Cubs Heroes and Goats: Game 23

The good news is that there have only been two occasions so far this season in which a reliever has landed at the top of the Goat podium. The other game was the Cubs' 3-2 loss to the Diamondbacks on April 8 when Trevor Cahill landed at the top of the pack.

Graphs for Game 23 (courtesy of Fangraphs):

Stats for Game 23:

Writer's Note: The daily selections of the three Heroes and three Goats are based solely on the top three and bottom three WPA scores for the game. The selections are not based on my subjective opinion.

THE THREE HEROES:

• Superhero - Ben Zobrist (.231). This is the quintessential definition of a fruit basket podium spot. I'm pretty sure that Zobrist has a giant arrangement on its way to Arodys Vizcaino for his blown pickoff throw in the ninth, because without that error it's very likely that Zobrist misses the Hero podium entirely.
• Hero - Addison Russell (.153). It's a bit of a conundrum for Russell, as his game-tying single in the ninth provided a whole lot of redemption for his crucial fielding error in the sixth.
• Sidekick - Kris Bryant (.079). It wasn't looking like a good day for him with his three strikeouts in his first three at-bats, but his run-scoring single in the eighth and walk in the 10th more than made up for it.

THE THREE GOATS:

• Billy Goat - Hector Rondon (-.310). Even with the loss on Sunday, his FIP for the season is still -0.43.  Yes, that's negative 0.43.
• Goat - Jason Heyward (-.164). Someone really needs to tell Heyward that there's no pot of gold in the sub-basement down there.
• Kid - Tommy La Stella (-.160). Everything gets magnified in the late innings of a close game; in his case, his strikeout in the ninth after Zobrist's walk ended up landing him at the bottom of the podium.

RANKINGS THROUGH GAME 23: Zobrist takes another step toward the starting line on the charts, while Heyward... yeah, you get it.