The Cubs this week host the best team in baseball, the Philadelphia Phillies (albeit without two of their top bats in Bryce Harper and Kyle Schwarber). I don’t see the series as much of a litmus test for the already-floundering Cubs, and instead see it as just wins or losses.
That is to say, if the Cubs were to win two of three, it’s not like I’d think, “Ooh, actually, the Cubs can compete with the best, and therefore they will be fine!” Heck, they could sweep the Phillies, and all I would think is, “OK, well, that’s three wins they didn’t have on Monday – stack on another five or six and maybe we’ll talk.”
One of those factoids you already know, but nevertheless hits you right in the breadbasket when you see it in black and white (The Athletic): “(This is) a team that won back-to-back games only once in May, and on two separate occasions in June.” Obviously. It felt like that. But really consider just how poor that is. In TWO MONTHS of play – ONE THIRD OF THE ENTIRE SEASON – the Cubs won back-to-back games JUST THREE TIMES.
… AND THEY DID THAT DESPITE HAVING A STARTING ROTATION THAT WAS KICKING ASS ALMOST THE ENTIRE TIME.
Speaking of which, let me do a really stupid thing in service of making a point. Going back to May 1, the two months the Cubs have inarguably been absolutely miserable, the Cubs have a top-10 starting rotation by ERA. Those starting pitchers, however, have an 8-18 win-loss record during that time. Know how many of the other top-10 rotations have a losing record? NONE, OBVIOUSLY. And yet Cubs starting pitchers are 10 GAMES UNDER by that particular statistic, which I happen to hate as a measure of individual player performance, but in this instance does SCREAM LOUD AND FREAKING CLEAR just how bad the offense and bullpen have been. (Bonus: no team staff has fewer wins in all of baseball during that stretch. Double bonus: you don’t get to another staff that is 10 games under until number 20 on the list, the Chicago White Sox.)
Whew. Take a breath, buddy. It was a rare Monday of full minor league action because of the holiday week, which means we got to see Moises Ballesteros have ANOTHER multi-hit game for Iowa:
Double-A Tennessee starter Brandon Birdsell took a no-hitter into the 7th inning, ultimately giving up a solo home run as the only hit he allowed in the game. Nine strikeouts and zero walks, too. He’s starting to put together another good season statistically (in his contact-management way), but it’s really hard to trust pitching performances in the Southern League right now, given what we’ve seen from the extreeeeemely depressed offensive numbers.
This is just great to see, particularly because so much of his recent hot streak was taking place mostly without much power:
There now seems to be a reasonable chance that Ed Howard forces his way to Double-A Tennessee before the end of the year, and that is not something I would’ve thought was possible back in April.
Haydn McGeary went from possibly the single coldest hitter in the entire minor league system for most of April to almost average in May to blistering hot in June. Carried it into July:
McGeary has been running a wRC+ north of 200 for three weeks now. I don’t know if the 24-year-old first baseman will see Triple-A this year, but if this heater continues through July, it’s a distinct possibility in August and September.
What a 101.3 mph throw from the outfield looks like:
Rockies walked the Brewers off, btw, not that it matters:
The Cubs signed veteran minor league utility infielder Jake Hager to a minor league deal, presumably to help fill in a spot somewhere vacated by injury (with all due respect to Hager, 31, he is not a guy the Cubs are signing with the thought that he’ll eventually come up to the big league team and contribute). The spot that makes me a little nervous is at Tennessee, where Matt Shaw hasn’t played in nearly a week.
NEWSLETTER
