Cubs 8, Phillies 1

In Commentary And Analysis, News And Rumors by dmick8919 Comments

OSS: Javier Baez goes 4-4 and John Lackey continues to dominate. 

Three up:

  1. Javier Baez was 4-4 today with a double and the game-winning RBI in the 5th. He was worth just over a quarter of a win in WPA today (0.27). Myself and another commenter were complaining about Baez's approach early in this one. He could still clean the approach up a bit, but hard to argue with 4-4. 
  2. John Lackey had another great start today. He threw 7 innings of shutout baseball and would have gone deeper had the Cubs not had such a large lead. He allowed only 3 hits, but 2 of those were before he even recorded an out. He struckout 8 and walked none. His K-BB% after this game is now above 20%, which puts him in the top 9 (Jon Lester is there too). He was the only player to out-perform Baez in WPA today (0.35). 
  3. Albert Almora got his first start, his first outfield assist (a great throw cutting down Odubel Herrera in the 1st inning), his first hit and his first RBI. I ran out of room to add Kris Bryant who had the top play of the game (a 2-run home run in the 6th to put the Cubs up 3-0). 

Three down

  1. Dexter Fowler has been on the 3 up list a lot, but he was 0-5 in this one with a strikeout. 
  2. Clayton Richard was brought in to pitch the 9th with the Cubs up 8-0. He managed to complete the inning, which was really rather shocking, but he did surrender a run after walking the leadoff man. 
  3. Since there's really nothing else to add to this part of the list, I'm going to put whoever it is who has determined that keeping Clayton Richard around is a good idea. Joe Maddon? Theo Epstein? Jed Hoyer? I don't know who and I don't care. Just fix it. 

Next up: Jason Hammel vs Bud Norris on Friday at 6:35 at Turner Field in Atlanta. 

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