October 8, 2018
I love post season baseball. The Milwaukee Brewers swept the
Colorado Rockies. They now have won 10 straight games. The Houston Astros did
the same against the Cleveland Indians. While watching these games, I keep
thinking about why the Cubs aren’t a
part of this.
Some people said the Cubs choked down the stretch.
However, they did not lose the division as much as Milwaukee won it. I thought
the Cubs would get hot and run away with the division. I did not think
Milwaukee could go on this incredible run to catch them. Like the dad in “Dirty
Dancing,” I have to admit I was wrong. In the stretch run, the Brewers went 19-7,
closing the season on a seven game winning streak and catching the Cubs on the
last Saturday after they had lost 2-1 to the St. Louis Cardinals.
Cub fans felt good about their chances to win the divisional
playoff game. Their starter, Jose Quintana, has dominated the Brewers over his
career. The problem was the Brewers pitcher. Jhoulys Chacin's numbers against the
Cubs were just as good as Quintana. The Brewers scratching out a run countered by an Anthony
Rizzo home run. Both starting pitchers were exciting in the sixth inning. It turned into a battle of the bullpens, which
overwhelmingly favors the Brewers. The Brewers score two runs in the eighth and
bring in Josh Hader to close. In his last four innings against the Cubs, Hader
has given up no runs, two hits with 10 strikeouts.
The wild card game was more of the same. The Cubs wasted a strong
start from Jon Lester who left the game after going six innings giving up one
run. The Rockies misplayed an easy fly ball for a double and had catcher
interference called. Every replay turned out in the Cubs' favor. However, the
Cubs only scored one run. Pinch runner
for Rizzo, Terrance Gore, stole second and scores on a Javier Baez base hit in
the eighth inning. The game ends when inserted starter Kyle Hendricks gives up
a run on three singles and the Cubs go down quietly in the bottom losing in
thirteen innings. What was most annoying was from the ninth inning on the
announcer kept repeating “the Cubs could walk it off.” I thought that’s what
you do with injuries or on home runs. What happened to a game winning hit?
As you can see, the Cubs lost two of their last three
scoring only one run. The hitting disappeared several times this year. The Cubs
played twenty games scoring less than two runs and a dozen more scoring only
two runs. In 2017, the Cubs hit 223 home runs, this year only 167. Making
contact and hitting with runners in scoring position was non-existent. Only
Anthony Rizzo and Baez hit for power.
They had a slew of injuries without they probably could have
won one more game. Start with Yu Darvish.
He may have turned around his bad start but went down for the season in May.
Jason Hayward was hurt for a while and Kyle Schwarber even longer, taking two
left-handed hitters out of the lineup. Brandon Morrow was looking like the
closer the team. His first injury occurred when he got back spasms
taking off his pants. This is just like Sammy Sosa who got spasms after
sneezing. He later developed arm soreness and was out for the season. When it
was clear he would probably never come back, they made Pedro Strop their closer. He
also went down for the last couple of weeks. The most serious injury sidelined
former MVP Kris Bryant with a shoulder injury. He was out almost all year. He came back with a new swing to protect his
shoulder and just wasn’t the same.
The Cubs did win 95 games and the window for success is wide
open. My plan would be to do whatever is needed to sign Bryce Harper for right
field, move Hayward to center and play Ben Zobrist in left. Replace free agent Daniel Murphy at second base with
David Bote. Signing Cole Hamels is going to cost a bundle, but he may be worth
it. See if you can add a starter to your pitching
staff by trading either Kyle Schwarber, Ian Happ or Albert Almora. The key is to stay healthy.
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