The Cubs Keep Getting Nearly No-Hit. Does That Mean Anything?

[RandallPnkFloyd]

The Chicago Cubs lost a game 9-2 on Wednesday. It was another in a long line of frustrating May losses, to say nothing of the fact that it was probably closer than that score might indicate. What is notable, however, is the fact that Atlanta starter Max Fried was perfect through five innings. It was just the latest instance of what seems to be a growing trend for these Cubs in 2024.

Image courtesy of © David Banks-USA TODAY Sports

The “trend” in question is the team’s recent habit of remaining entirely dormant offensively early in games. It’s led to three no-hit bids on the part of the opposing starter in the last few weeks. Before Fried, it was the Mets’ Luis Severino who flirted with one at the end of April. Paul Skenes didn’t allow a hit through six innings of his own, just last Friday. 

Given the Cubs’ offensive woes over the last six weeks, it almost seems more a matter of when than if they’ll allow a starter to finish the job. At the same time, I’m not attuned enough to the majority of major-league offenses (outside of my own sphere) to know if the Cubs are any kind of exception. They’re squarely in the middle of the league in plate appearances with runners on, so the general picture doesn’t indicate they’re doing anything alarming. 

Nonetheless, it is worth at least taking stock of those three particular outings to compare them to the Cubs’ own bigger picture.

On Apr. 29, Severino threw eight innings against the Cubs. He allowed just one hit – a flare from Dansby Swanson – which turned into an earned run. He struck out five and surrendered a pair of walks. The Cubs made contact at a 75-percent clip when swinging against him. Even if they hacked at almost 35 percent of pitches outside the strike zone (51.5 percent of all offerings). 

The Cubs were able to elevate, with as many fly balls as grounders in the game. The issue was the quality of contact. Half the balls they put in play were categorized as Soft contact, and they didn't have any Barrels against the formidable former Yankee. Severino was fastball-heavy, getting lots of ground balls with his sinker. His average four-seam fastball sat at 96.2 MPH. The low slider earned him whiffs, at almost a 70-percent rate. The Cubs went on to win that game, but Severino was surgical for much of the evening. He induced hyper-aggressiveness, with ground balls and whiffs born of the Cubs not working to get their pitch.

Paul Skenes represents a different case entirely. He threw six innings, struck out 11 against only one walk, and never did give up a hit. The Cubs swung at 54 percent of his pitches, including 42 percent outside the strike zone, and put the ball on the ground 85.7 percent of the time. Against that velocity, there wasn’t any soft contact to speak of, but also only one hard-hit ball. When you’re driving the ball into the infield grass, it doesn’t necessarily matter, anyway. 

Skenes primarily deployed his four-seamer and his “splinker” there. The Cubs swung at roughly 65 percent of the former and whiffed almost 45 percent of the time. The four-seamer averaged 99.3 MPH. It was hilarious, though not actually funny. The Cubs lost that one 9-3. In that case, it was more power than the Cubs’ lineup could handle at that juncture, especially considering the presence of both Nick Madrigal and Miles Mastrobuoni in the lineup on that particular day.

That brings us to Wednesday night against Atlanta and Max Fried, who carried his no-hitter into the sixth. Fried was four-seam- and curveball-heavy, with the slider and sinker working their way in there, too. The 57.1 GB%, as such, comes as no surprise. The Cubs hacked at virtually half the pitches Fried threw and swung at 38 percent of pitches outside the strike zone. Contact was scarce, with a whiff rate of 35 percent.

So if we take all three close calls, this is what we’re left with: 51.8 Swing%, 38.2 O-Swing%, and 66.8 Contact%. Their contact trends include a 22.2 HardHit% & a 61.6 GB%. It’s genuinely uninspiring. But is it out of character?

The Cubs’ Swing% is ninth in the league, at 47.9. They’re more patient on pitches outside the zone, at 27.1%, but also feature one of the 10 lowest contact rates in the league (75.4%). They’re 23rd in the league in Hard Hit% (37.0). The Cubs are also running one of the higher strikeout rates in the league, with a 23.2% clip that ranks 11th-highest. Their 26.7% whiff rate is 10th-highest. Perhaps the positive is that they’re generally better at elevating than we saw in two of these three instances, with a 41.8 GB% that aligns with their output against Severino. 

We aren’t really going to glean anything from three starts. We’d have to dig far deeper than even the Cubs hitters are digging themselves right now, examining velocity against breaking pitches, etc. The team has run into a plethora of upper-tier arms lately: Skenes twice, Jared Jones twice, Dylan Cease, Chris Sale, etc. That’s not going to help run production on a nightly basis or contribute positively to the peripherals. 

At the same time, while these starts may not indicate that a full, nine-inning no-hitter (or worse) is on the horizon, it at least does underscore some issues with this offense since the beginning of the year. The team's discipline has waned, and virtually every positive thing they were doing has wilted along with it. Health is a factor, sure. But one certainly starts to wonder, given the frequency at which the Cubs appear to be flirting with the negative end of history, how much of that early discipline was real versus a much more troubling offensive identity.

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[Guest234]

What do you consider worse than a full nine inning no-hitter? 27 strikeouts, a default?