Chicago Cubs: The bullpen isn’t always mightier

The Chicago Cubs Example

On Friday night in Milwaukee, in a game the Chicago Cubs had to win in order to retain a share of first place in the NL Central, Chicago Cubs manager Joe Maddon played bullpen Russian Roulette and paid the price. As a result, his Cubs turned a 2-0 lead into a 3-2 loss, their fourth in the last five games.

The victim of what might be viewed as Maddon’s over-managing (and he is far from alone in this action; virtually all managers do this) was starter Kyle Hendricks. Through five innings, Hendricks had shut out the Brewers on two hits, walking two and striking out five. At the point he was removed, Hendricks had retired eight of the last nine batters he had faced, and had thrown 90 pitches.

The game was a scoreless tie entering the sixth, and with the bottom of the Cubs order due up it made some sense for Maddon to have a relief pitcher ready in the event a situation arose where it made sense to pinch hit for Hendricks. Indeed, when leadoff batter Albert Almora beat out an infield single to second base, Maddon sent pinch hitter Kyle Schwarber to the on-deck circle to be ready to drive in Almora if eighth-place hitter David Bote didn’t.

Bote, however, complicated the analysis, driving a belt-high 3-2 Gio Gonzalez fastball into the left-field seats for a two-run home run. Suddenly, rather than facing an RBI situation in a scoreless tie, the Cubs were presented with a two-run lead to protect over four innings.

This may be a good time to note that a stable, predictable bullpen is not generally ranked among Chicago’s strengths. Indeed, the Chicago Cubs made a move they hope will fortify that bullpen Friday afternoon, trading for left-hander Derek Holland.

Nevertheless, with 12 outs yet to get and a game situation newly shifted in Chicago’s favor, Maddon opted to pinch-hit Schwarber for Hendricks anyway. Schwarber, whose status as a favorite on Chicago’s North Side far transcends his .223 batting average, struck out.

Maddon’s plan was doubtless influenced by the fact that the Brewers in the bottom of the sixth were due to send Christian Yelich, Yasmani Grandal, and Mike Moustakas to the plate. Yelich and Moustakas are left-handed hitters, and Grandal is a switch hitter widely viewed around the league as more susceptible to left-handed pitching. Maddon had his only left-hander, Kyle Ryan, ready to replace Hendricks.

That was the plan. But plans often fail to survive contact with the enemy. So when Ryan sandwiched a walk to Grandal around the outs he extracted from Yelich and Moustakas, Maddon was forced off script, calling on right-hander Steve Cishek to face Keston Hiura. Cishek walked Hiura and hit Eric Thames, loading the bases before recording the final out.

Cishek returned to the mound in the seventh but continued in wild mode, walking Ben Gamel with one out. Gamel advanced to second on a deflected infield out and scored when Yelich singled off Brandon Kintzler, the Cubs’ third arm out of the pen, who Maddon had called on to bail out Cishek.

Kintlzer started the eighth, but he reprised Cishek’s sixth inning wildness, walking Hiura and hitting Thames. Having tried four times without success to find somebody in his pen who could actually replicate Hendricks’ skill at sedating the Brewers, Maddon made a fifth go at it, summoning Pedro Strop. He hit pinch hitter Ryan Braun to load the bases, and one out later surrendered a line drive single to Gamel that plated the tying and go-ahead runs.

Here’s the Summary

In five innings, Hendricks faced 19 Brewers hitters, allowing just four of them to reach base, two on hits and two on walks. He left having thrown 90 pitches with a 2-0 lead and a 77 percent statistical chance of victory.

In the succeeding two and two-thirds innings, his five successors faced 18 Brewers batters. They allowed nine to reach base —  four on walks, three on hit batters and two on run-producing hits. The result: three runs and game over.

For the record, the best Chicago Cubs bullpen arm, closer Craig Kimbrel, never got into the game. Instead, facing the highest leverage situation – bases-loaded, two-out, one-run lead, bottom of the eighth, Maddon’s maneuvering had led him to rely on Pedro Strop. Here are Strop’s crisis-pertinent numbers: a 5.20 ERA, an 87 ERA+ and a 1.157 WHIP.

The problem with the modern bullpen strategy is its stratification, which is to say its absence of thought. Starters are lifted because somebody developed a rubric saying they ought to be. Relievers are used because it’s their “role,” or they are not used because it isn’t their “role” yet.

But the “data” fails to admit managerial discretion, and it can also vary from pitcher-to-pitcher. In 2019, Hendricks has a .176 batting average against from pitches 76 to 100, and a .241 batting average against when facing hitters for the third time. In other words, he has improved, not weakened, as the game has developed.  The numbers run precisely counter to the strategy of pulling him for what would presumably be a better option to protect a lead in the sixth.

The most curious thing about the night is that when the game was over, no reporter cross-examined Maddon on his decision to remove Hendricks or the succession of failed bullpen strategies precipitated by that decision. Everybody appeared to merely assume he had made the obvious, logical choices.

That’s how ballgames – and eventually pennants — are lost these days.