Chicago Cubs pitchers have blown four leads in the season’s first week alone, putting them on pace for a historically bad season
The Chicago Cubs lost ignominiously again Wednesday, this time 6-4 to Atlanta. It was their fourth consecutive loss of the young season, and if it was not the most disheartening that is only because the early competition for “most disheartening defeat” is so strong these days on the North Side.
In those four losses, the Cubs’ pen has blown four leads and also coughed up a tie, inventively, with a game-ending wild pitch. In the only loss that didn’t feature a blown lead, the Chicago Cubs were beaten 8-0 thanks in part to six fielding errors that allowed six of those runs to score unearned.
Wednesday against the Braves, Cubs manager Joe Maddon called on his only reliable pitcher to date, Jon Lester. Lester delivered six strong innings and departed holding a 4-2 lead. Three innings, five walks, four runs, and just two hits later, the Cubs had their 6-4 loss.
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As has routinely been the case this opening week, Cubs pitchers didn’t even require the opposition to beat them. They did the job themselves.
Called on to preserve the 4-2 lead in the eighth, reliever Steve Cishek walked the bases full using almost a minimum of effort, just 15 pitches. That tuned Johan Camargo’s subsequent double to the right-center field gap into a three-run producing game-winner.
But that’s what the Cubs pen – and really its entire pitching staff save for Lester plus fill-in relievers Brandon Kintzler and Brad Brach – does these days. Through five games, Cubs pitchers other than those three have compiled a gravity-defying 11.10 ERA. They’ve averaged 1.14 bases on balls per inning, and that’s on top of the 1.69 hits they’ve allowed per inning. Eight of those hits – nearly one for every three innings of work – has left the park.
Their work, If it can be called that, has managed to undermine even a very productive Chicago Cubs offense. Aside from the 8-0 shutout loss, Cubs hitters have produced 32 runs in 36 innings, nearly a run per inning. Willson Contreras is off to a .429 start, while Ben Zobrist, Kyle Schwarber, Javier Baez and David Bote are all hitting above .300. The team OPS is .925.
That looks imposing except when measured against what Cubs pitchers are allowing. Through five games, they have allowed a .387 opponents batting average, a .522 on-base average and a .734 slugging average. That translates to a 1.256 OPS. The major league leader in OPS last season was Mike Trout at 1.088.
So far in 2019, Cubs pitchers are turning every hitter they face into Mike Trout … on steroids.
The pen is replete with guilty parties. The Cubs lost Saturday when Jose Quintana allowed two runs in the seventh, then Carl Edwards allowed three more in the eighth.
They lost Sunday when Tyler Chatwood allowed one in the sixth and put two runners on base that Mike Montgomery allowed to score – along with two of his own—in the seventh, then finally when Pedro Strop wild-pitched home the loser in the ninth. On Wednesday, it was the turn of Cishek and Randy Rosario.
There is obviously a long way to go in this season, but the early returns invite comparison with some of the worst pitching staffs in the game’s history. The comparisons are not flattering to the Cubs pitchers.
By the estimates of many baseball historians, the gold standard for putrid pitching was achieved by the staff of the 1930 Philadelphia Phillies, a club that went 52-102 despite a .315 team batting average and 6.13 runs per game. Phillies pitchers were able to undermine that level of production by allowing a 6.71 ERA and 1,199 runs, translating to 7.79 runs per game.
The Cubs’ team ERA, including Lester, is 6.75, and they have allowed 7.40 runs per game. That puts them on pace to match the 1930 Phils’ 1,199 runs allowed for the season.
The dire circumstances are complicated by the fact that the Chicago Cubs have few if any remedial options. They are tied to Yu Darvish, at a price of $101 million, through 2023. They owe Chatwood $25.5 million through 2020, and they just signed Hendricks to a $61.4 million extension through 2023.
Their overall $203 million payroll bumps them right up against the $207 million luxury tax threshold, effectively prohibiting them from pursuing available mound help such as Dallas Keuchel or Craig Kimbrel. As if signing one pitcher would change an entire staff.
Literally, their only avenue is to hope for a widespread general turnaround in the pitching staff’s performance.