
Baseball is so very fun when everything is going right. This is now a 95.7 win pace. That’ll play.
Colin Rea was terrific. Defensive help or no, 20 outs recorded on 28 hitters faced. Six hits and two walks, but only one run. He struck out five.
Moisés Ballesteros is absolutely crushing these cherry picked spots the team is giving him. A hit and a walk in two plate appearances. He scored a run. OPS sitting at 1.020. The Cubs will have to eventually give him some leash against lefties, but this is working like a charm right now.
Reminder: Heroes and Goats are determined by WPA scores and are in no way subjective.
Superhero: Dansby Swanson (.207). 1-4, HR, 3 RBI, R
Hero: Colin Rea (.190). 6.2 IP, 28 BF, 5 H, 3 BB, ER, 5 K (W 3-0)
Sidekick: Michael Conforto (.084). 0-0, BB, SF, RBI
WPA Play of the Game: Dansby Swanson’s three-run homer with two outs in the second extended the lead to four and turned out to be more than enough. (.211)
*Phillies Play of the Game: Aaron Nola got Miguel Amaya to ground into a double play with the bases loaded and no outs, trading the game’s first run for two outs. (.070)
Game 21 Winner: Michael Conforto received 156 of 263 votes.
The award is named for Anthony Rizzo, who finished first in this category three of the first four years it was in existence and four times overall. He also recorded the highest season total ever at +65.5. The point scale is three points for a Superhero down to negative three points for a Billy Goat.
Up Next: Game two of this four-game set with the Phillies. The Cubs are now up 3-1 in the season series and need to win one of the final three to win that season series. Another thing you’ve heard me say before: get greedy. Kick’em when they’re down. Let’s get two or three more while we are at it. No apologies, no regrets.
Shōta Imanaga (1-1, 2.45, 22 IP) makes his fifth start of the season. Last time out, he allowed one run on three hits and a walk over six against this Phillies team. Colin Rea bounced back nice on back-to-backs against the same team. Hopefully Imanaga can do the same.
Jesús Luzardo (1-3, 7.94, 22.2 IP) is also making the fifth start of his season. This has been a nightmarish start for the talented lefty. The Cubs had 12 hits and eight runs against him in just 5.1 innings last week. The Cubs usually aren’t as good against lefties, but this team is showing some promise against southpaws. But they are 2-4 when the other team starts a lefty.
Stay hot. A six pack is great, but seven is heavenly.