NLDS Game 3: Cubs 2, Nationals 1

In Playoffs, Postgame by berselius58 Comments

OSS: Cubs win despite getting no hit for most of the game again.

Three+ up:

  1. Anthony Rizzo had the biggest hit of the game, a bloop single to left that managed to find the hole between three defenders to drive in the go-ahead run in the eighth inning. It more than made up for the double play he hit into in the sixth against a possibly tiring Scherzer.
  2. Albert Almora and Ben Zobrist combined for the Cubs other run. Zobrist doubled to left for the Cubs first hit against Scherzer, which chased him from the game. Dusty brought in a lefty to face Schwarber, which prompted Joe to bring in the lefty-killing Almora. He worked a great at bat before sending a clean single to left to score Zobrist.
  3. On the other side of the ball, José Quintana gave the Cubs exactly what they needed, striking out seven in 5.2 innings allowing just two hits and a walk and pitching around some defensive clumnsiness behind him.
  4. Some of the Cubs gloves showed up today, with great plays by Jay and Heyward on some balls early in the game while the sun was in their faces and an incredible stop on a screaming grounder by Russell.

Three down:

  1. There was some pretty bad defense on display as well, including a misplay by Zobrist and a errant pickoff throw by Quintana/Rizzo, both in the third.
  2. The worst, however, was a ball that clanked off of Schwarber's glove that should have ended the sixth inning, and led to the Nats first run and Quintana leaving the game.
  3. The most negative play for either team was an epic TOOTBLAN by Jason Heyward in the seventh. He singled his way on base after Almora's game-tying hit, then got caught waaaay down the basepaths on a long fly ball by Russell that the Nats CF was able to run down. He was thrown out despite the cutoff man falling down while catching the relay.

Next up: The Cubs go for the series win tomorrow with Jake Arrieta on the mound against Tanner Roark. The nominal game time is 4:30 PM CT, though I think it will end up being later if the Dodgers win tonight.

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  1. Author
    berselius

    cerulean:
    A great win.

    But this color announcer is about as competent as Donald Trump in his current position*. He called Edwards Jr Crawford earlier in the game. Because his name is Carl? Ernie just stayed silent, probably thinking—this guy is clueless.

    Darling is supposedly pretty good on the Mets broadcast, but even Coomer would be an improvement in this series.

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  2. dmick89

    berselius,

    I’ve always like Darling, but I think TBS and FOX would be better off hiring a team’s announcers for the games. Both of these announcers said during game one at one point that Dusty Baker was still looking for that “elusive World Series.” It was said about three innings apart. This info isn’t hard to find, but they don’t know it because they don’t cover these teams on a daily basis.

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  4. Rizzo the Rat

    So glad that Schwarber error didn’t cost them the game. That would have been rough. At first I was relieved that Murphy didn’t circle the bases (a fast runner probably could have). That relief was short-lived, of course.

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  5. cerulean

    Luck favors the prepared. I think they had every business winning that game. Quintana was magnificent.

    Also, Zo did make a Javyesque defensive play to rob Turner (?) that nearly rivaled Russell’s.

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  14. Berselius is too lazy to log in

    Feels like people are stretching to criticize Dusty in this one. I don’t have a beef with bringing in lefties to pitch to Schwarber and Rizzo. Just didn’t work out.

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  15. Rizzo the Rat

    I also didn’t have a problem with either move, just as I had no problem with Maddon’s pulling Quintana for Strop.

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  16. Rizzo the Rat

    (Or his putting Zobrist in the starting lineup. That was perfectly fine, too, despite all the criticism I’ve seen here and elsewhere.)

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  22. Rizzo the Rat

    Berselius is too lazy to log in: I don’t have a beef with bringing in lefties to pitch to Schwarber and Rizzo. Just didn’t work out.

    Looking at this again, I think Dusty screwed up by not using Doolittle against Rizzo. He’s a much better lefty than Perez. But, like most managers, he probably doesn’t like bringing in the closer in a tie game on the road.

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  23. Rizzo the Rat

    Joe’s biggest mistake was letting Quintana bat in medium leverage with an inning (at most) left on his arm. Q is basically league average the third time through the order.

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  29. 67catch

    Schwarber drives me nuts. He gets so much credit every time he manages to connect with the ball but has been a weight around the team’s ankle for most of the year. We want him to be so good so we pretend he is. A 211 hitter and you can generally count on him for the big strikeout. I get sticking with Heyward because of his fielding and he’s actually hitting nearly .50 higher than Schwarber for average. And yet, somehow, even when Schwarber nearly costs the game with a Bad News Bears play, it’s Heyward who gets hung with the worst play of the game for getting doubled off. I like that the team rallied around him and all. That’s a big part of why this is such a great team. But quit freaking playing him!

    There has to be an American league team who would take Schwarber off our hands next year. That dude was born to be DH. I get that he’s a good guy and well liked in the clubhouse. But it’s become pretty ridiculous.

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  31. Ryno

    Schwarber is trash defensively and he really underperformed relative to our expectations (let alone many people’s lofty ones), but he’s still an .800 OPS hitter with fewer than 700 regular season at bats in his career. I think it’s reasonable to expect production along the lines of his rookie season (.250/.350/.500) going forward with a few seasons above that. At his salary, I’ll take that.
    Now if someone wants to blow the Cubs away with an offer for him, they should obviously listen.

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  32. dmick89

    67catch,

    Ignoring the batting average since it’s an outdated stat, the guy had a wRC+ of 102 despite his awful start. I think it was in the 70s when he went to AAA. 102 means he was 2% better than the average hitter. He was also worth 1.5 WAR, which about 1.7 of that came after being recalled from AAA. Even at 1.5 and his playing time, he was about league average. You can’t talk about his batting average being so low and ignore the power.

    Joe has done a good job at getting him in the lineup against righties and taking him out if a lefty comes in like yesterday.

    As easy as it is and as comforting as it is, you can’t fall back on one stat, especially one as archaic and flawed as batting average. You can hit .200 and be a great hitter. This is one of the things we’ve learned over the last 25 years and it’s important to remember it. You can be good player with bad defense and you can be a good player with no offense and great defense. Few players are the complete package.

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  33. dmick89

    Ryno:
    Schwarber is trash defensively and he really underperformed relative to our expectations (let alone many people’s lofty ones), but he’s still an .800 OPS hitter with fewer than 700 regular season at bats in his career. I think it’s reasonable to expect production along the lines of his rookie season (.250/.350/.500) going forward with a few seasons above that. At his salary, I’ll take that.
    Now if someone wants to blow the Cubs away with an offer for him, they should obviously listen.

    Exactly. He’s been pretty good all things considered. I think people just expected a 1.000 OPS from him, which is nuts.

    All things considered, Schwarber had a pretty good season after missing the entire season last year.

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  34. dmick89

    Myles,

    I’d be surprised if that’s the case and I’ll be disappointed if it is. Joe didn’t overreact after that poor defensive play in the 2015 playoffs. He didn’t overreact and not use Edwards in a high leverage spot yesterday while facing the same part of the lineup that has given him troubles for most of his career, including in game 2.

    Shit happens. Schwarber had a horrible play that led to the first Nationals run. Edwards and Montgomery blew game 2 and if the Cubs go deep enough in the playoffs it probably won’t be the last game Edwards tries to give away. It’s baseball.

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  35. Ryno

    dmick89,

    This. Because of his postseason success and the narrative during last year’s run, it’s easy to forget some important points like his youth, the fact that he missed basically all of last season AND he still has pretty much only one full season of at bats.

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  38. dmick89

    Zobrist had a pretty big error too. It was also on a play that absolutely should have been fielded. It was an easy play and it nearly led to a run, but Quintana got out of it. Nobody cares about that because Quintana picked him up. Strop couldn’t.

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  40. Myles

    dmick89:
    Zobrist had a pretty big error too. It was also on a play that absolutely should have been fielded. It was an easy play and it nearly led to a run, but Quintana got out of it. Nobody cares about that because Quintana picked him up. Strop couldn’t.

    That’s true. My response to that would be that there is at least some qualitative difference to being eaten up by a routine grounder and lazily jogging to a fly ball, realizing he should have ran, missing the pop fly, and then failing to pick up the groundball, allowing Murphy to get 3 bases on a single play.

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  42. dmick89

    Myles,

    I don’t disagree, but I think this error by Schwarber is getting blown out of proportion for two reasons: he hasn’t met the fans expectations this season and it confirms their belief he is a terrible fielder. Zobrist is also a terrible fielder at this point in his career, but the fans don’t have huge expectations for him.

    I still have a far bigger problem with joe leaving Edwards in against Harper and for Edwards throwing a pitch just about any player would hit 450 feet. That actually cost the Cubs the game.

    The Cubs have nearly given two games away in a best of five.

    Unless you’re Mike Trout, you do some things well and some things poorly. Javy swings at everything and is pretty much useless against a tough righty, but his defense is phenomenal and it makes him a valuable player. Kyle Schwarber can’t field, but has so far in his young career more than made up for it with the bat.

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  43. dmick89

    As long as Joe has been around this game, there’s no way that was the easiest play he’s seen that an outfielder botched. I’m sure Carl Crawford did it at some point. Obviously you wouldn’t take a young Crawford out of a game early, but he was probably back in there the next day.

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  49. Ryno

    To put my Cub fandom in perspective, I have a really hard time typing ‘Henry.’ It always goes Hendry– delete, delete, delete Henry.

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  50. Author
    berselius

    To-day’s base ball squadron vs RHP Roark

    CF Jay
    3B Bryant
    1B Rizzo
    C Contreras
    RF Zobrist
    LF Schwarber
    SS Russell
    2B Baez
    P Arrieta

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  53. Rizzo the Rat

    Perkins,

    I might put him in Jay’s place instead of Zobrist’s. Either way, Heyward has to be one of the top three outfielders against righties.

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