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Jameson Taillon was on the hill and for the fourth straight time, looked excellent. Taillon, Mark Leiter Jr. and so many other guys through the years. These are names of people who Cub fandom wanted to jettison, likely way too early. Sure there are Eric Hosmers and other names past that they held onto way too long at the expense of other guys getting a chance to play. But when you look at a Kyle Hendricks or an Adbert Alzolay and you want them to just be waived immediately, just bear in mind that some of these guys do get things worked out and go on to be good or even excellent.
Taillon has been nothing less than excellent in his four starts. He had allowed one earned run in each of his previous three starts. Saturday, he improved upon that by allowing no runs. I don’t even have to fill in the number of innings. If he’s working as anything more than an opener, then three runs over four starts is terrific. I told you yesterday just how excellent Cubs starting pitching has been this year and without a whole lot of room to improve on those stats, that’s just what Jameson Taillon did. While that was going on, the Cubs offense was putting five runs on the board.
As I was saying to my family during the game, getting the lead has been fairly routine for this team. It feels like they’ve led in almost every game. Keeping a lead? Now that’s been a challenge and Saturday was no different. Leading 5-0 after six innings, the Cubs proceeded to allow four runs in the seventh. This after allowing three in the eighth on Friday. Mark Leiter Jr. bailed the Cubs out of that seventh inning and then pitched a scoreless eighth to hold the line. I checked with the oracle and no, Leiter cannot pitch every relief inning until Julian Merryweather returns.
Justin Steele returns Monday night. No offense to someone who has surely done a good job, but the Cubs need someone as a back of the game reliever. It’s hard to imagine that isn’t Ben Brown. Ben can be electric. It’s impossible not to dream on his upside as a starter. But he might be an ultra-dominant reliever too. His stuff is darn near unhittable when it’s on.
The Cubs added an insurance run in the eighth and boy did they need it. Hector Neris was his usual high-wire act and the Cubs ended up hanging on for a 6-5 win. Nothing is easy. And also, this team is 20-14 and just a single game out of first place. The first place team is in town for one more game. There’s a lot of baseball to play and to hear Craig Counsell tell it, Seiya Suzuki and Cody Bellinger aren’t far away either.
The Cubs appear to be able to roll out any of about seven different starters, when everyone is healthy, who can shut you down. They’ve got to figure out the back end of the game. But also, if they can find any level of consistent offensive production, this team is going to stack a lot of wins. Also, once teams get to the point where trading is palatable, garden variety relievers are some of the easiest players to obtain via trade. Closers or elite relievers can certainly be harder. But a ton of random middle reliever types change hands every year. In the meantime, someone who has been an effective starter is heading to the bullpen.
Let’s look at three positive performances from this one.
- Jameson Taillon gets the top spot. I’ll say it every time, I’m sucker for good starting pitching. Jameson allowed two hits and two walks over six scoreless. His ERA drops to 1.13 (which isn’t the Cubs best starting ERA, even once he qualifies).
- Christopher Morel. No cherry picking. Over the first 34 games of the Cubs season, he has a line of .213/.292/.426 (wRC+ 104). He had a walk and a two-run homer in this. Though he did strikeout twice. He continues to have his best strikeout rate since he left rookie ball and a walk rate over 10%. His ISO is approaching his career number. There is no way Morel finishes with a BABIP of .221.
- Sorry Nico, I…
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