PHOENIX — You might need heard that the Cubs are in a playoff race.
While there’s nonetheless greater than a month of baseball earlier than the postseason begins and the Cubs play their most vital video games of the yr, the video games are fairly vital already, with the Brewers threatening to draw back in the NL Central and groups just like the Phillies and Padres sizzling on the Cubs’ heels in the wild-card standings.
And although the Cubs adhere to professional sports activities’ favourite technique of taking issues one recreation at a time — going so far as citing it as a key ingredient of their success — they’re nonetheless taking part in like a crew with expectations of a deep October run because the stakes enhance down the stretch.
Just have a look at Sunday’s victory in opposition to the Mariners. Though it ended up being a 19-2 laugher, issues had been shut early. With lefty starter Shota Imanaga struggling and the Cubs contemporary off taking the lead in the highest of the third inning on Ian Happ’s grand slam, supervisor Craig Counsell didn’t wait round to see if the southpaw might determine issues out. The skipper introduced out the short hook, and Imanaga was executed after recording solely six outs, the shortest start of his major-league career.
Considering the one factor the Cubs can do to make up floor on the Brewers after they’re not taking part in their division rivals is to win the sport in entrance of them, this aggressive transfer made sense, the Cubs needing a win after dropping the primary two video games of the weekend collection in walk-off trend.
But Counsell wouldn’t have made that playoff-style transfer — starters usually have a lot shorter leashes in the very totally different world of postseason pitching — with out his contingent of lengthy relievers in his bullpen.
“This is why we have some length in the bullpen. We can do things like this with the length in the bullpen,” Counsell stated after the sport. “As soon as Ian hit the home run, honestly, my thought was, ‘If Shota’s in trouble, we’re going to go. We have length. We have innings to cover if the game goes wrong. We’ve got Colin [Rea] or Aaron [Civale] to cruise through the game.’
“It was the time to do it, and that’s why we’ve got those guys down there.”
The Cubs perhaps didn’t draw issues up this manner, however they’ve wound up with quite a few would-be starters in their aid corps after Jed Hoyer’s entrance workplace brought in a couple top-of-the-rotation arms at the trade deadline.
Guys like Rea and Javier Assad – the latter stashed in the minors because the Cubs play by baseball’s roster guidelines – are aid choices in conditions like Sunday’s, ready to log the innings that will have been anticipated of starters like Imanaga and stop Counsell from having to wreck his bullpen by utilizing a bevy of arms to get by way of the sport.
Civale was the savior Sunday, throwing 4 scoreless innings of one-hit ball in Imanaga’s wake to protect the ‘pen.
On a day when his lineup produced 19 runs and two of his players hit grand slams, Counsell said Civale’s work was “the story of the game” for him, bringing to thoughts the supervisor’s description of Assad’s 6 1/3 innings of scoreless aid in a June recreation as “heroic.”
Counsell might have a bullpen filled with these sorts of pitchers come October. In addition to Rea and Assad — and presumably Civale, who was a part of the Cubs’ playoff roster final yr, pitching 4 1/3 scoreless innings in Game 1 of the NLDS — right-handers Edward Cabrera and Ben Brown are anticipated to return from their respective accidents as relievers.
It’s solely a luxurious if these guys hold pitching nicely. But they’ve to this level, giving Counsell the choice of pulling out fast hooks and plotting playoff-style pitching decisions nicely earlier than the postseason arrives.
Because hey, these video games are vital, too.
“There’s a lot of confidence being instilled,” stated Civale, whose work Sunday moved his ERA in a Cubs uniform this season down to 1.80 in 20 innings. “It’s just taking the ball whenever you’re called upon and going out there and getting outs.”