The Cubs' Playoff Dreams Now Fall Squarely Onto Jameson Taillon's New Changeup

After the San Diego Padres tied up the Wild Card Series with a win on Wednesday afternoon, the Cubs have officially tabbed Jameson Taillon as the starting pitcher in the deciding Game 3 on Thursday. If that feels a bit underwhelming, well, that’s because it is.

That’s nothing against Taillon, whom I like as a pitcher, and about whom I have heard nothing but good things as a human being. It's just that we all thought Cade Horton would be starting one of these three games as recently as one week ago, and another starting pitcher was such an obvious need that Jed Hoyer traded for Jesús Luzardo last offseason—before backing out due to medical concerns. He settled for Colin Rea, instead.

I digress. Taillon is our reality, and I try my darnedest to live in the present reality every day. I also try my darnedest to be optimistic, so I am here to point out that Taillon is a good matchup for this Padres lineup. 

You’ve probably noticed, by now, that five of the typical nine hitters that the Padres pencil in every day (or at least for the first two games of this series) are left-handed. If you’ve followed the Cubs closely over the past few seasons, you might recall that Taillon badly struggled to get lefties out during his first two seasons in a Cubs uniform.

With Jackson Merrill, Luis Arraez, Ryan O’Hearn, Gavin Sheets, and Jake Cronenworth all figuring to be in the Padres lineup, that would be bad news for the Cubs. However, Taillon has completely reversed his trend of struggling against lefties this season. All stats courtesy of FanGraphs:

The reason for this sudden shift? I’ve written about this twice this season already: Taillon has a fancy new changeup that he debuted this season, and it’s turned him into a completely different pitcher against lefties. It’s a kick-change, which emphasizes more vertical movement—more depth. Here is an example of a changeup he threw last season.

Compare that with one he threw this season, and you can see the difference.

This has altered the way that Taillon approaches lefties. Instead of primarily working with a fastball, cutter and curveball, as he did last season, he now primarily throws a fastball, curveball, and the changeup. The change in results on the changeup, from last year to this year, have been staggering:

Does this mean that Taillon is going to carve through the Padres' lineup tomorrow? We’ll see what happens. He’ll still have to deal with Fernando Tatis Jr. and Manny Machado at the top of the lineup, the first of whom homered off of Taillon earlier this season, and he wasn’t exactly lights-out against righties this year, either. The veteran right-hander is, at least, uniquely qualified to get through a lefty-heavy Padres lineup, thanks to his new changeup. Be on the lookout for that in the biggest game the Cubs have played since 2018.