Another day in the feast part of the feast or famine season for the Cubs is just fine by me. The nail biters will return any day. When we aren’t in nail biting season, I’ll take a fairly comfortable Cub win any day. Like the Sunday blowout of the Mariners, this one was largely closer than the final score makes it appear. This one got comfortable a little faster, reaching 5-0 in the sixth and its final score by the seventh. Still, I was up late enough to not feel totally comfortable when I went to bed (they were up 2-0).
Am I crazy for thinking that this is the deepest Cub team I’ve ever seen? The top four Cubs in the lineup, generally their most productive this season, were a combined 2-for-18 with a double, two walks, an RBI and two runs scored. If we ignore the runs and runs batted in part which are largely context statistics that largely rely on contributions from other players, 2-for-18 with two walks and a double feels like you are going to lose a game. Obviously a large part of this win falls on the pitching staff throwing a shutout. But, seven runs behind an off night from the whole top of the lineup? That’s because the bottom five in the order were a combined 8-for-18 with a double, a triple and two homers. They drove in five and scored six.
The big hat tips at the bottom of the order go to Pedro Ramirez who became a regular on this team when Dansby Swanson was injured, and Michael Conforto. Conforto has been a bench piece, but now he and Tyrone Taylor are more or less splitting the DH spot (very effectively). I just can’t decide if this is actually a deeper team or if it is just like an oasis in the desert. Afterall, these last couple of years, it’s felt like there wasn’t one usable piece on the Cub bench. Most days, it has felt like the Cubs have 11 or 12 interchangeable parts this year that will all help contribute on any given day. That’s a nice luxury to have. With the addition of Taylor, once Matt Shaw is healthy, this team gets really long.
This team was built to reach the playoffs, no question about it. I’ve often talked about the regular season being largely about how deep your roster is. In the regular season, it’s about how strong your roster is from 21-40 and your ability to go past 40 to fill in gaps in the roster. You win by being able to keep your roster productive over the grind of the season. Injuries will happen. Prolonged slumps will happen. You need a village essentially to reach the playoffs. Then it becomes more about how strong you are 1-20, 1-15, 1-10 on your roster.
Stars shine at the biggest times. We’ll all remember the contributions that some end of the bench guy made in the post season. If the series goes seven games, the odds that somebody down past 20 on your roster has a significant role. In the most important Cub game played in any of our lifetimes, Albert Almora, Jr. who was somewhere past 20 on the pecking order of that team, had one of the most significant contributions to the win. Mike Montgomery might have eked into the top 20, but got the most important out in Cubs history.
Those are the exceptions though. A key starter might largely will a win for you by themselves along the way. Again, thinking about the 2016 Cubs World Series run, there was the Kyle Hendricks game to send them to the World Series and the Jon Lester game against Johnny Cueto to get things started. Your slugger might hit a couple of homers and give you a comfortable win along the way. The stars do the heavy lifting in the postseason.
I posit that as rough as the Angels teams were through the years when Mike Trout and Shohei Ohtani were together, that they would have had a punchers chance in a playoff series. That’s where those guys might really shine. They are incredibly hard to just shut down. In that vein, once this Cub team reaches the postseason, it’s going to matter a ton what Pete Crow-Armstrong can do on the biggest stage. We know he won’t shy away from the moment. Can Seiya Suzuki get hot? Can Michael Busch look more like the 2025 version? Has Alex Bregman found the fountain of youth?
It’s also going to matter an awful lot if the Cubs can get some effectiveness from their rotation. Kevin Gausman gave the Cubs a huge lift Monday night. That was great to see after a bit of a unicorn game for the Cubs on Sunday. Usually when the Cubs win, they get a reasonably decent start. But that wasn’t the case Sunday. Aaron Civale came in and turned that game around when it looked like the game might have been lopsided the other way. While it looks like the Cubs just swing their way to every victory they get, there is usually pretty good pitching early on the nights where they win.
It’s a whole lot of fun when both halves contribute like this. Hopefully, Gausman can continue rounding into form along with the other big trade deadline acquisition, Clay Holmes. Always remember, with trade deadline acquisitions, the production you get in August and September is a bonus. They are acquired to help you win games in October. So these two months are about getting them right. To that end, I’ll hat tip Ryan Zeferjahn for working a totally boring inning Monday night. The game was lopsided and perhaps that was a good time to slow things down and just post a good result. He certainly has the stuff to be a difference-maker.
Three Positives:
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Kevin Gausman turned back the clock to a time when pitching ruled the day. Three hits, one walk, six strikeouts. Dominant performance against an offense that is pretty good.
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Michael Conforto was unstoppable. Three hits, one a homer, another a double. He was walked, drove in two runs and scored two.
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Pedro Ramirez drove in the first run with a triple in the second. Added another hit on top of that and scored a run. This offseason, we are going to have some fun conversations about how to handle Ramirez and Matt Shaw.
Game 132, August 24: Cubs 7, Diamondbacks 0 (76-56)
Reminder: Heroes and Goats are determined by WPA scores and are in no way subjective.
THREE HEROES:
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Superhero: Kevin Gausman (.331). 7 IP, 24 BF, 3 H, BB, 6 K (W 7-11)
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Hero: Michael Conforto (.225). 3-3, HR, 2B, BB, 2 RBI, 2 R
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Sidekick: Pedro Ramírez (.116). 2-4, 3B, RBI, R
THREE GOATS:
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Billy Goat: Pete Crow-Armstrong (-.125). 0-5
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Goat: Alex Bregman (-.065). 1-5, R
WPA Play of the Game: The Cubs were up to when Michael Conforto’s two-run homer in the sixth inning blew the game open. (.147)
Diamondbacks Play of the Game: Corbin Carroll’s steal of third base with two outs in the fourth, when the Cubs were only up one. (.143)
Cubs Player of the Game:
Game 131 Winner: Ian Happ received 55 of 93 votes.
Rizzo Award Standings: (Top 5/Bottom 5)
The award is named for Anthony Rizzo, who finished first in this category three of the first four years it was in existence and four times overall. He also recorded the highest season total ever at +65.5. The point scale is three points for a Superhero down to negative three points for a Billy Goat.
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Seiya Suzuki/Nico Hoerner -11
Scoreboard Watching: Quiet night around the league and in games that affect the NL postseason. The D-backs loss drops them a full seven games behind the Cubs. The Padres lost (five back). The Phillies lost (three back). So the Cubs gained at least half a game on everyone. A nice nudge in the right direction after a long weekend.
Up Next: Another late one Tuesday night in Arizona. Barring any unforeseen circumstances, it’s the last 2026 game scheduled to be played past my bedtime here on the East Coast. Clay Holmes (5-6, 2.49) starts for the Cubs. He is 1-2 with a 2.81 in 16 innings as a Cub. He was a tough luck loser in the last one, allowing only a run over 5.1 innings to the White Sox. His one road start was his only rough one as a Cub. Let’s hope that was more rust than a road thing and he can give the Cubs another good start.
27-year-old Brandon Pfaadt (7-1, 3.39) spent some time in the Diamondbacks bullpen and was briefly demoted to Triple-A this year after a rough start to his season. He has been back in the rotation since June 30 and has really turned his season around. He had a 5.92 ERA through June 3. He came back to the majors and won his first five starts after returning. In fact, in nine starts between June 30 and August 14, he pitched at least five innings in every game and didn’t allow more than two runs in any start. The last five of those starts were all quality starts. Then in his last start, the Red Sox put five runs on him in 5.2 innings in Boston. So he’s coming off of his worst start of the year after nine good to great starts.
Pfaadt has been very good as the D-backs have made a playoff push. This is a tough game. I like to peek at Fangraphs for curiosity. They have the Cubs essentially getting a slight edge in a coin flip game. This one could be a pitcher’s duel. Not sure how I feel about that on the road in a place where the Cubs often struggle.
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