Trusting His Offense and Shielding His Weak Bullpen, Craig Counsell Continues Using Slow Hook

[Matthew Trueblood]

Image courtesy of © Sam Navarro-Imagn Images

Ben Brown was in trouble from the moment he picked up the ball and climbed the mound Monday night. The Marlins had just seen him a week earlier, and they laid in wait for him. As our Randy Holt detailed earlier Monday, Brown must work ahead in the count, and he fell behind on each of the first two batters. That forced him to throw each a heater with plenty of strike zone around it, and both Jesús Sánchez and Agustín Ramírez punished him mercilessly. The Cubs were down 2-0 before Brown could get an out, and things didn't get much better for him.

Importantly, even if he had filled up the zone from the first pitch, Brown would have had a rough night. When a pitcher with such a shallow repertoire faces a team twice in a row, it's big trouble. The Marlins were not letting his fastball by them. They sat on that pitch, and if any hitter sits on Brown's fastball (with its unexceptional shape), they're going to hammer it. Brown did adjust, going to the curveball with unusual frequency after getting blitzed in the first inning.

It worked, too—to an extent. Brown piled up 12 whiffs on the curve, in 23 Marlins swings, and caught them looking at six more strikes on it. After giving up back-to-back homers to lead off the game and nearly giving up a third in the first, he didn't allow a batted ball in the air in the second, third, or fourth. He entered the fifth frame with six strikeouts, no walks, and a chance to cruise through the bottom half of the Miami order, enjoying a 3-2 lead.

Instead, the Marlins made a counteradjustment, and Brown was cooked. Connor Norby and Liam Hicks each sat on his curveball. Norby got one in the zone on the first pitch, and lined a double into the left-field corner. Hicks watched a fastball strike and Brown's show-me changeup for a ball, then took another curve in the zone and whipped a triple to the fence in right-center. The Fish had tied the game, and were immediately threatening to take the lead. Brown, with just the two (real) pitches in his arsenal, was out of ways to fool them.

Craig Counsell, however, let him keep going. The starter recovered with a strikeout of Derek Hill, on which he located both pitches well: curves below the zone only, one fastball in the zone after two curves for a called strike and one (right after it) well above the zone, where it could only have been a whiff or a ball. Against Javier Sanoja, though, Brown threw two straight fastballs, each in the zone and below the belt, and Sanoja threw the knockout punch, sharply bouncing a single through the infield at 105 MPH.

Only, Counsell still didn't move. Brown stayed in to face Sánchez for a third time, and Sánchez got a curve with too much of the zone on it and singled, too, scoring Sanoja (who had stolen second base). It was 5-3 Marlins, with a runner on, and still, Counsell didn't take down Brown. He got to face Ramírez a third time, too, and with three high-and-tight heaters and a curve near the dirt, he struck him out. That brought up Otto Lopez with two outs—and yet again, Counsell held his hook. Sánchez, too, stole second, and Lopez hit a hard one-hopper through the left side. Woof. Finally, Counsell lifted Brown, and as he stared out toward the outfield and awaited Caleb Thielbar, maybe he saw the horses that were well out of the barn, galloping out to the horizon.

This is a thing, this year. League-wide, when pitchers have a tough day (defined, here, by a Game Score of under 45; Game Score is a simplistic tool for summarizing an outing based on outcomes and duration, created by Bil James in the 1980s, and the average is just over 50), they get to 21 batters faced a tidy 76% of the time. The Cubs, however, have now had 12 such starts this season—and Counsell has let those guys get to 21 batters faced on 11 of those 12 occasions. It's been Brown three times; Shota Imanaga, Jameson Taillon and Justin Steele twice each; and Colin Rea, Matthew Boyd and Cade Horton once each. The only one in the set not to get at least 21 batters was Steele, and that was in the second game of the Tokyo Series, so (for multiple reasons) it really doesn't count. Counsell has simply refused to pull struggling starters as early as the typical manager does. Eight of these 12 outings have even seen at least 22 batters faced, and four have gone as far as 24 of them.

Counsell does not always operate this way. In fact, he was a fairly aggressive hookster for much of his time in Milwaukee. The difference, this year, is twofold:

1. Rightfully, Counsell sets little store by his own bullpen. The Cubs struggle to hold late leads, and still haven't found a reliable high-leverage arm this year. They have a bevy of guys you can trust with a three-run lead, but no one you want to hand the ball to if you have no margin for error. If he can steal an extra inning, even at the expense of a run, he'll often do so. He even does this with cruising starters, whom he knows might be about to run into trouble; he's betting on their bad outcomes being better than the average expected ones from his relievers.
2. The Cubs' offense is so good that he can afford to think about managing workloads in his pen and to give up some mid-game leads. With the Brewers, he often had teams who struggled to score consistently. As the Cubs proved by storming back to take a 7-6 lead Monday night, they have a high-octane lineup that can claw back lost advantages. It's much easier to stretch a starter if you know you'll score a few runs in the late innings, and usually, Counsell can count on that.

The strategy has not always worked. The simple truth is that the Cubs' bullpen still isn't good enough, in ways sometimes glaring and sometimes more subtle. On Monday night, one of those subtle ways became very glaring, indeed, as Daniel Palencia (a sensationally talented hurler with a bit of a problem between the ears in big moments, and with too little trust in his own third pitch) gave up the game. Nor is their rotation very strong at the moment, with Steele, Imanaga and Javier Assad down. Losses like Monday night's are the kind this roster will continue to suffer until (at least) Imanaga returns to stabilize the rotation, or until external additions bolster the whole staff.

In the meantime, we can debate the wisdom of Counsell's plans. He's gambling, and he's lost his bets (in one way or another) about as often as he's won them this year. This style of managing doesn't seem to suit his strengths, even though he's aware enough of its underpinnings to keep trying it, and it might be time to take a new tack. On balance, though, you can at least see what he's thinking—and it's clear that the real solution to this problem must come from the front office, not the top step of the dugout.

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[Soul]

Not sure what choice he has.  Like you said, the arms aren't there and the front office would have to find a solution.  The Steele and Imanaga injuries are hugely impactful.  I think the Cubs have done a good job banking wins with great offense but it was always going to eventually drag us down.  It hurts even more that the Cards are apparently unstoppable now.