Keegan Thompson’s first career start…remember that? It was the second game of that Dodgers doubleheader—the one the Cubs won in nine on David Bote’s fliner to the warning track. It was the day the Cubs roared to life.
Thompson was solid that day—got eleven outs, avoided getting himself into terrible trouble, struck out a pair, walked a pair. His other 26 appearances were similar and dissimilar to that night. He was great at stranding runners, but he allowed a lot of them, and he allowed a lot of quality contact, two things that will hopefully not be so much of a feature this time around.
Thompson, as is the case with Justin Steele and others the Cubs are trying out, is unlikely to be a long-term solution in the rotation. But he could be that. The Cubs are playing a bit of a numbers game, and there’s some randomness involved with those—one possibility we should recognize is that just as the Cubs, at the moment, seem to be hitting on a high percentage of cast-off minor league hitters, they might not hit on a whole lot of decent-not-great pitching prospects. You’d expect to maybe find one or two solid contributors in each of those groupings, and they’re independent of one another, but they’re kind of parallel, which makes them helpful to think about together.
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Draft Watch:
The Cubs enter this weekend half a game off of the Royals and Nationals and two and a half off of the Marlins for the fifth overall pick. The Twins are half a game off the Cubs, holding the ninth pick, and the Rockies are two games off the Cubs with the tenth pick.
The Diaspora:
Jon Lester had a not-great outing for the Cardinals yesterday, allowing four runs in the fourth, but the Cards came back after he exited to get a much-needed win in their wild card chase. Javy Báez worked out with Francisco Lindor before yesterday’s Mets game, and might return within the next week.
Around the Division:
The Reds beat the Marlins and are now just a game out of the second wild card spot, with FanGraphs giving them a narrow edge over the Padres but not over the field (see: St. Louis, who sits at something like eight percent). The Cardinals are three and a half back of the Pads.
Up Next:
Three with the Royals at Wrigley.
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Whom:
Cubs vs. Kansas City
When:
1:20 PM Chicago Time
Where:
Wrigley Field
Weather:
A beautiful day for a day game. Temperatures in the low 80’s, wind blowing in from right at five to ten miles per hour.
Starting Pitchers:
Zach Davies vs. Brad Keller
The Opponent:
The Royals aren’t much, but then again, neither are the Cubs. A strong start to the year quickly faded, and the big highlight for the team has been Nicky Lopez’s rise from a 56 wRC+ over his first two seasons to a 96 this year, which has paired with excellent defense up the middle to make him a 2.6-fWAR player.
Keller’s having a rough go of it, with a 5.62 ERA that could be lucky (his xERA’s 6.44) or could be unlucky (his FIP’s 4.68) over 123.1 innings. Only 25, the hope with him is that this is just an off year, and that starts like his last one—6.2 IP, 8 K, 2 BB, 0 HR, 2 ER—will become more commonplace as the season fades.
The Numbers:
Even odds, with each team at -110 to win. The over/under’s at 8½.
Cubs News:
I don’t believe there’s anything new of note.
Cubs Thoughts:
Zach Davies is dead weight in terms of how indicative his performance is for next year’s Cubs, so if you’re trying to maximize reasonable expectations for future Cubs, the desired result today would be a draft-helping loss in which everyone rakes and the bullpen does fine but the deficit’s just too big to overcome.
