The Cubs played pretty good baseball at home last week and came within two innings of sweeping the six games they played at Wrigley against the Mets and the Marlins. Unfortunately, whether it is because the A team relievers were unavailable or just a desire to change things up, Renteria let the normally reliable Schlitter and the somewhat inconsistent Strop blow a 2-0 lead, which allowed the Marlins to avoid the sweep. I still want to know how you can have seven pitchers in the bullpen but no one warming up when a guy you have brought in is obviously struggling to throw strikes.
Still 5-1 was not bad, mostly on the wave of solid pitching and some heroic hitting by Anthony Rizzo. Monday night was not so lucky an experience. I've always thought the Cubs matched up well against the Pirates, but Jackson rarely matches up well against anyone and usually does not put together two quality starts in succession.
I'm beginning to like JD more and more for his commentaries and subtle digs at Cubs strategy. Last night he opened by confiding that most teams stack up more right-handed hitters against the Pirates starter Charlie Morton because the stats seem to favor them over left-handed hitters. So the message is there is more to playing match-ups than just going with the old platoon. This message is invariably lost on Renteria. The Cubs came out with a lineup that included only Lake and Castro from the right side and seemingly paid the price.
I assume the Cubs will bring out their right-handed platoon tomorrow, such as it is. Liriano has more typical match-ups against same-sided hitters, so this is probably the best thing to do. On the other hand, Liriano, despite pitching back to form (this is, indifferently) this season, usually gives the Cubs fits.
Glad to see Veras go, by the way. A useless waste of money by the front office.
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