Cubs 4, Dbacks 2 (4/9/15)

In Commentary And Analysis by berselius34 Comments

OSSCubs knock around Greinke early, and Hendricks cruises

Three up:

  1. Not much drama at all in this game, which seems typical of Kyle Hendricks starts. He came out strong, retiring the first six batters he faced (including a strikeout of Goldschmidt). He even slapped a single to left in his first PA of the season. The Dbacks WPA never rose above 28% after the Cubs scored in the first inning, and all credit to Hendricks. Well, most credit. Warren and Rondon looked sharp too, especially Rondon.
  2. After ragging on Zobrist a bit in yesterday's game, he was great tonight. He worked great counts in his early PAs and was the Cubs WPA leading position player on the day, mostly due to his RBI double in the fourth.
  3. Addison Hustle, flashing the leather

    It was a great turnout of Cubs fans at the DBacks home park. I'm guessing it was two to one in favor of the Cubs, and they were fairly loud. Bonus points for the Sosa and Zambrano jerseys I spotted in the crowd. I also saw a Cubs Cahill jersey, so nice to know that he had family there (dying laughing).

Three down:

  1. The bottom eight WPA plays in this game were all by Arizona players, so I guess this goes to the number niner, Addison Russell for striking out to end the Cubs rally in the first inning. It would have gone to Zobrist if what I thought I saw happen in the ninth actually happened, namely, a triple play. It looked like Segura caught it on the fly from my vantage point in the cheap seats.
  2. Today's Maddon-related nit-picking was leaving Warren in to hit for himself in a two run game. I mostly get why he did it – Warren hadn't pitched all week and the whole point of the Cubs too-many-long-men strategy was to have pitchers go multiple innings more often. But it's certainly not as egregious a choice as Chip Hale intentionally walking Rizzo to get to Bryant, platoon advantage or no (dying laughing).
  3. I couldn't decide what annoyed me more about about the Dbacks jumbotron twitter feed – that the "go dbacks" hashtag always read like "God-backs" or that they were filtering tweets such that the only ones that showed up were those that supported their awful new uniforms. 

Sunday Sunday Sunday: Jay Carrieta vs Shelby Miller, 3:10 PM CT

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  1. andcounting

    Suburban kid,

    I don’t think he hits more ground balls than other batters, per se, I just think Dexter Fowler is always on base with less than two outs. Every grounder Zobrist hits is likely to be a double play. (dying laughing)

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  2. GW

    Today’s Maddon-related nit-picking was leaving Warren in to hit for himself in a two run game. I mostly get why he did it – Warren hadn’t pitched all week and the whole point of the Cubs too-many-long-men strategy was to have pitchers go multiple innings more often.

    That was pretty awful. The benefits of having a bunch of long men around have to be pretty marginal in the first place, if they exist at all. It won’t take too many at-bats by relievers in high-leverage situations to completely cancel them out.

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  3. Author
    berselius

    GW,

    You’d think that Joe would have double switched to avoid this too, considering how much he loves doing so. Maybe we’ll see less of it once Baez is back, though it’s not like La Stella can’t play a whole bunch of positions.

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  4. GW

    berselius: Gerardo Concepcion made it to AA apparently. I thought he was still in low A (dying laughing).

    8.24 era there last year in 31 relief innings with more walks than strikeouts. I’m sure he will be fine after the Cubs completely revamp his pitching motion.

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  5. Author
    berselius

    GW: 8.24 era there last year in 31 relief innings with more walks than strikeouts. I’m sure he will be fine after the Cubs completely revamp his pitching motion.

    Perhaps he needs a new stretching routine?

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  6. Myles

    GW: 8.24 era there last year in 31 relief innings with more walks than strikeouts. I’m sure he will be fine after the Cubs completely revamp his pitching motion.

    I hear he KILLS the towel drills, though.

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  7. Suburban kid

    I was wondering how being out the whole year {dagger —> own stomach} would impact Schwarber’s service time.

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  8. Author
    berselius

    Suburban kid:
    I was wondering how being out the whole year {dagger —> own stomach} would impact Schwarber’s service time.

    I am pretty sure that players accumulate service time on the DL

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  9. Author
    berselius

    To-day’s base ball squadron

    Zobrist
    Heyward (CF)
    Bryant (RF)
    Rizzo
    Soler
    La Stella
    Montero
    Russell
    Arrieta

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  10. dmick89

    GW: The benefits of having a bunch of long men around have to be pretty marginal in the first place, if they exist at all.

    I doubt it exists and I’d bet it’s a net negative trying to get subpar pitchers extra work. Not that I think Warren is one of the subpar pitchers, but in general, too many relievers means there are some subpar ones.

    It irritates me any time I see a reliever bat, but seeing one bat in two different games in the first week is just absurd. I hope that trend doesn’t continue. I doubt it does. It almost can’t. Right?

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  11. Author
    berselius

    I think the main benefit to having a bunch of long men is supposed to be that you don’t have to carry so many pitchers, but not in this case (dying laughing). #FireTheo

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  12. Rizzo the Rat

    Someone should tell Joe about this thing called the double-switch. Most NL managers know about this already.

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  13. Rice in limbo

    #Cubs lineup: Zobrist 2B, Heyward CF, Bryant RF, Rizzo 1B, Soler LF, La Stella 3B, Montero C, Russell SS, Arrieta P

    Also, 3rd order is like the projection for if everything works out roses, correct?

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