Cubs 6, Twins 2: Ineffective Bats Go Gentle Into That Good Night

[Matt Braun]

Insanity has not yet set in, but it may be close. 

Image courtesy of © Matt Blewett-USA TODAY Sports

Box Score
Sonny Gray: 5 1/3 IP, 4 H, 1 ER, 1 BB, 9 K
Home Runs: None
Bottom 3 WPA: Griffin Jax (-.356), Carlos Correa (-.217), Joey Gallo (-.091)
Win Probability Chart (via FanGraphs)

Sonny Gray had his sinker; the Cubs had no chance.

Armed with his plethora of offerings and deliveries, Sonny Gray was in pristine form, stealing strikes with breakers while catching the zone with late two-seamers. Thus is Sonny’s magic. Moving, dancing in his unique fashion, Gray carried his early-season success through Friday’s action—and the Cubs felt the full impact of his mastery.

The opening plate appearance defined his start; Christopher Morel whiffed on two straight bending pitches before stoically observing enough balls to work a full count. Fully anticipating an off-speed pitch, Morel stared with grief at Gray’s back-door sinker, finally understanding what makes Gray so difficult to hit. 16 outs later, and all the Cubs could claim was one earned run, with nine strikeouts coming as the piece of doing business.

Drew Smyly—left-handed, harnessing far fewer selections than Gray—was also effective—but not dominant. His defense didn’t help. Kyle Farmer rocketed an infield single off Morel’s glove, then Willi Castro shot a double down the left-field line. With a squirrelly grounder to third base, Michael A Taylor was able to coax Farmer home—owing some thanks to Patrick Wisdom and Yan Gomes’ off-set chemistry leading to a dropped ball; Christian Vázquez’s ensuing sacrifice fly extended Minnesota’s score to 2. 

Smyly delivered enough lethargic curves to carry his outing to the 6th, out-dueling his counterpart who wore down his pitch count with extended strikeouts.

So began the great reliever movement, and less exciting: Griffin Jax’s fortune.

Jax is a good reliever. He’s probably even a great reliever. But some evil force—some diabolical demon unphased in his cursing of the right-hander—continues to wreck his outings and stomp on Minnesota’s chance of winning. His location does not matter; the beings lording over baseball refuse to allow normality. Tonight was death by sequencing, batted balls; an unassuming grounder by Wisdom slipped through the defense before a smoked Matt Mervis double plated the runner, tying the game. Trey Mancini blooped a single—why not—and Yan Gomes’ line drive single seemed only inevitable. Jorge Alcala warming up assured no one.

Minnesota’s offense was in no position to fight back, sputtering and tepid as they have been all season. Their prolonged rest following their 2nd-inning attack continued well after Smyly retired for the night. Even a lead-off walk in the 8th could only result in action deferred as Carlos Correa grounded into a double play to end the frame. So it goes.

If there were to be such a thing as irony, it showed up to the stadium in the bottom of the inning: Morel socked a two-run blast off Alcala, extending the Cubs’ lead to three.

And so the Twins came to a slithering, broken crash. The offense fell easily once more in the 9th, making everyone forget that this was once a 2-0 lead with MLB’s ERA leader on the mound. 

Notes:

Post-Game Interview:

What’s Next?
Joe Ryan will take the mound opposite Hayden Wesneski; first pitch is at 1:10 PM.

Bullpen Usage Spreadsheet

 

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[ashbury]

So we ran into the reincarnation of Cy Young.  Again.  Bad luck, that.

[USAFChief]

Griffin Jax has recorded 27% of the team's losses this year to date.

Not really interested in hearing how unlucky he is.

[tony&rodney]

Taylor and Buxton running was the right move. Pinch hitting Gallo was not, because Solano will take several pitches. The offense continues to struggle but tomorrow they get another chance. 

The pitching continues to be good. Gray is having a fine year. Alcala struggles after 20 pitches. I thought Jax could have frozen a few guys with his fastball because they were clearly sitting on the slider. Moran is an enigma from pitch to pitch. No matter the six runs the pitching is not a concern at this time.

[tony&rodney]

10 minutes ago, ashbury said:

So we ran into the reincarnation of Cy Young.  Again.  Bad luck, that.

Smyly gets by on opposing batters salivating to hit the long ball. We saw big swings, line drives foul, and hacks at high pitches. I am amazed that Smyly gets away those pitches.

[Woof Bronzer]

The bullpen usage chart is a concern imho.

[jkcarew]

To say the club is vulnerable against anything more than decent left-handed pitching is a bit of an understatement. Probably not going to get fixed until Buxton and Correa are both clicking at the same time…AND Farmer/Miranda and/or Lewis become factors.

As is…I don’t know why you don’t just start two of Kepler/Kirilloff/Gallo rather than bother with Solano and Castro. At least you’d have a puncher’s chance of one of those guys running into a mistake pitch or two.

Gray wasn’t getting hit, but he wasn’t aggressive enough or efficient enough. Too many pitches for Gray. Too short of a start.

[IndianaTwin]

7 minutes ago, jkcarew said:

To say the club is vulnerable against anything more than decent left-handed pitching is a bit of an understatement. Probably not going to get fixed until Buxton and Correa are both clicking at the same time…AND Farmer/Miranda and/or Lewis become factors.

As is…I don’t know why you don’t just start two of Kepler/Kirilloff/Gallo rather than bother with Solano and Castro. At least you’d have a puncher’s chance of one of those guys running into a mistake pitch or two.

Gray wasn’t getting hit, but he wasn’t aggressive enough or efficient enough. Too many pitches for Gray. Too short of a start.

Rocco said last night that Kepler would have most of tonight off against a lefty after having cramped last night. 

[MplsFan]

25 minutes ago, USAFChief said:

Griffin Jax has recorded 27% of the team's losses this year to date.

Not really interested in hearing how unlucky he is.

This.  I saw the article headline saying that and didn’t bother reading the rest.  I watched him closely tonight- I didn’t see him being “unlucky”- the Cubs put together nice at-bats against him using the opposite field when they needed to- quite the concept actually!

Switch Pagan and Jax’ roles

Send Alcala to AAA and see if he can figure something out

Probably need to mess with the batting order a bit (or a lot) too

 

[jkcarew]

16 minutes ago, tony&rodney said:

Taylor and Buxton running was the right move. Pinch hitting Gallo was not, because Solano will take several pitches.

The move to Gallo didn’t work, but not because Solano takes more pitches. Gallo sees more pitches per at-bat than does Solano…this year and career.

[IndianaTwin]

Looking at the bullpen availability, it was going to be tough to win if the offense doesn’t score a bunch, Gray doesn’t goes deep, or both. 

Stewart and Lopez threw both Wednesday, Pagan threw Tuesday and Thursday and Jax threw Tuesday and Wednesday. Aside from Rodriguez and Moran, Duran was the only one truly fresh. 

Said another way, Nos 7 and 8 were fully rested, No. 6 was pretty rested, Nos. 4 and 5 threw two of the last three days. Nos. 2 and 3 threw the last two days, and No. 1 was pretty rested.

I’m not suggesting Rocco tanked this game, but he was smart enough to know that this was likely going to be the toughest of the three to win. When Gray got to 94 pitches, you roll the dice with Moran to get out of the inning. Then you roll the dice with Jax and Pagan for the 7th and 8th. Then you bring in Duran. 

Unfortunately, the offense only scored two, Gray only went 5.1. Moran did his job, but Jax rolled snake-eyes, so then it’s time to finish off with Alcala and Rodriguez and rest up for Saturday. Now Duran has had two days off and Lopez, Stewart and Pagan have each had a day off. It would still help if Ryan could go seven tomorrow. 

[Woof Bronzer]

10 minutes ago, MplsFan said:

the Cubs put together nice at-bats against him using the opposite field when they needed to- quite the concept actually!

This.  There are some out there who believe that runs scored any way except via home run are lucky.  To me it looked like the Cubbies had done their homework.  

[USAFChief]

45 minutes ago, tony&rodney said:

Taylor and Buxton running was the right move. Pinch hitting Gallo was not, because Solano will take several pitches. The offense continues to struggle but tomorrow they get another chance. 

The pitching continues to be good. Gray is having a fine year. Alcala struggles after 20 pitches. I thought Jax could have frozen a few guys with his fastball because they were clearly sitting on the slider. Moran is an enigma from pitch to pitch. No matter the six runs the pitching is not a concern at this time.

Stringer brought it up in the game thread, and I concur...Alcala will be in *Rochester tomorrow. 

Maybe just me, but the bullpen concerns me.

 

Edit: *St Paul 

Tip o' the cap to Indiana Twin

[stringer bell]

Very similar to the loss to SD in the first game of that series. Close game, broken open late by a long homer yielded by Alcala. Very disappointed in Alacala, running out of patience with Jax. If the offense is averaging 5-6 hits per game, it begins to get hard to win games. 

[tony&rodney]

9 minutes ago, jkcarew said:

The move to Gallo didn’t work, but not because Solano takes more pitches. Gallo sees more pitches per at-bat than does Solano…this year and career.

Yes I know that, but Solano would be taking for Buxton to run. Byron had a huge jump. Situational. It doesn't really mater because the offense was stalled tonight. 

[jkcarew]

5 minutes ago, MplsFan said:

This.  I saw the article headline saying that and didn’t bother reading the rest.  I watched him closely tonight- I didn’t see him being “unlucky”- the Cubs put together nice at-bats against him using the opposite field when they needed to- quite the concept actually!

Switch Pagan and Jax’ roles

Send Alcala to AAA and see if he can figure something out

Probably need to mess with the batting order a bit (or a lot) too

 

He had been unlucky, but for the most part, tonight it was more about horrible execution. Threw a horrendous up and inner-half change on the long double. Threw Gomes 5 sweeper in a row, and the 5th got hit real hard for the winning RBI.

[IndianaTwin]

5 minutes ago, USAFChief said:

Stringer brought it up in the game thread, and I concur...Alcala will be in Rochester tomorrow. 

Maybe just me, but the bullpen concerns me.

I doubt the Nationals are interested in trading for Alcala. I could see him being in St. Paul, however. 

[Aggies7]

Team batting average: .218 😳 

[tony&rodney]

If the Twins are counting on their pitching staff to keep opponents to a single run or two in every game, it is going to be a very long season. I wasn't in agreement with the pitch selection by Jax and felt that one inning from Alcala was enough, but nothing the bullpen does matters if the offense is good for four hits. I'm expecting some different approaches to at bats, but maybe that makes me insane. I'll expect more offense tomorrow. Relying on four or five pitchers to shut down the opposition is not realistic.

I'm not sure who is available to exchange for Alcala from St. Paul. Henriquez was just optioned, Sands and Winder do not look good right now, and Headrick threw five solid innings tonight. That leaves Balazovic. 

[MABB1959]

I thought Gray cruising.  Is 91 pitches really a reason to pull someone with 9 strikeouts in 5 innings?   

[Jocko87]

Bats gotta get going, it's going to catch up with the pitchers soon enough. We may already be there.

[D.C Twins]

Time to kick off the training wheels and welcome Buck back to his rightful home in center field. 

This will make the team better (and more specifically the line up).

Buck was never, is not, and will never be a good candidate for permanent DH. 

I will gladly take 80-100 games of real Buck over 150 games of bubble wrapped DH Buck.

Enough already. Ferraris were not meant to sit in the garage (even Farris Bueller knew that)

[Doctor Wu]

Bottom line: 4 hits ain't going to win you many games. 

[rwilfong86]

I worry Jax may be turning into a pumpkin now, blame it on bad luck but it seems to be more than bad luck nowadays. 

[rwilfong86]

8 hours ago, USAFChief said:

Griffin Jax has recorded 27% of the team's losses this year to date.

Not really interested in hearing how unlucky he is.

It isn't bad luck, it's the guy can't handle high leverage situations anymore. I'm okay with trying anyone including Pagan at this point. 

[rv78]

Is Jax this years new version of Colome or Pagan? Rocco continues to use him as a high leverage pitcher even though he is not up to it the task this season. Making adjustments according to performance doesn't seem to be on Rocco's spreadsheet. Using Alcala for more than 1 inning at a time also seems to be an issue. Again, shouldn't Rocco's spreadsheet tell him that? Also agree that Gray could have and should have gone longer that 91 pitches. Rocco has reverted back to burning through his bullpen. The offense is showing it's lack of production and they can't win games without hitting homeruns. Rocco won't manufacture a run, period. Miranda is sent down to AAA to try to get out of his slump. Is the hitting coach in AAA better than Popkes? Looks like the whole team needs to go to AAA to solve that problem, which means the coaches and Manager at the majors aren't any worth their weight in jelly beans. Last year Toronto fired their skipper midseason and they immediately turned things around with the same players. This team needs new leadership and nothing will change until it happens.

[DJL44]

Quote

Jax is a good reliever. He’s probably even a great reliever. But some evil force—some diabolical demon unphased in his cursing of the right-hander—continues to wreck his outings and stomp on Minnesota’s chance of winning. His location does not matter; the beings lording over baseball refuse to allow normality. Tonight was death by sequencing

Yes, death by pitch sequencing. The Cubs knew exactly when the slider was coming based on the count and the location. They were sitting on it and hit singles twice. Jax is too predictable, they need a new game plan.

[DJL44]

I got to see why Nick Gordon isn't getting any walks. Pitchers challenge him in the zone knowing he'll get himself out or at worst slap a single. No respect because he has no power. I had flashbacks of Tsuyoshi Nishioka.

[Linus]

I said it at the end is spring training. We will be cursing this bullpen by the all star break. Change that to the fishing opener. Derek Rodriguez?  I hate the way this FO constructs bullpens. 

[Peter]

Need more than 4 hits to win! Bullpen was beat up by San Diego. Ryan has to go deep into game and twins need more then 2 hit/runs to win.