Tough Losses

The Cubs have been playing indifferent baseball again lately.  They had a good series against Arizona, but the return home has not been the expected triumph.  They split a series with a really awful Cincinnati team when they might have swept or at least taken three of four.

Hard to say what's gone wrong.  They have a stretch coming up where they play some bad teams.  Theoretically, they should fatten up on this competition and coast home from there, but I am beginning to wonder.

Thursday's loss was a tough one, not merely because Lester had a bad outing and left with an injury, but when you come back from nine runs down and tie the game, you have to win.  Once again, the bullpen could not come through late.  This time it was Grimm and Wilson who blew it.  Actually, the late inning relievers almost botched up the Wednesday night game as well.

It's hard to figure why these guys cannot throw strikes late in the game.  They seem to be pitching without confidence or else too fine.  Walks killed them in the other series they messed up earlier in the month, but those were against good teams.  Part of the problem is the starting pitching.  They have been pretty good of late.  Most notably, Lackey and Arrieta look as if they are back in form.  Hendricks also seems like his old self.  The thing is that they are still not pitching into the seventh inning most of the time.  This means that instead of needing to cover two or three innings at most, the relievers have to cover three or four or even five.  Over the long haul, this is going to take its toll.

I expect the Cubs thought the addition of Wilson would take away some of the pressure, but Wilson has been terrible.  Uehara is hurt, so the Cubs have had to bring back Grimm.  Grimm has had a dreadful year, so that just makes things worse.  Although they have had some issues, the Cubs can only rely on Montgomery, who is really the long man as evidenced in Thursday's game when he shut the door and kept the team in the game, Strop, Edwards, Duensing, and Davis.

Grimm and Wilson are useless.  Rondon is struggling as well.  This is OK if you need to cover two innings, but should you need three or more, you have to go with Grimm and Wilson, so you are likely to give up some runs.  The other factor here is that Maddon insists on managing his bullpen in a particularly unimaginative fashion.  He will never use Davis when the team is behind, even by a single run when there is no possibility of a save opportunity.  He will rarely use him in a tie game either, even at home.  Wednesday's game was a rare exception and it payed off.  Maddon rarely goes to his first string when the game is tied or the opponent has a narrow lead.

So what this adds up to is this.  The Cubs are in big trouble if Lester misses more than one start and they don't get Uehara back pretty soon.  They are still likely to hang on to the division, but after that, it is anyone's guess how far they will go.