Cubs Pitchers Have Tried to Confound Brewers' Scouting Reports, with Mixed Results

[Matthew Trueblood]

Image courtesy of Matt Marton-Imagn Images

Cubs starter Clay Holmes shut the Brewers down in impressive fashion Monday night. For most of his outing Tuesday, Matthew Boyd followed suit. Both hurlers worked in and out of what little trouble they got into, thanks not only to good execution, but to the element of surprise. As we discussed yesterday, Holmes dominated with a cutter that could hardly have been a prominent part of the Brewers' scouting report. Boyd is a more settled, veteran hurler, but he still showed up Tuesday throwing a pitch he'd hardly previously used this year: his sinker.

Entering Tuesday's start, Boyd had only thrown 12 sinkers all season. According to Statcast, he threw nine of them among his 97 pitches in this appearance. That might not be exactly right; it might be either higher or lower. Boyd's four-seamer registered an even lower induced vertical break (IVB) than his already-low seasonal average: 10 inches, rather than 12. He showed good command of his slider and curveball (though less so with his changeup), and tried to force Milwaukee batters to deal with a different set of angles and contrasting pitch shapes than they were likely to have prepared for. To get a sense of how different a set of looks he offered, here are the movement plots for his previous start against Arizona, and against the Brewers.

For Boyd, that strategy was largely successful. He gave up just one run through his first five innings of work. The sixth began with a one-hop grounder toward the shortstop hole by Brice Turang, which Nico Hoerner was able to snare but on which he had no chance to get an out. The next pitch yielded a chopper by William Contreras that should have resulted in an out, but Matt Shaw failed to corral it and a could-be out turned into a double. After getting one more out, Boyd departed with a two-run lead, only to watch Daniel Palencia surrender that advantage. Boyd deserved a much better fate; throwing the Brewers a wrinkle was the right tactic.

Palencia, however, is an example of that plan not working well at all. He's generally used his fastball two-thirds of the time or more over the last two seasons, but of the 12 pitches he threw during a disastrous outing Tuesday night, five were sliders. Ryan Zeferjahn took over in the seventh inning. He's used his fastball and sweeper in virtual parity this year, but on Tuesday night, 12 of his 17 pitches were sweepers. Every pitcher the Cubs have used during this series has, in some way, tried to be a different version of themselves than the Brewers were likely to expect.

For relievers, it's harder to say with certainty how much of that change was planned, and how much was a response to what was working (or not). As I wrote recently, Palencia's recent struggles have much to do with his fastball losing its shape; that might be why he tried to lean on his slider. Either way, though, the Cubs clearly set out to confound the expectations of a Brewers team that shares much of their DNA in terms of coaching and analytical philosophy. For two of their starters, it's worked well. However, as Tuesday night unfolded, the Brewers demonstrated the limits of Chicago's strategic approach.

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