Chicago Cubs: The ballad of Tyler Chatwood

Was Tyler Chatwood’s Sunday performance for the Chicago Cubs a true turn-around or merely his annual one-off?

If you are a Chicago Cubs fans and an optimist, here’s the way you view Tyler Chatwood’s performance Sunday against the Arizona Diamondbacks: If Chatwood’s found it, we’re unbeatable.

If you are a Cubs fan and a pessimist, here’s the way you view it: The guy’s good for one decent game a season…and he just pitched it. And we’re still in April.

Until Chatwood takes the mound again – assuming he does — there’s no telling which version of reality is closer to the truth.

The Cubs’ $38 million pitching appendix – because he has no actual function on the staff – made his first start Sunday only because Jon Lester still has not been cleared to return from the hamstring injury that has sidelined him for two weeks. Since the season began, Chatwood had been limited to four low-pressure relief appearances, none since April 10.

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In those four appearances, encompassing six innings, Chatwood had allowed six hits, four runs, and he had walked five batters.

No surprise there. In 2018, Chatwood delivered a 5.40 ERA in 20 starts while walking a league-leading 95 batters in just 103.2 innings. That’s why Maddon had exiled him to the farthest reaches of the bullpen to begin the 2019 season.

Nobody has disputed Chatwood’s “stuff.” It’s his command of that stuff that has been an issue. But Lester’s injury eventually forced Lester to give Chatwood a chance to actually pitch in a meaningful 2019 game.

The very early returns were not good. Chatwood walked Jarrod Dyson on the first four pitches he threw, all four-seam fastballs and none of them threatening the plate.

Then a funny thing happened. Chatwood threw a four-seam fastball right down the heart of the plate. D-Backs hitter Wilmer Flores, obviously and quite logically told to wait Chatwood out, took it. Then Chatwood threw another and Flores fouled it back. Then Chatwood threw a 96 mph sinker in on Flores’ hands, the and D-Backs infielder bounced it conveniently to Cubs third baseman David Bote, who turned a double play.

Four pitches and one David Peralta ground out later, Chatwood had actually completed an inning unscathed. It was only the third time he had done so all season, and only his seventh such inning since last July.

Even more surprising to those who had seen Chatwood pitch for the Cubs, he continued to pitch well. Chatwood retired Arizona on 14 pitches in the second, on just nine pitches in the third, on 11 pitches in the fourth, on 14 pitches in the fifth and on 15 pitches in the sixth.

By the time Maddon decided to remove Chatwood at the start of the seventh inning in what at the time was a 1-0 game, some Cubs faithful went so far as to actually wonder why Maddon was doing so. Chatwood had allowed no runs on just two hits, he had walked only two and erased both of those with double play grounders.

The Cubs’ pen gave up a tying home run in the top of the ninth but Chicago won 2-1 in the bottom of the inning.

Chatwood’s game score of 69 was his best in nearly a full year. Pitching against the Milwaukee Brewers on April 29, 2018, Chatwood had completed seven innings of what would become a 2-0 Cubs victory. That game he also allowed just two hits, walked three and achieved a game score of 74. It was his only game score above 60 all last season.

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The question Maddon and the Cubs must now ask is whether to give Chatwood another starting opportunity. The reasons to do so are as abundant as his salary, which continues through next season. Although he has never demonstrated the ability in Chicago, it remains possible that Chatwood has figured out how to command the stuff that made him a ground ball machine Sunday. Cubs infielders made 10 putouts, nine of them assisted, with Chatwood on the mound.
On the other hand, that next start would likely be next Saturday against the Diamondbacks in Arizona, by which time Lester may be ready to return from the injured list. As uplifting as Chatwood’s showing was Sunday, it wasn’t uplifting enough to delay the return of the staff ace, if indeed Lester is good to go.

There’s also the matter of betting on Chatwood to do twice what he did once.

And given the recent strong showings of Cub starters Jose Quintana, Cole Hamels and – as of Friday – Kyle Hendricks – there may only be one questionable opening in the Chicago rotation right now. That’s Yu Darvish, who hasn’t posted a game score as high as Chatwood’s Sunday 69 since April of 2018.

But if the Cubs think they’re not getting their money’s worth out of Chatwood, how would they feel about sitting down Darvish, who is owed $101 million through 2023?

The other option, a radical one, would be for Maddon to dabble with a six-man rotation – at least until Chatwood or Darvish pitches their way out of it.

For the first time, Tyler Chatwood gave the Chicago Cubs something positive to think about Sunday.