Cubs 6, Pirates 5 (7.10.16)

In Commentary And Analysis by berselius44 Comments

OSS: The marathon mercifully ends with a win

Three up:

  1. Bryzzo combined to go 7-9 with a walk today, and Bryant drove in the go-ahead run in the eighth inning. As bad as this stretch has been for the Cubs, at least these two guys have been producing. As Matt Clapp pointed out on twitter today, Bryant leads the NL in fWAR and HR and is 5th or 6th in OPS, wOBA, and wRC+, while Rizzo leads the NL in those three categories, placing 5th in fWAR and HR.
  2. Albert Almora homered off Niese in the fourth inning and also hit a double, in what might have been a nice cap to his stint with the Cubs until September. He’ll probably get sent back down when Dex returns, since he should be playing every single day. Still, his stint with the team was much better than I remembered – he had a slash line of .282/.311/.465 good for a wOBA of .330 and wRC+ of 104. And he only managed to nearly wipe out Bryant just once.
  3. The bullpen has been…not great…recently, and while I think bullpen blame has been a little over-applied during this slide it was nice to see them shut the door today. Strop, Edwards, and Rondon combined for three hitless, scoreless innings. Edwards in particular is nice to see pitching well, with Grimm having taken a giant step back this year.

Three down

  1. Yet another terrible start by a Cubs SP, this time John Leoclos, who has given up five or more runs in three of his last four starts. And yet somehow he’s the starter who I have the second most confidence in behind nominal ‘fifth starter’ Kyle Hendricks at this moment, which pretty much sums up the last two weeks.
  2. The Cubs WPA loser was Jason Heyward, though at least it was merely for going 0-5 rather than extending the Cubs streak of hitting into roughly 175 double plays per game.
  3. The Cubs division lead has dropped five games since its peak of 12.5 at the end of the last sweep of the Pirates in mid-June. It feels weird to say Hang On To Your Butts with a lead that big, but here we are.

Next up: The team gets some long-needed rest, aside from the seven all-stars headed to San Diego. When they return, they’ll be at home and facing a Rangers team that’s had just about as awful a stretch as the Cubs, and are a Cole Hamels Prime Minister barfight away from re-enacting the Simpsons softball episode at this point with their rotation.

*Original post had the date as June. I could only wish that were the case.

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  2. dmick89

    I’d assume that Almora will be around for 7-10 days after the break while Dex rehabs. You’re right, he’s been better than I thought, but most of that I think was in his first few games.

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  3. Rizzo the Rat

    I think I’d rather keep Almora around than Szczur. Almora seems to be the better fielder, at least, and their hitting projections are almost identical.

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  6. Author
    berselius

    dmick89:
    I’d assume that Almora will be around for 7-10 days after the break while Dex rehabs. You’re right, he’s been better than I thought, but most of that I think was in his first few games.

    To be fair, the sample size is small enough that today’s game pushed up his woba by like 25 points

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  10. dmick89

    Rizzo the Rat,

    I think Szczur is a replacement level player, but I also think for the time being that Almora probably is too. May as well send him back down since he can still get better whereas this is basically it for Szczur.

    That’s a spot the Cubs should look to improve in the next few weeks.

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  11. Smokestack Lightning

    I happy for the ASB. By the time it’s done, I’ll have convinced myself the last 10 games were just unaccountable weirdness and all is well again.

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  13. Author
    berselius

    Edwin:
    I think the game was actually played on 7.10.16 instead of 6.10.16, but I can’t confirm.

    Just my brain wishing it was still June

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  31. Rice Cube

    I’m surprised Giancarlo missed the 500 foot threshold.

    Actually no I’m not. Stupid structures got in the way.

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  32. SK

    Chicago Cubs starting pitcher Jake Arrieta is leaning toward sitting out Tuesday’s MLB All-Star Game in San Diego, his agent, Scott Boras, confirmed via ESPN on Monday.

    Good idea. He would get a full 10 days between starts. Let’s do this Mr Boras. Joe, Thoyer, and SK will thank you.

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  34. dmick89

    SK,

    That would be nice if he did that. My guess would be the Cubs would tinker with their rotation alignment so he doesn’t get 10 days off, but that’s OK.

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  43. SK

    dmick89,

    Well, assuming he did pitch tonight, they were still scheduling his next start with an extra day of rest, which they didn’t have to do, so I got the impression they wanted him to get a breather if possible.

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