Given how it seems the Cubs usually do on their west coast road trips, a split with the Padres feels like a sweep. As the next series is against the team with the best record in baseball, they’ve got their work cut out for them if they want to continue to buck the trend.
Team Overviews
Cubs
- wRC+: 80 (14th)
- BSR: 1.7 (3rd)
- SP FIP-: 85 (1st)
- RP FIP-: 92 (7th)
- UZR: 3.8 (8th)
- DRS: 15 (7th)
- Run differential: -6 (9th)
Giants
- wRC+: 103 (4th)
- BSR: -1.1 (12th)
- SP FIP-: 103 (8th)
- RP FIP-: 94 (8th)
- UZR: -6.8 (10th)
- DRS: 6 (11th)
- Run differential: 42 (1st)
The Cubs have had the best starting staff in the NL so far, so it’s a good thing then that they’ve been carrying 13 pitchers for a month or so now. It’s strange to see the Cubs bullpen with not-awful numbers, both in terms of FIP and ERA. It’s also a little strange to see the Giants offense ranked ahead of its pitching.
News, notes, vows of revenge, injuries, etc.
Justin Ruggiano was activated from the DL today, with Ryan Kalish heading back to Iowa to get regular PAs.
Junior Lake is on fire lately, and has raised his season slash line to .273/.304/.482, good for a wOBA of .340. A .381 BABIP certainly helps, but he’s always been a high BABIP guy (also, HRs).
Javy Baez is also on fire lately, hitting a grand slam in last night’s game. I think the HR I saw him hit in Round Rock just landed as well.
Manny Ramirez was signed as a player/coach for the Iowa Cubs, and of course the first thing I thought of was ‘Why not Sosa?’. Given how revered he is by the Dominican community, the Cubs are letting a potentially great resource go to waste. They could always shelter themselves a bit from the meathead segment of the fanbase by putting him down at their Dominican player facility.
Matt Cain has a mild hamstring sprain, which is why he’s not pitching today. They think he’ll be ready to go when his turn next comes up in the rotation though. They’re also missing their best hitter (though Bruce Bochy never seems to realize this), Brandon Belt, to a broken thumb that should keep him out another month or so.
Due to the Brandon Belt injury, Tyler Colvin has been seeing a lot of time in the Giants lineup. He’s hit one HR so far, but has a .579 SLG in his 41 PAs. He’s looking to bounce back from his -1.1 fWAR season in Colorado last year.
Best/worst watch: Castro and Rizzo lead the Cubs position players in fWAR with 1.2 each, while the trio of Ryan Kalish, Ryan Sweeney, and Nate Schierholtz lead the team in -fWAR with -0.5 each. The Cubs OF, get excited! Schierholtz has been really awful, and yet has the 4th most PAs on the team. On the pitching side, not surprisingly it’s Shark in front with 1.5 fWAR and Veras in the rear with a -0.4 fWAR (and a 10.45 ERA).
Pitching Probables
ERA, xFIP, projected FIP listed for each
Monday: Jeff Samardzija, RHP (1.46, 3.45, 3.33) vs Yusmeiro Petit, RHP (4.76, 3.28, 3.77), 3:05 PM CT
Today marks the next segment of the Cubs quixotic quest to get Samardzija the Cy Young with less than five wins. He went seven innings in his last start, only to see Hector Rondon and Darwin Barney give up yet another decision for him. In case you missed it earlier this week, Jeff Sullivan wrote a great piece about Samardzija’s changes in approach this year, which has led to fewer strikeouts but higher effectiveness. His other pitches have improved so much that he barely even uses his wicked splitter.
Petit has been pressed in the rotation due to an injury to Matt Cain. He’s mostly appeared in relief this year, but has made three short-ish starts. The Cubs saw a decent amount of Petit’s work when he was with the Diamondbacks, where he posted 0.6 WAR in three seasons. The Giants had to have seen a lot of him too, which makes it a little surprising that he’s been in their org for three seasons. He’s pretty much been the break in case of emergency starter. His big problem in ARI was the longball, posting a HR/9 of nearly 2.0 in his seasons there. Not surprisingly, it’s dropped significantly since coming to SF.
Tuesday: Jake Arrieta, RHP (2.33, 3.32, 4.49) vs Tim Hudson, RHP (2.13, 3.17, 3.21), 9:15 PM CT
Arrieta’s been doing Arrieta things in his four starts so far – he’s been getting strikeouts, walking batters, and throwing a lot of pitches leading to short outings. Most of those walks were in a four inning outing against the Cardinals where he was lucky to escape with only one run allowed. He had his best start of the season against the Padres, striking out seven while walking one in six innings. His 93-94 sinker’s been working well for him so far when he can find the strike zone.
Hudson is almost 40, but is still cruising right along. There’s going to be a lot of worms killed in this matchup, as both pitchers have 50+% GB rates. Hudson has only walked six batters in 63.1 innings this season, so he should have a good time with the Cubs swing-happy lineup. Somehow I don’t think Mike Olt is going to start this game.
Wednesday: Edwin Jackson, RHP (4.94, 3.69, 3.65) vs Tim Lincecum, RHP (4.55, 3.48, 3.64), 2:45 PM CT
EJax was absolutely hammered in his last start, driving his ERA up an entire run. He was coming off two of his best starts of the season in the previous three starts, and his walk rate has dropped significantly since the start of the year, so I’m not too worried. Still though, it’s a pretty impressive feat to give up a ton of runs in Petco.
Lincecum seemingly fell apart two seasons ago, and has reinvented himself a bit. He still gets strikeouts, but batters have been hitting him a lot harder as evidenced by LD% of 23.8, 23.1, and 27.1 over the past two seasons and change. His fastball has dropped by three mph, and he’s been relying a lot more on his splitter.