Cubs 2, Brewers 1 (5/18/16)

In Commentary And Analysis by berselius37 Comments

OSS: Against all odds, Travis Wood saves the day.

Three up:

  1. Travis Wood Houdini-ed himself out of an impossible jam in the twelfth inning. He inherited two runners from Rondon, who was working in his second inning, then walked Santana to load the bases with nobody out. The Cubs brought an outfielder for the extra shot at the force at home but didn’t really need it – Wood miraculously induced three pop-ups/shallow flies to get out of the inning. He then drew a bases-loaded walk in the top of the next inning to give the Cubs the lead. It was that kind of game.
  2. The Cubs only got to extras thanks to a ninth inning rally against Brewers closer Jeremy Jeffress. Addison Russell got the game-tying RBI on a fielder’s choice and the Cubs might have been able to close this out earlier if a few things had been different.
  3. David Ross gunned down four baserunners in this game. Between this, the highly-correlated TOOTBLANs, the seemingly 14 double plays in this game, and the Cubs hitting into roughly 37 (by my count) line drive outs it was just a really strange game.

Three down

  1. An absolutely brutal day on offense for Jason Heyward, who posted a whopping -.421 WPA. He got one hit, but struck out twice and hit into a double play. His other time on base might have been another double play if Gennett had been able to turn it, but he was caught stealing in one of many TOOTBLANs in general on the night for both teams.
  2. I normally like that Joe is far more aggressive than most managers with using his bench but it burned him today, most notably in losing Rizzo from the ninth inning on and finding himself forced to use Tim Federowicz in a key at bat in the ninth. FedEx’s whiffs were so powerful that the wind knocked over my lawn chairs, 5 or 6 states away. At the very least Maddon should have let Ross get IBB’d (or hit for himself) and then used Montero to pinch hit for the pitcher in the ninth.
  3. I can empathize Brewers fans, as that extra inning performance was vintage Cubes. No runs scored out of a bases loaded, no-out situation, followed by walking in the go-ahead run with a pitcher at the plate, followed by again failing to knock in the tying run from third with less than two outs is a triple gut punch.

Next game: Hammel v Guerra, 12:40 PM CT. These two guys might be the only ones awake in tomorrow’s starting lineups. I’m guessing we see FedEx since both Ross and Montero saw time behind the plate today.

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Comments

  1. Rizzo the Rat

    Those intentional walks with runners on first and second (with the runner on second being the go-ahead run) are so stupid. I’m glad it was the Brewers who did it this time. Thanks for the free gift!

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  2. SK

    New website off the hook for the losing jinx. Although I blamed the positively gushing “our team is so awesome” podcast they recorded right before the losing streak started. (dying laughing)

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  3. cerulean

    I am so glad I checked out in the tenth. I thought the game would go 14. Little did I know the bases would be pretty much loaded every single frame. (dying laughing)

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  4. Millertime

    Also, I was at the game, and the bunt by Russell was really weird. Did Joe call for that, or was that him acting alone?

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  5. SK

    Yeah it made me go through the robot check to comment, then afterward I’m logged in.

    (before commenting, when i tried to log in it wouldn’t “take”)

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  6. cerulean

    Millertime:
    Seems like a strange roster construction right now.13 Pitchers, 3 Catchers?

    If you told me at the beginning of the year that we would be waiting and hoping for Matt Szczur’s return from injury, I would have thought the year was a bust, but here we are. I expect this odd roster construction to be temporary—dumb on its face, but with idiosyncratic reasons that are at least defensible in a daily assessment, but less so on a weekly one. Blowing through all of the available players in a 13-inning game doesn’t make the roster calculus any more clear.

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  7. dmick89

    cerulean: If you told me at the beginning of the year that we would be waiting and hoping for Matt Szczur’s return from injury, I would have thought the year was a bust, but here we are.

    Yeah, I’ve been looking forward to Szczur’s return since he went down and I had hoped I would never have to feel like that again. It doesn’t seem to matter though.

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  8. dmick89

    cerulean,

    The true benefit is that you could have all 8 catchers on the field at one time if necessary. You could make catching changes based on count and what the next pitch is. If Strop is on the mound, maybe you want David Ross behind the plate to block that slider. With 8 catchers on the field, that’s possible.

    I’m surprised Dusty Baker hasn’t done this with 2nd basemen.

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  9. cerulean

    dmick89,

    I think what you really want are pitchers that are also catchers—then just switch them up per batter.

    Serious question: Can players change position without someone exiting the game. I am trying to think of an example and I can’t.

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  10. SK

    cerulean:
    dmick89,

    I think what you really want are pitchers that are also catchers—then just switch them up per batter.

    Serious question: Can players change position without someone exiting the game. I am trying to think of an example and I can’t.

    Lou Piniella, Sean Marshall, Left Field, boom.

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  11. Rice Cube

    SK,

    yeah usually they throw a pitcher into the OF and you can potentially just put him to the non-pull side of the field to minimize him having to actually field.

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  12. cerulean

    SK: Lou Piniella, Sean Marshall, Left Field, boom.

    That is not an example of what I am talking about. Soriano exited the game when the position switch was made, then Reed Johnson came into the game when Marshall was sent back to the mound. What would be an example is if Soriano switched with Marshall and no one entered or exited the game. All I have found are rules on double switches, which is not what I am referring to.

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  13. dmick89

    Any player can change position with any other player. The only thing is that once you move someone to pitcher, they must face at least one batter. There are no restrictions on the other fielders. Bryant and Baez could switch positions every pitch if they wanted to.

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  14. EnricoPallazzo

    given that fedex is out of options, is it still a no-brainer that szczur will be taking his roster spot? i could see an argument being made for keeping fedex around given montero’s injury and the fact that david ross is older than SK.

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  15. SK

    cerulean,

    Well exCUSE ME!

    But I’m sure I’ve seen LF and RF switched mid-inning before based on who’s batting. In fact, I have a feeling Joe might have done it with Coghlan and/or Schwarber last year.

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  16. Author
    berselius

    SK: Probably Berselius, up until last week.

    (dying laughing)

    I thought I recognized that company name from somewhere. We had one of their modems in my misspent youth.

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  17. Author
    berselius

    EnricoPallazzo:
    given that fedex is out of options, is it still a no-brainer that szczur will be taking his roster spot? i could see an argument being made for keeping fedex around given montero’s injury and the fact that david ross is older than SK.

    It just means that he’ll have to go through waivers. Even the Braves wouldn’t be desperate enough to claim him.

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  18. dmick89

    Yeah, I’d guess that FedEx would clear waivers and could then be sent to Iowa. Even if some team claims him (hopefully the Cardinals want to block the Cubs from keeping him), it’s no big deal. Willson Contreras is not needed in AAA anymore. He’s the team’s best catcher. He just happens to be catching in Des Moines.

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  19. SK

    Actually, I suppose spies and terrorists could still use 56K modems. You can connect modem to modem across a plan old telephone line and send shit (albeit slowly) and completely bypass the interwebs in theory (although a lot of long distance phone traffic get packetized over the core network, it’s not public internet).

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  20. cerulean

    dmick89:
    Any player can change position with any other player. The only thing is that once you move someone to pitcher, they must face at least one batter. There are no restrictions on the other fielders. Bryant and Baez could switch positions every pitch if they wanted to.

    Imagine having Rizzo double as an effective LOOGY.

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