The Third 54 Report: Cubs Fall to 0-1, in a Way

My favorite baseball truism is that every team wins 54 games, and every team loses 54 games. It’s what you do with the other 54 games that matters. That framework can be the best way to balance the twin dangers of a long baseball season, which are either minimizing the impact of a single game and overreacting to the same thing. With a little perspective and introspection, we can identify the games that fall into the third bucket of 54 games. Those are the only ones worth worrying much about. 

A team should have 54 wins every year you treat as essentially routine, without getting especially excited. They should have 54 losses you treat as routine, without getting upset. If a game falls into the third bucket, though, it’s worth your emotion. It’s not like your favorite team losing a key game in the NFL, because mathematically, even every game in the third bucket only constitutes a little less than two percent of the decisive segment of the team’s season. Still, it should sit with you a bit. 

Thursday’s win was a great one, with the vibes of Opening Day and the excitement of the four-run rally the Cubs cobbled together in the third inning. That was clearly a first-bucket game, though. By contrast, Saturday’s loss was a third-bucket game. That one could easily have gone either way, and the Cubs lost because they put together a dysfunctional roster to open the season and deployed it wrong.

Justin Steele delivered everything the Cubs could have wanted. He put them in a position to win by shutting down the Brewers for six innings, while allowing just four baserunners and striking out eight. He’s an exemplar of something I increasingly believe about the nature of what we call command: that it’s less about pinpoint location than about consistent execution. Steele often seems to miss his spot by a significant amount, but his pitches have action, life, and deception to them even when that happens.

If you're reading this, Justin Steele shoved today. 🔥@J_Steele21 | #NextStartsHere pic.twitter.com/rFe6pciwaI

— Chicago Cubs (@Cubs) April 1, 2023

That didn’t mean he didn’t need the support of his defense, of course, and he got it, in a gorgeous way. Dansby Swanson has exceeded reasonable expectations and lived up to every hope of Cubs fans so far. On Saturday, that meant quashing a Brewers rally with another beautiful double play off the bat of William Contreras, then robbing Contreras of a hit his next time up with a diving play to his right and a lightning-quick release. 

Thanks to both Steele and the fielders behind him, the Cubs were able to take a 1-0 lead into the seventh inning. Ross went to Javier Assad at that point, which was pretty reasonable. Assad had a great spring, after all, and looked especially good in relief in the World Baseball Classic. That’s how he made the roster, and it’s a solid reason to have him act as a bridge to the back end of the bullpen. Assad looked good in his first inning of work, too.

The fatal flaw here is that I had to write the words between “good” and “too” in that sentence. With a fully fresh (albeit inexperienced and less-than-terrifying) bullpen from which to draw someone for the eighth, Ross instead had Assad come back. That led, in quick succession, to a hard-hit single and a bad walk, the latter issued over the desperate attempts of Garrett Mitchell to give the team an out by bunting the runner over. The seeing-eye single that then tied the game was a bit unlucky, but it was bad luck to which Ross exposed the team by not taking out Assad sooner. 

A few batters later, Michael Fulmer let the game get away from the Cubs for good, as he allowed Contreras to hit it away from Swanson and drive in the go-ahead runs with a single to right field. That single wouldn’t have fallen against a truly competent right fielder, but alas, the Cubs had Miles Mastrobuoni out there instead of one. That error, however, goes to the front office, not to Ross. So, for that matter, does some of the blame for Assad’s being left on the mound to make a mess of things.

The Cubs only have two true outfielders on their roster right now, in Ian Happ and Cody Bellinger. Because they’re letting Nick Madrigal take up a spot on their 26-man roster and Eric Hosmer take up one on their 40-man at all, they’re consigned to using Mastrobuoni, Patrick Wisdom, and Trey Mancini in right field and praying for the best. Wrigley Field doesn’t go easy on right fielders, especially when they’re not yet familiar with it. I’m not sure whether Mike Tauchman or Christopher Morel would have caught Contreras’s hit, but it wasn’t entirely uncatchable, and Mastrobuoni never even looked comfortable in pursuit of it. Nelson Velázquez, whatever his other flaws, would have caught it easily. 

Relatedly, if the team had a left-handed reliever at all, it’s unlikely that Ross would have left Assad in to face Mitchell and Jesse Winker. They don’t, so he elected to roll with his young righthander. He paid for it.

The Cubs didn’t build this roster to win in the short term, but we don’t have to accept that as a sound plan. They spent too much money this winter, and (from ownership to the front office to Ross himself) have talked too much about winning again this year to then hope to be graded on a gentle curve again. They had their first chance to win a third-bucket game Saturday, and they blew it. We don't need to freak out on every such occasion, because there will be 53 more such games. Still, it's a loss that should rankle.