Another Bullpen Failure

The Cubs lost a tough one on Sunday 3-2, losing the series to a Milwaukee team that is seriously banged up and, even when healthy, not very good.  This time it took eleven innings to lose.  The Cubs are on a serious slide, falling to .500 after a terrific start, having lost eight of their last eleven games.  Mostly they are scoring enough runs, with a couple of exceptions, to win these games, even though they are starting to strike out a lot.  The failure has been in the pitching department, particularly the bullpen.

I have to second-guess Maddon again today.  Maddon was set up to use his most reliable bullpen assets Sunday afternoon, namely, Rosscup, Strop, and Rondon.  You have to wonder why he pulled Hendricks, though, in the sixth inning.  OK, his pitch count was not low, but he should have been able to go six.  The speculation is you did not want him facing the heart of the order and losing confidence.  The counter-argument here is that young pitchers build confidence and experience by getting out of jams.

Anyway, the early hook has just not been working for the Cubs lately and it did not work on Sunday.  Grimm managed to get out of the jam with a double play ball, but, despite having hardly pitched at all this season, two-thirds of an inning to that point, he was lifted in favor of Rosscup in the seventh.  Rosscup was doing pretty well so far since his callup, but he gave up two home runs to weak hitters to blow the lead.

Strop gave the Cubs two scoreless innings and Russell one, letting the Cubs at least tie the score and force extra innings.  This leads me to the real second-guessing exercise.  Rondon, who had been warming up off and on for several innings, should have come in to pitch the eleventh.  The heart of the Brewers lineup was due to bat and the key in this situation is to survive for another inning.  The Brewers had already used up their most effective relievers.  Indeed, both teams were running out of pitchers and players, so the rest of the game would pit less than optimal pitching against whoever was left in the game.

Instead, Maddon chose to go with Motte.  The results were fairly predicable.  Motte got in trouble and ultimately blew the game.  So it goes.