Article: This Week In Cubs Baseball: Early Returns Are Good

[Josh Illes]

The Cubs were back home this week for the first time in 2024, The friendly confines proved to be very friendly for the North Siders. If you missed any of last week's action, here's a quick recap of how the Cubs were able to take care of business against the Rockies and Dodgers.

Image courtesy of © David Banks-USA TODAY Sports

Summary for the Chicago Cubs' Week in Review for the week starting April 1st. 

Record Last Week: 5-1 (6-3 overall)
Runs Scored: 44
Runs Surrendered: 22
Standing: 3rd in NL Central

***

Game Results
Game 4 | Cubs 5, Rockies 0
Game 5 | Cubs 12, Rockies 2
Game 6 | Cubs 9, Rockies 8
Game 7 | Cubs 9, Dodgers 7
Game 8 | Dodgers 4, Cubs 1
Game 9 | Cubs 8, Dodgers 1

Transactions
04/04/24 - Chicago Cubs signed free agent RHP Carl Edwards Jr. to a minor league contract.
04/05/24 - Chicago Cubs signed free agent C Ali Sánchez to a minor league contract.
04/06/24 - Chicago Cubs sent 3B Patrick Wisdom on a rehab assignment to Iowa Cubs.
04/07/24 - Chicago Cubs recalled RHP Daniel Palencia from Iowa Cubs.
04/07/24 - Chicago Cubs placed RHP Julian Merryweather on the 15-day injured list retroactive to April 6, 2024. Right shoulder strain.
04/07/24 - Chicago Cubs sent RHP Jameson Taillon on a rehab assignment to Tennessee Smokies.

Breakdown
The Cubs are playing like contenders. Offensively, they are taking great at-bats, and coming up with timely hits. The pitching, for the most part, has been terrific. We’ve already seen some real improvement from Javier Assad and Jordan Wicks. The bullpen needs to be a little more consistent, but that was always going to be a bit of a question mark. Defensively, you’d hope that our corner outfielders would maybe try to find some better sunglasses, and there are still questions at third base, but once again the stellar double play combo that is Dansby Swanson and Nico Hoerner are making up for whatever deficiencies have been exposed.

The first series of the week was the home opening series versus the Colorado Rockies, featuring a homecoming for former Cub and World Series champion Kris Bryant. The Cubs made short work of the Rockies, sweeping them and outscoring them by 16 runs over the course of the three games. It was the kind of series that the Cubs should absolutely win, but more than that it was a sign that this Cubs team could be special. Great teams are supposed to blow out bad teams, and that's exactly what happened in this series.

Up next, the mighty Los Angeles Dodgers came to Chicago for a three-game weekend series. The Cubs took Game 1 behind sheer grit and tough at-bats. Dodgers starter Bobby Miller looked unhittable in the first inning, striking out the side in order, but the Cubs got to him in the second inning to such a degree that he didn't even make it to the third inning. The key to those at-bats was patience at the plate, as six Cubs hitters in a row saw at least five pitches.

Game 2 of the Dodgers series was an unfortunate display of what the lack of timely hitting can do to a ballclub. The Cubs loaded the bases in each of the first two innings against Yoshinobu Yamamoto, but failed to bring home even one run. The Dodgers capitalized on the lack of offensive efficiency from the North Siders and ultimately won the game by a score of 4-1.

The rubber match was all Cubs. Michael Busch got the good guys on the board early with a bases-clearing double in the first inning. The Cubs scored one run in each of the next three innings to take a 6-0 lead into a rain delay in the bottom of the 4th inning. The delay meant that Shota Imanaga didn't technically get the win, but he deserved it. His strikeout of Ohtani, as mentioned below, really set the tone for the game.

Best Moment of the Week

Shota Imanaga vs Shohei Ohtani
Ohtani came up in the two hole in the top of the 1st inning on Sunday. Imanaga got Mookie Betts to fly out to right field. Next up was his WBC teammate Ohtani, who gave a quick head bow to the southpaw. Imanaga reciprocated, as is custom with Japanese players, but at first glance it looked like it caught Imanaga by surprise. I wondered if this was possibly a little gamesmanship from Ohtani to try and throw the Cubs' starter off rhythm. Frankly, there are a lot of things about Ohtani lately that are being questioned, so maybe some of that was going on in my head.

On the first pitch of the at-bat, Imanaga put a fastball three inches from Ohtani’s chin, and any worry I had about Imanaga’s approach quickly dissipated. Ohtani fouled off the next pitch, another four-seamer. He then threw two sweepers for balls, although the second sweeper was probably a strike. With the count 3-1, Ohtani whiffed on a 94 mph four-seamer to run the count full. Imanaga kept filling the zone, getting Ohtani to foul off the next three pitches, two four-seamers and a splitter. Finally on the ninth pitch of the at-bat, Imanaga reared back and threw his fastest four-seamer yet up in the zone and got Ohtani to swing through it for the strikeout. That's what we call a tone setter right there.  

Worst Moment of the Week
Jose Cuas coming on in relief of Jordan Wicks in a scoreless game against the Dodgers.

Admittedly, this had to be a tough spot for Cubs manager Craig Counsell. Wicks had just reached 100 pitches on the day, the most he has ever thrown in the majors. The big lefty was also in a 2-on, 2-out situation with the right-handed power hitting Teoscar Hernandez coming up to the plate. It was pretty clear that a pitching change needed to be made, but going with Cuas seemed like a questionable decision at the time and ultimately proved to be a mistake.

Cuas walked Hernandez on four pitches to load the bases, bringing up Max Muncy. The very first pitch to Muncy saw Yan Gomes set up on the outside part of the plate, followed by Cuas throwing the ball about two feet inside. That pitch obviously got past Gomes and allowed Austin Barnes to score, which made the game 1-0. The Dodgers never looked back and the Cubs suffered their only defeat of the week.  

Weekly Notes

• Luke Little became the first Cubs pitcher to finish one game and start the next day’s game since Warren Hacker on May 2, 1955, via Cubs researcher Chris Kamka. 

• As our own Matt Trueblood took note of, it seems as though Jordan Wicks has fully transformed how he’s throwing his fastball since making his MLB debut last year. Over his first six starts with the Cubs after being called up in September he threw a TOTAL of four 4-seamers with more than 19” IVB. In his three starts since then (including the last start of 2023), he’s thrown 20 such pitches, including seven on Saturday. That level of improvement is unbelievably impressive. Credit to pitching coach Tommy Hottovy and obviously credit to Little for putting in the time and effort.

• Michael Busch showed up against his former team. Busch was traded to the Cubs from the Dodgers over the offseason essentially because there was nowhere to play him in this stacked Dodgers lineup. They have Freddie Freeman at first base and Ohtani at DH. That made him expendable and the Cubs were more than happy to oblige when the Dodgers made him available. In his first series against his former club, Busch proceeded to show them exactly what they gave up. In the three games, he went 3-for-9 with two doubles, one home run, four RBI, and two runs scored. He also made an unbelievable play at first base to end Friday’s game. 

3 Stars of the Week
3rd Star -  Christopher Morel - 6-for-21, one home run, two RBI, five runs scored
2nd Star - Seiya Suzuki - 7-for-18, two home runs, 10 RBI, one double
1st Star - Shota Imanaga - 12 strikeouts and zero walks in 10 IP. Should be two wins, but wins are overrated anyway.

Looking Forward: On the Road Again
Monday, 4/08 - Cubs @ Padres (8:40 pm CDT) - RHP Javier Assad vs. RHP Yu Darvish

Tuesday, 4/09 - Cubs @ Padres (9:05 pm CDT) - TBD vs. RHP Joe Musgrove

Wednesday, 4/10 - Cubs @ Padres (5:40 pm CDT) - RHP Kyle Hendricks vs. RHP Dylan Cease

Friday, 4/12 - Cubs @ Mariners (8:40 pm CDT) - TBD vs. TBD

Saturday, 4/13 - Cubs @ Mariners (8:40 pm CDT) - TBD vs. TBD

Sunday, 4/14 - Cubs @ Mariners (3:10 pm CDT) - TBD vs. TBD

View full article