Strop, Maddon, Loss

The Cubs continue to under-perform on the road.  Friday nights loss continued the trend, the third game blown by the bullpen in this stretch and the second blown by Pedro Strop.  There seems to be something wrong with Strop either physically or mentally or both.  In any case, he is a disaster this season as compared to his prior years of creditable service.  So, incidentally, is Carl Edwards and was  the recently traded Mike Montgomery.  These guys were lynch pins of the Cubs bullpen in former years and highlight the big gap Epstein and Hoyer and Maddon need to fill to bring this team into and through the playoffs.

Notwithstanding the aformentioned failures, I have to question Maddon's decisions in almost all these defeats.  I've always thought Maddon was a terrific clubhouse manager and a questionable and sometimes downright awful field manager.  Tonight's game is a great example.  Hendricks is pitching a two-hit shutout through five innings.  Bote hits a two-run homer to give them a lead.  Maddon pinch hits for Hendricks, the next batter, using Schwarber against a lefty.  Schwarber predictably strikes out.  Hendricks pitch count was getting up there, but you could tell even in the dugout he wanted to give them another inning and might easily have done so.

So this leaves four innings for the beleaguered bullpen to fill.  Ryan comes in and gets two outs sandwiched around a walk.  Why not let Ryan finish the inning?  Instead Cishek comes in and makes heavy weather of things before eventually getting the third out.  How much worse might it have been to let Ryan finish the inning?

So Cishek gets two outs in the seventh sandwiched around a walk.  Kintzler replaces Cishek and gives up a single to Yelich to bring the score to 2-1 before getting the final out.  The following inning, Kintzler begins an inning, like Cishek before after working out of a jam, by getting into trouble.  He leaves with two men on and is replaced by Strop who blows the game by giving up a bases loaded single  to give the Brewers the lead.

Now it is hard to predict guys who will be off or just plain bad, but continually putting pitchers who are struggling like Edwards Sunday and Strop Monday and Friday  into game situations is just dumb.  Also you have to wonder why taking out Hendricks early was smart and whether removing a pitcher who needed only a single out to escape a non-threatening situation was smart and whether sticking with pitchers who escaped trouble in stressful partial innings was smart.

I happen not to think so, but Maddon does it all the time and it does cost the Cubs victories.  I reckon the Cubs bullpen has lost at least ten winnable games this year, maybe more.  It is going to take more than Derek Holland to remedy this problem.