Cubs meat grinder by Randall

The Cubs Meat Grinder

In Postgame by Rice Cube14 Comments

This is partly inspired by a misunderstanding on the Facebook page…

I usually try to write such that there is no pronoun ambiguity, but I mistakenly assumed most people who paid attention would know that the Cubs bullpen barely had to do anything while the A’s bullpen was ground into a pulp. I did note some pretty wild overreactions from a series split with the Arizona Diamondbacks, who just won a series against the Yankees (albeit got a tad more interesting in the ninth inning of the second game) and their torpedo bats (talk about overreaction), and maybe the A’s aren’t on the same caliber, but I would say the Cubs did a much better job in this three game set in Sacramento (?!) where they scored 35 runs and only allowed 9, possibly messing up the A’s pitching plans for at least a few days following the off day on Thursday for both clubs.

The box scores for the three games are here, here, and here, and I thought I’d summarize what I had been tracking for each game as I followed and listened in (no Marquee boo)…

For the Cubs:

  • In the first game, Ben Brown ate 5 innings (75 pitches), Julian Merryweather had one scoreless inning (7 pitches), and Colin Rea got the old fashioned fireman blowout save to finish the final three innings (40 pitches).
  • In game two, Justin Steele got through 6.2 innings (78 pitches), Merryweather did a second day in a row (but only 4 pitches) to finish the seventh, then Porter Hodge (14 pitches) and Ryan Pressly (11 pitches) ate an inning each to finish the game, albeit with some help from their friends.
  • In game three, Jameson Taillon tossed a quality start over his six innings of work (94 pitches), while Brad Keller (17 pitches), Nate Pearson (12 pitches), and Eli Morgan (13 pitches) had one shutout inning each to complete the sweep.
  • You may remember Keller, Pearson, and Morgan were variously manhandled by the Diamondbacks in the opening series, so a bounceback is nice to see. Ditto Taillon.
  • Given that only Merryweather pitched two days in a row and nobody else did, and Merryweather didn’t even work that hard, the Cubs are in pretty good shape for their home opener after the off day.
  • It’s interesting that only the starters gave up any runs, the relief crew really cleaned up, all pitching shutouts in their work.

And now we look at the A’s…

  • In game one, the starter Estes had to throw 85 pitches to get through the fourth inning before turning it over to the bullpen. After Estes, Spence only ate 0.2 innings (34 pitches), Murdock had one really bad inning (49 pitches), Leclerc ate 1.1 scoreless (37 pitches), McFarland for one (24 pitches), and Pereda finished the night for the A’s staff (17 pitches). Everyone but Leclerc gave up at least one run.
  • In game two, new big signing Luis Severino did go a full six innings because of the churning through the bullpen after the beatdown the previous night (107 pitches), and McFarland came in again and only got one out on 9 pitches. After McFarland, Ferguson threw 23 pitches to eat 1.1 innings, and Sterner threw 20 pitches to complete the final 1.1 innings for the A’s side. To their credit, the Cubs did not score again after their one run in the seventh inning.
  • In game three, A’s starter Jeffrey Springs could only last three innings, throwing 82 pitches (just barely less than Taillon did through five innings). Spence returned after resting on Monday and ate two innings, throwing another 35 pitches, so an improvement from the opener. They also made Perdomo throw 35 pitches through 1.1 innings, Leclerc came back to close that inning after Perdomo on 21 pitches, Ferguson returned for the second day in a row for only 10 pitches (at that point I think the Cubs just wanted to go home), and Mason Miller got some work, striking out two Cubs in his inning of work on 12 pitches.
  • While there is an off day and it may not be so bad, that’s a lot of mileage on the A’s arms for a three game set that was probably no fun for them at all.

All told, we have the Cubs throwing 365 pitches in the three games, while their A’s counterparts threw 600. The number of guys who threw over 30 pitches, some in multiple games, is going to wear on them at some point, methinks. I don’t think this kind of beatdown is going to happen every time (that is just hard to do no matter who you’re facing), but it has to make you feel good about the Cubs’ offense, which was no slouch in Arizona either.

Anyway, here’s the series finale for the sweep, the Cubs don’t have to deal with these A’s again this year until the World Series.

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  2. Author
    Rice Cube

    I guess I forgot to write that the Cubs are over .500 and in second place behind the Cardinals who took advantage of the Angels being trash today

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  7. Author
    Rice Cube

    BVS,

    The embedded FB post seems to work on desktop but not mobile, the original World Series Dreaming was a FB fan page before we set up a site (we stopped that a few years ago) but the FB page is still going albeit not as active as it used to be. Just feel kind of obligated to keep doing it mostly to amuse myself

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  13. BVS

    Rice Cube,

    Ah yes, I should have looked under WSD but I forgot. Hope the guys calling you an idiot are known friends. If not, it seems like FB hasn’t changed any since I last logged on, 6 mo ago or more.

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