1. It all changed so quickly.
One minute, the Cubs had Devin Williams on the ropes, struggling to throw strikes to the Cubs’ bench with the bases loaded. The next, the Brewers were pouring gasoline on a brushfire, and the Cubs were sent away licking their wounds.
Quite the letdown.
2. Why was Rafael Ortega swinging 2-0?
I know the answer to this is that there was a high probability of Williams grooving one and four runs are better enough than one to make it worth it to take a hack, but there’s a piece of me that really wishes he’d held off. Maybe the pitch would’ve still been called a strike (it looks borderline checking the gamecast), but it felt like Ortega bailed Williams out a bit. Williams was a mess out there, and I’d imagine Ross would’ve had a quicker hook on Tepera were the Cubs playing with a lead.
Also, we should mention that Luis Urías getting to third to tag out Pederson earlier was an extraordinary play and thoroughly changed the game as well. Huge moment. Ugh.
3. There’s a lot of pressure on the pitching right now.
When Ian Happ hit that first-inning home run, things looked wonderful. Two dinks later, Kyle Hendricks was in trouble. Hendricks didn’t pitch badly—four strikeouts, two walks, really just the home run among balls that he let get crushed—but he needed to pitch excellently, because the Cubs need guys to pitch excellently right now. The same was true for Ryan Tepera then, in the eighth, but you just can’t ask the bullpen to be perfect again and again and again. At some point, the runs have to come.
I’m still on board with the theory that this is the result of a very difficult month of opposing pitching, but the quiet part there is that if the Cubs can’t win against good pitching, they can’t going to be expected to do anything even if they do get to October.
4. Patrick Wisdom is a Rookie of the Year candidate.
Wisdom is right there with the NL leaders in rookie fWAR. So that, at least, is fun.
5. At least Corbin Burnes’s start got pushed back.
Wednesday’s looking a little more appealing now, though still not great. It’s hard to trust any Cubs starter at the moment, with Jake Arrieta not on the more trustworthy side of things.
More thoughts below. Let’s get to tonight’s information first, though.
***
Around the Division:
The Reds and Cardinals both won. Yay.
Standings, FanGraphs division championship probabilities:
1. Milwaukee: 46-33, 75.5%
2. Cubs: 42-37, 13.4%
3. Cincinnati: 39-38, 8.7%
4. St. Louis: 38-41, 2.4%
5. Pittsburgh: 29-48, 0.0%
The Reds start a series with the Padres today in Cincinnati. Tony Santillan vs. Blake Snell. The Cardinals continue against the Diamondbacks in St. Louis. Carlos Martínez vs. Caleb Smith.
Up Next:
Game 2
***
Whom:
Cubs vs. Milwaukee
When:
7:10 PM Chicago Time
Where:
The ghost of Miller Park
Weather:
The rain’s supposed to taper off. If the roof’s open, look for temperatures in the 70’s and wind blowing across from right to left at five to ten miles per hour.
Starting Pitchers:
Zach Davies vs. Brandon Woodruff
The Opponent:
If it’s any consolation, Woodruff’s allowed six home runs over his last four starts after allowing just three over his first eleven starts. Is that a trend? Hopefully.
The Numbers:
The Cubs are +200 underdogs. The Brewers are at -245. The over/under’s at 7½ and leans towards the under.
Cubs News:
Anthony Rizzo sat last night with the back issue, and David Ross didn’t sound too positive about his health in the near-term future. Bad. Trevor Megill came up to reinforce the bullpen, with Tommy Nance optioned down to AAA.
Cubs Thoughts
Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeewwwwww boy.
I said this yesterday, and I tweeted it last night, but the problem isn’t that the Cubs haven’t met expectations. They’ve exceeded them, but by about the same amount the Brewers have exceeded their own expectations, and the end result is that the Cubs are very much on the outside looking in right now, with the wild card highly unlikely because I guess the Giants are just a really good baseball team disguised as a bunch of guys who shouldn’t be a really good baseball team. Shakespearean comedy over there by the Bay.
Realistically, the Cubs can wait a whole month before deciding to buy or sell. But that month is one in which they don’t get the benefits of buying that they could get by buying early. They still don’t have a backup catcher. The offense is still struggling. The rotation is still a puddle of mud out of which guys occasionally come up and gasp for air before returning to their wallowing.
There are three ways these next two games can go. In one of them, the Cubs split the pair, limping out of the series four games back and less than twenty percent playoff likely. In one of them, the Cubs come back and win the series, surging out of it just two games back and needing to just play as well as they’ve played over the front half to be able to expect to be right there with the Brewers, using current rosters for projections. In the third, the Cubs lose both and come out of tomorrow steamrolled, six games back, probably only something like ten percent playoff likely, and needing major turnarounds from themselves in a positive direction and from Milwaukee in a negative direction.
Looking forward beyond this series, between it and the All-Star Break the Brewers play four in Pittsburgh, three in Queens, and four at home against the Reds. Say the Brewers win the Pirates series, split the Reds series, and lose the Mets series, going 6-5. Meanwhile, the Cubs play three in Cincinnati, then seven at home—four against the Phillies, three against the Cardinals. Say the Cubs win all three series, going 8-3.
In the bad scenario from these next two days, the Cubs are then four games back going into the All-Star Break, with a great slate coming out of it (their first ten post-All-Star games are against the Diamondbacks and Cardinals) but a sizable deficit to overcome. In the good scenario, the Cubs are then tied for the division lead and could conceivably start dealing for help, at least around the edges. In the medium scenario, the Cubs are then two games back, needing to continue proving themselves but at least close enough to consider themselves in the mix.
Of course, those 6-5 and 8-3 numbers are in themselves hypothetical. We’re pairing hypotheticals here. The Brewers could easily go 9-2. The Cubs could go 5-6. But as we try to game this out, the general idea is that the Cubs will be in competitive shape if they can win these next two, concerning shape still if they split the two, and terrible shape if they lose both. Which makes tonight, as you already know, a big night for the Chicago Cubs.
I want to believe in Zach Davies. I want to believe that the Brewers’ offense and Brandon Woodruff’s recent struggles will combine for something good for the Cubs. I want to believe that what’ll likely be a Pederson/Contreras/Bryant/Báez/Happ/Heyward/Sogard/Alcántara lineup can find three or four runs, Dan Winkler can fill in for Tepera, Andrew Chafin and Craig Kimbrel can do more of what they’ve done, and the Cubs can set up an all-hands-on-deck rubber match on Wednesday that wouldn’t be a total disaster for them to lose. But that’s hard to do. As the odds imply, it’s around a one-in-three chance, and it’s fair to view it as less likely than that.
