Good Series, Tough Loss

The Cubs won the Cardinals series 2-1 and came within 2/3 of an inning of a sweep.  After Wednesday's game, Maddon was looking for lessons and sort of came to the conclusion the loss would toughen the team up and that they had to execute, meaning, I suppose, that Strop should not have walked that guy and the Richard and Rodney messed up as well.  Also that the team was upset and disheartened not to have swept the series and that was a good thing.

Actually, you can make a case that this one, and likely most of the bullpen meltdowns over the course of the season, come about as a natural consequence of Maddon's style of handling the bullpen and his starting pitchers.  I'm not saying that style is indefensible, just that there are some drawbacks in going to the pen in the fifth or sixth inning a lot, namely that sooner or later, these guys, unless they are really, really good, are going to get tired or choke or both.

Maddon has relied on Grimm, Strop, and Rondon for most of the pressure spots this year, and it is pretty clear that Rondon is the only guy he can really count on to get crucial outs or shut down the opposing team.  That's not to say these guys cannot come back.  Arrieta pitches tomorrow, so that probably means the pen will get a respite.  But the thing is that the bullpen is by no means comparable to, say, the Royals last year, so you are going to get these situations every now and again.

Also, there really was an alternative to calling on Strop to start the eighth inning and that, of course, was to leave Lester in the game.  Lester had pitched seven scoreless innings after a shaky first and had allowed only one base-runner all that time.  Granted he had thrown around 100 pitches, and granted we don't know whether he was out of gas or what, but he seemed to be in complete command to that point.