1. Ian Anderson is good.
Some of this is on the Cubs (and we’ll get to a couple sides of that), but Anderson was hard to hit, and the Cubs are far from the only ones who’ve had trouble hitting him. Atlanta’s got some great young pitching.
2. Brandon Workman struggled again.
Nico Hoerner’s error didn’t help matters, but Workman looked helpless at times, and it hurt, taking the Cubs from a 2-0 deficit to a 5-0 deficit. It was the dagger. Would the Cubs have won with a good inning from Workman? Probably not. But they would have at least forced Will Smith to pitch, and some long at-bats could have taken him out of the equation for tonight.
3. Is protecting the plate smart statistically?
In the eighth inning, with the score still 2-0 and I believe Kris Bryant waiting on deck, Ian Happ struck out looking on two pitches that appeared to be outside. If I remember correctly, each was a backdoor breaking ball, something I think is hard to do much with besides slap it the other way.
I’m curious whether taking these pitches—which umpires usually get right—or swinging at them is the better move, statistically. In little league, they teach you to swing at anything close with two strikes. But is that a strategy more apt in games with little league umps than those involving major league umps?
4. What’s a reasonable goal?
We keep coming back to this, and that’s because I think it’s helpful in gauging where this team is really at as we approach discussions of buying, selling, and the general future of the franchise. For a little while, the reasonable goal was to not get swept, and that’s basically where we’re at again for the next two nights. But looking ahead to May, knowing what we know about the Cubs (which is, summed up, that they’re kind of exactly what we expected?), it seems like a solid target record exiting next month is 28-25, which I got from assigning the Cubs the following records against the following teams:
Atlanta/Cincinnati/St. Louis/Cleveland/Washington: 10-7
Los Angeles/San Diego: 2-2
Pittsburgh/Detroit: 6-3
That’s probably a little ambitious against Los Angeles and San Diego, but all four of those games are at home and really, if they go 1-3 against those teams they’ll still finish the month 27-26 if they can hit the other marks, which is fine. 27 or 28 wins through May is somewhere between an 82-win pace and an 86-win pace, which might not be enough to win the division, but might be enough to win the division.
***
Around the Division:
Speaking of the division, everyone else won yesterday. The Brewers held off the Marlins, 5-4. The Cardinals beat the Phillies, 5-2. The Reds took their second straight from the Dodgers, 6-5. The Pirates won against the Royals, 2-1.
Standings, FanGraphs division championship probabilities:
1. Milwaukee (14-9, 58.0%)
T-2. St. Louis (12-11, 17.6%)
T-2. Pittsburgh (12-11, 0.9%)
4. Cincinnati (11-12, 14.3%)
5. Cubs (10-13, 9.1%)
Up Next:
Game three tonight. A series split is still on the table. So is a five-game losing streak.
***
Whom:
Cubs vs. Atlanta
Where:
Atlanta
When:
6:20 PM Chicago Time
Weather:
Another beautiful evening. Temperatures dropping into the 70’s, wind blowing in from the right field foul pole at five to ten miles per hour.
Starting Pitchers:
Kyle Hendricks vs. Huascar Ynoa
The Opponent:
Ynoa’s only 22, but he’s been playing in the states since 2016. He made his major league debut in 2019, making two relief outings, but after last year’s short season he only has about 45 career innings under his belt. So far this year, the results have been positive, with a 3.68 ERA and a 4.31 FIP. Opponents are managing a .369 xwOBA against him, though, and his barrel rate over the small sample so far is among the worst in the league. The Cubs should be able to get to him. He’s not Anderson (or Charlie Morton). But he isn’t expected to be throwing meatballs up there.
The Numbers:
The Cubs are +110 underdogs, with their hosts at -130 on the moneyline. The over/under’s at 8½ and leans towards the over.
Cubs News:
Kris Bryant has some pain in his bicep that bothers him when he throws, which is why he got the day off last night. Javy Báez got an MRI on his hamstring, and it’s mildly strained, so he might hit the injured list today. Neither of these things are good news, but neither is terrible, especially with Báez a bit all over the place performance-wise and Nico Hoerner playing well.
In more historic Cubs news, former closer Héctor Rondón is retiring. What a pitcher he was for the Cubs, especially in that 2015 season, when he posted a 1.67 ERA over seventy innings of work. Sad to see him go.
Cubs Thoughts:
This team struggles against good pitchers. Which is fair for a mediocre team, which is what the Cubs are. What we’re getting makes sense. So far, though, they’ve done well at times against mediocre pitchers, and while I wouldn’t call Ynoa mediocre, that’s mostly because his sample size is still too small to say that with confidence.
