Have been out of town for a bit, so I have not kept up the blog.
Friday night the Cubs held on to beat the Brewers 7-6. Rondon almost blew it in the ninth, having entered the game with a four run lead. Actually, I rather think he was rusty from lack of work rather than this being the typical non-save closer syndrome. The rest of the bullpen is seriously overworked.
The Cubs hit four home runs and struck out a ton, but the key play in retrospect was Bryant's hustling infield single on a successful challenge to the original out call that put up the seventh and ultimately deciding run. Russell scored on the play. Russell had previously reached on an infield hit, advanced to second on the wild throw and to third on another error when the Brewers retrieved the original throw and sent it on to third even though no one was covering the base.
Maddon has said the Cubs can play with the Cardinals at their level, which I suppose is true, but right now the Cards are the better team and they are red hot. The Cubs lost three of four in St. Louis, though they should have won three of four. They scored plenty of runs in the first three games, but it was the bullpen that blew sizable leads in the first two.
The bullpen so far has been the Cubs Achilles Heel. Generally speaking, the pen is failing when they have to provide more than three innings of relief. I can kind of understand Maddon pulling Wood and Hendricks early in the first two games against St. Louis, but given the bullpen having been taxed in the previous series at home, you wonder whether his hook is a little too quick these days. Neither pitcher had reached 100 pitches through five innings.
In any case, the Cubs need to fix the bullpen problems to stay within striking distance of the Cards.
No comments:
Post a Comment