The Cubs win the series opener 5-3 from the Brewers.
When the Brewers come to town, you can almost always expect competitive baseball. It seems like even when both of these teams aren’t good, they play each other hard. This year, both teams have been pretty good, so it wasn’t hard to envision a tight, back and forth, tense game. It didn’t disappoint.
The Brewers jumped out to a two-run lead early with an Isaac Collins homer. The Cubs got one back in the second and then Seiya Suzuki hit a three-run homer in the fifth to give the Cubs the lead for good. But “for good” feels like an overstatement. The Brewers got one right back in the sixth. They got the tying run to third in the seventh and then in the eighth, Brice Turang appeared to gap one with the game still at one. Pete Crow-Armstrong made an unbelievable play. If you didn’t see it, you must go to Al’s recap and see it. While you are there, you might as well stay for the PCA 452-foot homer off of a lefty leading off the bottom of the inning.
This game had a ton. Two good pitching matchups await, so this series has a lot of fun and a lot of tension still to be experienced. Fortunately, no matter what happens, the Cubs have banked a win already. They’ve won three of their first four against the Brewers. Nothing can take that away. No one is going to be happy if they drop the next two, but it isn’t a disaster if they do. So a big hat tip to taking care of business.
The Brewers did get to the Cubs bullpen. The bullpen has been so automatic, that it is jarring to see the Cubs bullpen allow even one run. Of course, one run over four innings is a 2.25 ERA. They’ve generally beaten that number. But you’re going to win a massive number of games at 2.25.
The story of this game though is the Cubs four outfielders. Ian Happ, Kyle Tucker, Seiya Suzuki and Pete Crow-Armstrong combined for five hits, two walks, our runs and four runs driven in. The other five Cub hitters had three hits, no walks, one run and one run batted in between them. Among the five hits by the four outfielders were two doubles and two homers.
This still wasn’t the kind of tour de force offensive performance we’ve been waiting for over the last week since they scored eight in Philadelphia on June 10. But, the refrain these last few weeks has been just win and play another day. There are no style points. The things that are built into expected win/loss record and what not, they matter. They are logical things. Teams that win by a lot of runs tend to keep winning games. Teams that squeak by tend to struggle later. The games have been tighter. The warning signs are there. We all see it. Hopefully, things like the return of Shōta Imanaga will rejuvenate and revitalize this team.
Until then, just survive. If surviving continues to include a few more wins than losses, so be it. Even the World Series champion 2016 Cubs had a tailspin along the way.
Pitch Counts:
- Brewers: 115, 34 BF (8 IP)
- Cubs: 143, 39 BF
The Brewers were pretty efficient in their eight innings on the mound. That started with starter Chad Patrick who falls to 3-7. He allowed six hits, a pair of walks and four runs and still only threw 74 pitches over five innings. That’s a lot of traffic without a ton of pitches. Oh and he also struck out five hitters. Kind of an odd collective.
None of the three Brewers relievers threw more than 14 pitches. Coming off of an off day, there is little question that the Brewers head into Wednesday with a full complement of pitchers. I’d argue, without looking backwards, that they enter Wednesday in a stronger position. Anyone who worked particularly hard Sunday or a lot over the weekend will be ready to go Wednesday and nothing that happened Tuesday will take anyone down.
For the Cubs, Ben Brown worked a little harder in his five. He had the same six hits, two walks and five strikeouts in his game. But he threw a dozen more pitches. After that, four Cubs relievers threw, none throwing more than 18 pitches. The Cubs will also likely have a full complement Wednesday.
The Cubs didn’t need Drew Pomeranz or Ryan Pressly in this one. In 2023 in June and July, the Cubs settled on four relievers. Adbert Alzolay, Mark Leiter Jr., Julian Merryweather and Michael Fulmer were the only trusted relievers and at times, it felt like every time the team won, all four threw. Alzolay threw 18 total games in what may have been the rest of his career. Leiter came back well in ‘24. Merryweather has thrown 36 relatively ineffective outings the remainder of his career to date. Fulmer is back in the Cubs system, having thrown in one MLB game since ‘23.
That team had four guys and ran them into the ground. When they wore down, the team fell apart and they missed the playoffs. One by one, those guys all fell apart with Leiter, the last one with any effectiveness, ending up being a trade piece last year. .This is such a contrast this year. With eight guys on the roster right now contributing value and Porter Hodge, last year’s most effective reliever, on the way back, this bullpen feels entirely different.
They are able to spread the load around. Chris Flexen is likely to be the fifth Cub reliever to pass 20 innings, Hodge likely to be the sixth and Pomeranz the seventh Cub to cross 20 innings. It is jaw dropping that Hodge has been the least effective. Jed Hoyer, Carter Hawkins, Craig Counsell and Tommy Hottovy deserve and awful lot of credit for pulling together this staff. I suspect all of them had to do with different parts of it. It doesn’t go unsaid that the defense behind them has been terrific. 265⅔ innings out of the bullpen and they’ve allowed 13 unearned runs. That doesn’t sound amazing, but recall that ghost runners are unearned. Seven of those 13 unearned runs allowed by Cubs relievers came from ghost runners scoring.
I can’t say enough good words about the bullpen and everyone who has had a role in putting it together. Of the eight Cub relievers right now, Daniel Palencia is the only one who was in the Cub organization before this season. He’s already thrown more innings than he did last year and by the end of the week will probably be at his career high of innings. Hodge will come back and I have to believe he will contribute. But to have created an entirely new bullpen on the fly is amazing.
Game 73, June 17: Cubs 5, Brewers 3 (45-28)
Fangraphs
Reminder: Heroes and Goats are determined by WPA scores and are in no way subjective.
THREE HEROES:
- Superhero: Kyle Tucker (.207). 3-4, 2 2B, R
- Hero: Seiya Suzuki (.184). 1-4, HR, 3 RBI, R
- Sidekick: Caleb Thielbar (.116). IP, 3 BF, 2 K
THREE GOATS:
- Billy Goat: Dansby Swanson (-.160). 0-4, DP
- Goat: Carson Kelly (-.069). 0-4
- Kid: Gensis Cabrera (-.044). IP, 4 BF, 2 H, ER, K
WPA Play of the Game: Seiya Suzuki’s three-run homer in the fifth inning. It turned a one-run deficit into a two-run lead and ultimately was the difference in the game. (.269)
*Brewers Play of the Game: Isaac Collins two-run homer with no outs in the second inning for the first two runs of the game. (.171)
Cubs Player of the Game:
Sunday’s Game: Colin Rea received 75 of 164 votes.
Rizzo Award Standings: (Top 5/Bottom 5)
The award is named for Anthony Rizzo, who finished first in this category three of the first four years it was in existence and four times overall. He also recorded the highest season total ever at +65.5. The point scale is three points for a Superhero down to negative three points for a Billy Goat.
- Kyle Tucker +26
- Jameson Taillon +17
- Drew Pomeranz +13
- Pete Crow-Armstrong +12
- Shōta Imanaga/Miguel Amaya +11
- Jon Berti -9
- Ben Brown -14
- Seiya Suzuki -14.5
- Julian Merryweather -15
- Dansby Swanson -23.33
Up Next: Game two of the three game series. Jameson Taillon (7-3, 3.48, 82⅔ IP) will make his 15th start of the season. He’s won five consecutive starts, allowing seven runs over 33 innings of work (1.91 ERA). At 33 years of age, he’s having one of the best stretches of his career. He beat the Brewers in Milwaukee back on May 3. He threw six innings and allowed two runs on three hits and a walk.
The Cubs see yet another top tier talent. Jacob Misiorowski (1-0, 0.00, 5 IP) starts for the Brewers. He threw five no-hit innings, walking four and striking out five. That was against the Cardinals, so quite a crucible for the 23-year-old to start his career. He was a 2022 second round pick (63rd overall). He throws extremely hard and the Cardinals could not figure him out. He threw a lot of pitches in that outing. So one of the strategies as we’ve seen so many times will be just to see a lot of pitches and get him out of the game.
Tough challenge. Hopefully, Taillon can stay hot and pull the Cubs through one more time.