OSS: Cubs offense continues to struggle, two runs feels like two hundred.
Three up
1. Jason Hammel had a solid start, striking out five in seven innings and allowing four hits. Unfortunately two of those were solo home runs, but overall this was another solid outing that the non-struggling version of this offense should have taken and run with.
2. Miguel Montero and Kris Bryant combined for the Cubs lone run of the game, with a first inning double and a run scoring single. It was even in the first inning, so we temporarily got to feel the offense may have emerged from its funk following their six run performance in the sweeper against the Mets.
3. The Cubs reshuffled some deck chairs and picked up Clayton Richard to start Saturday’s game. Richard was solidly meh with the Padres for a few years before his shoulder exploded, and had put up decent numbers with the Pirates in AAA this year, but I don’t see what the big difference is between him and Roach, who is also a ground ball machine who strikes nobody out who was having a good year at AAA. Shrug. He throws with his other arm, I guess. I don’t think either of these guys are much better than Wada either, so it’s not like things will be ‘fixed’ once he gets back.
Three down
Here are the bottom 15 or so plays of the game, ranked by WPA.
Next game: Jarred Cosart vs Clayton Richard, 6:15 PM CT (and on Fox again, ugh).