We’re working on our headline. Seven thoughts from last night before today’s preview:
1. Trevor Williams made his roster spot count.
Williams pitched an absolute gem last night, striking out seven, walking none, and only allowing three balls to be hit 95 mph or harder. Yesterday, we speculated that with the Cubs’ roster crunch, it could theoretically be Williams on the way out (we hedged on this, listing it among a slew of possibilities—we aren’t that dumb). Before the game, we found out it was Shelby Miller getting the DFA (he was among the possibilities). We’ll see what becomes of Miller, but for the time being, Williams’s spot in the rotation is secure. Hopefully he can keep it up, but even if he doesn’t, he got the Cubs a win! That matters!
2. What can the Cubs get for Miller?
The word on Miller is that he was throwing well in his rehab stint in Iowa. It would be a surprise if he cleared waivers, given he’s such a tantalizing reclamation project and teams always need pitching. It’s possible the Cubs will trade him before he has to touch waivers, and the hope is that they’ll work out a deal, but they also don’t have a lot of leverage, because have we mentioned waivers? They get seven days.
3. Why Miller?
Miller probably wasn’t the least valuable player on the 40-man roster, but he’s a better trade chip than some of the others (again, he’s a tantalizing reclamation project and teams always need pitching). It’s possible this was the calculus—that the Cubs thought they could get something for Miller, didn’t see him playing a big role for the big-league club, and decided to punt on him rather than, say, Dillon Maples, who might not have fetched anything significant in a trade but also probably wouldn’t clear waivers.
4. David Bote continues to smack baseballs.
Bote hit a booming home run to give the Cubs a little breathing room in the early going, and it’s worth a reminder that while Bote’s slashing an unsightly .191/.270/.316, his xwOBA’s .352, which is remarkably good. The Cubs will have to keep getting him at-bats because of the injuries, but that persuasion to let him work through this should be unnecessary. If he keeps hitting the ball this hard, he’ll be better than fine.
5. Anthony Rizzo’s back is back.
Rizzo’s back’s bothering him again, and he won’t be in the lineup again today after missing last night. Last night, he was available to pinch hit, so we may see him today. It does sound like the Cubs are proceeding with caution, but they’ve also had plenty of players hit the IL recently after first just missing little spells, so it’s understandable if you’re a bit on edge about the captain.
I don’t know the details of Rizzo’s back issue, but sleep gets mentioned a lot around it, which makes me wonder: The Cubs play in something like 17 different cities every regular season that aren’t Chicago. If you can rent a nice apartment in each of those—like, a legitimately nice one in which Anthony Rizzo would be comfortable—for an average of $4,000 a month (yes, this is pricey for you and me, but I think it might be meager for Anthony Rizzo), and it costs you $1,000 to put a great mattress that Anthony Rizzo loves in each of them, and you even spend another $3,000 furnishing the rest of each place, and they make you sign a twelve-month lease in each, and you leave $6,823.53 in cash on each kitchen counter for the cleaners, you’re still spending only one million dollars to help keep Anthony Rizzo’s back healthy. If one WAR is worth eight million, that’s an eighth of a win you’re paying for, which Anthony Rizzo is expected to amass every seven games or so. He’s already missed something like four this year with back issues. I say you get the apartments (again I obviously know little about Rizzo’s back or the Cubs’ approach to Rizzo’s back or Rizzo’s approach to Rizzo’s back but given the Cubs’ pets heads are falling off right now, I also feel like they could use some suggestions like this one).
6. Is Andrew Chafin available today?
Craig Kimbrel’s thrown on back-to-back nights, so we’d expect him to be down, and while Chafin’s also thrown on back-to-back nights, he’s only thrown a combined nine pitches over that timeframe. Anyway, Ryan Tepera might be the closer today if one’s needed, or they might keep him the high-leverage guy and have Keegan Thompson close because it’s one inning at a time, or it might be Chafin, but that’s the situation with the bullpen. I’d guess everyone else is available except for maybe Dan Winkler and maybe Tommy Nance because each of them pitched last night too.
7. Trevor Williams is batting .308.
Great night at the dish for the pitcher, and it set up one of the fun moments of last night which was Bryant appearing to smile as he poked the ball through the right side behind the running Williams with a full count and two outs in the sixth.
***
Around the Division:
The Cardinals avoided a sweep at the hands of the White Sox, with a Giovanny Gallegos hat confiscation by Joe West and Mike Shildt’s subsequent ejection becoming the most actually meaningful incident yet in Major League Baseball’s potential crackdown on foreign substance application to baseballs. The Brewers lost to the Padres in ten innings, lowering the number of Cubs June opponents at or above .500 by one. The Reds were trailing the Nationals 3-0 when that game got suspended in the bottom of the fourth.
Standings, FanGraphs division championship probabilities (doesn’t take the Reds’ win probability in the suspended game into account, so move everyone above them up by a tenth of a percentage point or so):
1. St. Louis: 27-22, 29.2%
2. Cubs: 26-22, 28.2%
3. Milwaukee: 24-25, 34.1%
4. Cincinnati: 21-25, 8.5%
5. Pittsburgh: 18-30, 0.1%
The takeaway here is that the Cubs could enter June not just as division leaders, but as division favorites. And if you’re looking for another expression of how close the projected race is, the Cubs are projected to win 82.3 games, the Cards are projected to win 82.5, and the Brewers are projected to win 83.3.
The Brewers finish that Padres set today with Adrian Houser going against Ryan Weathers. The Reds will wrap up their Washington series with Sonny Gray opposing Stephen Strasburg after they finish the suspended game. Carlos Martínez leads the Cardinals into a four-game weekend in Arizona. He’ll face Matt Peacock, who is not Brad Peacock, and does not appear to be related to Brad Peacock.
Up Next:
Cubs go for the sweep today.
***
Whom:
Cubs vs. Pittsburgh
Where:
PNC Park
When:
11:35 AM Chicago Time
Weather:
Temperatures in the 70’s, wind blowing out at five to ten miles per hour, looks like a good amount of sunshine. Glad they didn’t have to wait out too long of a delay last night. Would’ve made for a tired morning today (and probably a tired afternoon tomorrow, by extension).
Starting Pitchers:
Kyle Hendricks vs. Tyler Anderson
The Opponent:
This will be the fourth time the Cubs have faced Anderson this year, with the Cubs mounting a 2-1 record against him so far but only scoring eight runs against the lefty over eighteen and a third (that’s a 3.93 ERA, for context, and yes, all the runs were earned). He’s got a 4.73 ERA, a 4.45 xERA, and a 4.10 FIP, which is all adequate and serviceable and, on this year’s Pirates, rather good.
The Numbers:
The Cubs are at -135 to win and +125 to lose, which is around a 55% win probability assigned by the market. The over/under’s at 7½ and leans towards the under. We’ll be giving that last one a look.
Cubs News:
I think everything got covered above except that Rafael Ortega was indeed added to the 40-man roster, and ended up starting last night with Rizzo out. He’s in the lineup again today as Joc Pederson rests against a lefty (Ortega’s left-handed too, which makes one think this is really just designed to be a day of rest for the Cubs’ leadoff man). The lineup looks like this:
1. Willson Contreras (C)
2. Kris Bryant (1B)
3. Javier Báez (SS)
4. Ian Happ (CF)
5. David Bote (3B)
6. Rafael Ortega (LF)
7. Patrick Wisdom (RF)
8. Eric Sogard (2B)
9. Kyle Hendricks (P)
Which means the bench consists of Pederson, Rizzo, Nick Martini, and P.J. Higgins.
Cubs Thoughts:
A sweep is the most likely outcome here, and with this tough slog ahead, it would be a great way to head into Memorial Day Weekend. The win would push the Cubs to 16-7 on the month.
This is the first of five straight day games for the Cubs, who play at 1:20 PM all weekend, including Monday. It also kicks off a stretch of six day games in seven days before a trip out west. Hope they’re getting their sleep, because they’re going to need it. A tough schedule in more ways than one. I’d imagine it helps that the Reds are playing a game and a half today before this weekend’s series.
With that 28-25 mark we set as a target for the Cubs by the end of the month looking attainable (the Cubs need to go 2-3 over these next five to hit it), it’s probably a good time to reset expectations, which in this case means resetting them in a positive direction. This, in itself, is noteworthy. These reasonable goals we set as reference points are on the optimistic side of the median expectation, which means when we revise them upwards, the Cubs have exceeded even reasonable optimism, and are achieving outcomes in the upper quartile of possibilities. So, for a target for the end of June, I’ll say 45-36, comprised of the following splits against the following opponents:
Pittsburgh/Miami: 3-1
San Diego/New York (NL)/Los Angeles: 7-7
Cincinnati/San Francisco/St. Louis/Cleveland/Milwaukee: 9-6
That’s a really good record against a really good coalition of teams, and it’s possible this is setting too high a goal. Also, though, if the Cubs reach it they’ll be on a 90-win pace at the season’s halfway point, they’ll be through the toughest part of their schedule, and I’d imagine they’ll be comfortably more than 50% likely to earn some sort of playoff berth, which all goes to say that the trade deadline discussions might look a lot different from how they currently look.
Big month ahead.
