OSS: Jason Hammel is all out of gum.
Three up
1. Another great outing for Hammel – he went eight innings, striking out seven, walking two, and giving up one run. He was pulled in the ninth after giving up another run on a Bryce Harper bomb and didn’t get the CG, but still a fantastic outing.
2. Rizzo and Fowler led the offense in WPA, mostly due to an RBI single and double respectively off of Tyson Ross’s little brother, making his MLB debut. It’s nice to see the Cubs not get shut down by a guy making his debut for once.
3. Props to Joe Maddon for giving Starlin Castro some rest, and waiting until he had a decent stretch so the Castro-haters could quiet down. He’s seemed like he could use a breather for a while.
Three down
1. There’s been no official announcement, but Hector Rondon’s latest shaky outing may have lost him the closer’s role. He had a hard time locating when coming in relief of Hammel, and after walking his first batter Maddon went straight to Strop who got the save.
2. Lake’s been a different player this year plate approach-wise, but he didn’t have his best game today. He struck out swinging with runners on first and third in the fourth and hit into a double play in the sixth to lead the Cubs in negative WPA.
3. Not much else to complain about in this game Cubs-wise, but I’m still laughing at Bryce Harper’s clown shoes effort when he got caught between second and third yesterday and just completely gave up on the play, slowly walking back to the bag to be tagged out.
Next game: Hendricks vs Zimmermann, 3:05 PM CT. If the Cubs win it’s almost like they won a best of seven series against the Nats. Kind of.