The Cubs won Monday night largely on the strength of Mike Montgomery's pitching performance. Actually, I have made this point on several occasions. The Cubs are only as good as their starting pitchers. This season they have not been up to the performances they recorded last year. The Cubs have a championship caliber lineup that has not been performing as such for whatever reason. So when their starters do not pitch into the seventh inning at least in a tighter game, the bullpen starts failing more often and they wind up looking pretty mediocre. Such was the case pretty much throughout the so-called basement tour when they went 8-5 against the worst teams in baseball.
It is true that there has been improvement in this regard since the All-Star break, but there are still problems. Lester is hurt, but before that, in August, he was not pitching well or deep into games. Maybe it was the injury. Who knows? Lackey seemed to have turned the corner after returning from the DL, but lets face it, he had outstanding run support in that stretch and he still never made it past the sixth inning. Quintana has been a major disappointment, and, again, has not pitched deep into games.
That leaves just Hendricks and Arrieta among the starters who can be relied upon consistently, as well as Montgomery who has pitched very well in a stopgap role, better than the guys he has been replacing.
I read where the Cubs were kicking around the idea of using a six man rotation through September. To my mind, it's a good idea. Maybe it will help.
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