Saturday’s 8-6 defeat at the hands of the Texas Rangers had all the elements Chicago Cubs fans fear for 2019, starting with an inept Yu Darvish.
If the Chicago Cubs do not win the NL Central this season, they will be able to look back at Saturday’s 8-6 defeat at the hands of the Texas Rangers to itemize all the reasons for that failure.
Seldom does one game so early in a season encapsulate the fears of a fan base as did that loss for Cubs fans.
The Cubs lost because absolutely everything fans suspect could go wrong in 2019 went exactly and horribly wrong.
Begin with Yu Darvish. The Cubs invested $126 million in him prior to last season in the expectation that he would be their No. 2 – or possibly their No. 1 – starter. When injuries limited Darvish to just eight starts last season, Cubs fans treated his return to 2019 spring camp as if the team had added an ace for 2019.
Yu Darvish had a chance to legitimize that sentiment Saturday night. Instead, what resulted was – in the eyes of Cubs fans, anyway – one of those ‘worst fears’ nightmares. Bestowed with a three-run lead when the Cubs bashed Rangers starter Edinson Volquez around the yard in the top of the first, Darvish struck out the first two Texas batters and then lapsed into zombie mode.
He walked Elvis Andrus, Nomar Mazara and Joey Gallo – the first two on 3-2 sliders – before striking out Asdrubal Cabrera to end a 30 pitch inning in which the Rangers never actually hit a ball.
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The second inning was worse. Yu Darvish walked Ronald Guzman and Isiah Kiner-Falefa, then was partially bailed out when Guzman was caught half-heartedly trying to steal third. Delino DeShields followed with the Rangers’ sixth walk before Darvish fanned Shin-Soo Choo for the second out. Rougned Odor finally made Darvish pay for all the free opportunities he had dispensed, lining a single to right that scored Kiner-Falefa.
The Chicago Cubs added a run to lead 4-1 in the third, but that did not save Darvish. He walked Mazara, and following a force out Cabrera homered to right. One out later, Darvish was gone. He had lasted two and two-thirds innings in which he had thrown 75 pitches – half of them balls – and allowed nine baserunners, only two of whom actually contacted the ball.
The Cubs brought the fifth member of their rotation, Carlos Quintana, to begin the fourth inning, because they have no need of him as a starter for a solid week. Quintana pitched four innings, allowing two runs on six hits and three more walks before he was relieved in the eighth by Carl Edwards Jr.
Chicago’s lead was down to a single run by then, but in the absence of Brandon Morrow Edwards passes for the team’s setup man. But the second most popular question surrounding the Cubs – following the stability of Yu Darvish – pertains to the stability of the pen. Edwards’ arrival was not reassuring.
The problems appeared to begin with his newly adopted motion, which is … weird. With nobody on base, Edwards might deliver what Rangers manager Chris Woodward yelled and screamed Saturday was an illegal hesitation pitch – the kind of thing Satchel Paige tried back in the day. Or he might quick pitch. Or he might use a standard delivery.
Edwards tried all three against the Rangers Saturday. The only thing he did not try was actually retiring batters. The first to face him, Andrus, singled up the middle. The second, Mazara, watched Edward walk him on a 3-2 pitch. The third, Joey Gallo, made a center-field souvenir of Edwards first pitch, turning a 6-5 Cubs lead into an 8-6 deficit.
For the game, Cubs pitchers faced 47 batters, walking a dozen of them and allowing 11 hits. The pitching slash line was .314/.489/.514. In the season opener two days earlier, Cubs pitchers held Texas to a .188/.235/.406 slash line.
The surest way for any team to have a bad season is for its pitching staff to issue an abundance of walks. When the guy doing it is your $20 million alternate ace, that only makes things worse. When a key member of your bullpen has so little confidence in his stuff that he tries to rely on trickery, the problems are certain to compound.
For Chicago Cubs fans, Saturday night’s defeat to a Rangers team that isn’t supposed to be very good looked like the worst-case scenario they hoped they would not have to contemplate for 2019. If Yu Darvish and Edwards don’t find something approaching a groove, it will be a substantial challenge indeed for the Cubs to hang in the NL Central race.