Cubs Heroes and Goats: Game 114

If you'll excuse me, I'm going to lock my doors and bar my windows. But not before some Bryzzo to serve as a distraction.

Yep. That’s ELEVEN in a row for the @Cubs. https://t.co/1LhMBpHpx1 pic.twitter.com/0q90lZqV2G

— MLB (@MLB) August 12, 2016

Graphs for Game 114 (courtesy of Fangraphs):

Stats for Game 114:

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 Ramirez Catalyst of Game 114: After a double to start the game by Matt Szczur, Kris Bryant follows it up with a double of his own to give the Cubs a 1-0 lead two batters into the game.  WPA impact: +.095.

THE THREE HEROES:

• Superhero - Kris Bryant (.177). For once this season, he's finally the benefactor of getting two early hits and driving in two early runs before the game got completely out of control. See, karma does have a way of bringing everything back around.
• Hero - Jake Arrieta (.120 / .105). By the time he escaped a bases-loaded jam in the fourth inning, there wasn't much left that he was doing that moved the needle one way or the other. Remember the -.015 hitting of his for the day, though... it's going to be pivotal just a bit down the road.
• Sidekick - Addison Russell (.099). I know, I know, you don't even have to say it... I can hear it from the angry mob already. Matt Szczur went 3-for-4, hit two homers, drove in three runs, scored four times, and got completely hosed by the WPA overlords because he got plunked in his second plate appearance (WPA impact +.017) and then nothing else mattered from that point on. I strongly urge you to send your mountains of hate mail in the overlords' general direction, which is somewhere over that-a-way. And please make sure that you vote for Szczur as many times as you can in the Cuyler poll to make your voice heard even louder. You'll get absolutely no argument from me on this one; heck, I'll even break normal protocol of putting the three Heroes in the Cuyler poll first by putting Szczur at the top of the list. Travesties of justice must be rectified.

THE THREE GOATS: And if the Hero podium wasn't interesting enough, the Goat podium has its own conundrums.

• Billy Goat - Javier Baez (-.048). Well, except for this one. His entire WPA came from his groundout to third with the bases loaded to end the first. Now, here's where things get... well... even more quizzical.
• Goat - Joe Smith (.000). As you can see, he's on the second spot of the podium... with a WPA of zero. That's just the first interesting part, because if you look a bit below...
• Kid (tie) - You'll see that it says "tie" to the left over there, and I haven't yet mentioned who's in the tie or what their score is. As it turns out, as a result of Arrieta's aforementioned -.015 hitting being included in his slash line above, there are three Cubs all tied at zero here thanks to the wonders of the blowout. It's the first three-way two-podium-step executive decision vote that I think I've ever had.
  
  So, how to solve this dilemma? Well, Smith was an easy vote for the second step because he gave up a homer to Jedd Gyorko, and in any situation that wasn't a blowout that would be enough to put him on the higher rung. That leaves the other two guys tied at zero: Chris Coghlan and Travis Wood. Coghlan came in as a pinch-hitter, got plunked, and scored a run. Wood pitched the ninth inning and didn't give up a run, although he did allow two Cardinals to reach base. Since they both had some form of positive contribution to the end result, I'm just going to put them both in the final spot because to me it's too tough to determine whose zero was more productive. When all else fails, just remember the Golden Rule from "Whose Line Is It Anyway": The game's made up and the points don't matter. Even if you're a charter member of either the Chris Coghlan or Travis Wood Fan Clubs.

RANKINGS THROUGH GAME 114: After all of the podium dust settles, Arrieta tightens the race for the top three chart positions, with those spots now separated by only two points.