2024 Cubs Heroes and Goats: Game 62

For the second straight day, and the third time in the last four, the Cubs dug an early hole. Once again, I thought I was going to be writing the obituary for this team only to see them come from behind and win, this time with a walk-off. Walk-offs are great for the psyche. In that time and place, you feel like world beaters. Unfortunately, a lifetime of baseball experience suggests very little carryover effect even to just the next day. But that doesn’t make it less fun in the moment.

So now the Cubs sit with an offense that is working and their pitching isn’t. This time it was Jameson Taillon getting knocked around. This time there were no errors to blame for the damage. After a strong start to his 2024 season, Jameson has started to tail off. When we look behind the numbers, we see that he wasn’t quite as good as his start to the season and so the regression was going to be inevitable without some progression in his peripheral numbers. He did strikeout six last night in only five innings, and he only allowed one walk. But 10 hits in five innings is way too many and no one is good enough to overcome that.

The Cubs have seen their scoring improve of late. The main reason? Sequencing. Though I’ll give you bonus points if you noted that simply getting any runners on was an improvement. For a couple of weeks there, they weren’t really putting any traffic on the bases and making opposing pitchers work. But, eight hits, three walks and a hit batter doesn’t usually get you seven runs. Without doing much research, I’m going to guess that offensive output usually gets you between four and five runs which would not have been good enough.

But, the Cubs put three singles together in the fifth (and then were aided by a balk). Then in the seventh, they put together three walks, a hit by pitch, a wild pitch, another balk, and a single. The key inning of the game for the Cubs offense was basically gift wrapped by the woeful White Sox. Credit to the Cubs offense basically goes to not getting in the way of that disaster happening. They took their walks and didn’t get over anxious while behind. That’s not nothing, but most of the credit goes to the White Sox giving another game away. I can well imagine three-digit actual attendance numbers on the south side by September. Not that any team has reported actual attendance numbers in the last few decades.

It occurred to me while thinking through my story last night that I’ve never covered “this” team before. I started doing this in 2017. The team was firmly in a championship window. The window closed during my time and there were no championships but there was a third trip to the NLCS and then a few more short playoff appearances. Then there was the teardown season and then a bad team. Those two seasons were also new for me. But this is essentially the third straight season of new territory for me as a writer.

Amusingly, this team is the team I thought the Cubs would field last year. That is, in 2022 when the Cubs got hot late and things started coming together a little I was warning every few days that the road to the top wasn’t a straight one and came with no guarantees. In recent vintage, the White Sox drove over the side of the mountain on their trip to the top. The Reds have had a breakdown on the side of the road on theirs. But last year, the Cubs pretty much picked up and continued forward what they started in 2022. Then this year, they started out carrying on further.

And then the Cubs experienced a breakdown of their own. Only the breakdown occurred as they too drove close to the side of the mountain and almost followed their Chicago neighbors over the edge. Their broken down team bus is teetering on the edge. If they aren’t careful, this team is heading over and down into oblivion.

Extended metaphor over. But we’re all watching a train wreck in front of our eyes. Certainly writing about two come-from-behind wins against the White Sox is better than writing about a loss or two to the worst team in baseball. But this team isn’t okay. But also, the wins do count. They did climb back to .500. They are very much alive in the early season playoff standings. It’s getting a little less early. The old baseball adage is that you can’t win the World Series in April, but you can lose it.

This team was actually quite good in April, but they did threaten to eliminate themselves from contention in May. But they’re still here. The warts and faults that plague this team will derail its season eventually. But it remains entirely possible that they wrap enough duct tape around the frame damage, patch a tire and continue on into a playoff berth. It’ll certainly be more fun to cover an over matched playoff team than another 90 loss team. So let’s hope, right?

This team still has a lot of youth coming through and trying to establish itself. This isn’t a team at the end of a competitive window where it maybe would do more harm than good. This is a team that could be right at the opening of its competitive window. You are finding out which of these talented young players might be part of the core of the next great Cubs team, whenever that is. Learning to win and learning to sustain winning are helpful skills. Again, that road to the top isn’t straight and nothing is ever guaranteed. Some teams speed right to the top without paying a lot of dues and some struggle for years and never quite get there.

I hope they can pull this together. I do still think there is enough to get into the 85-90 win range and secure a playoff spot. Also, with the extended playoffs it looks at least possible that a team in the 80-85 range might occupy that last spot. The results are so top heavy in the National League that there are only a very small number of teams even around .500.

Let’s find three stars. I will say, they are at least making this part easy for me.

1. Two hits and a walk was probably going to get Mike Tauchman here anyway, but when that second hit is a walk-off homer, I’d be doing something wrong if I didn’t have him here. He scored three of the runs. Tauchman has been as productive as any depth pickup I can ever remember the Cubs making.
2. When it wasn’t Tauchman scoring last night, it was usually Dansby Swanson. He had a pair of singles and was also hit by a pitch. He scored two of the runs and so these two players scored five of the seven runs.
3. I rarely give a nod to a reliever who didn’t throw a clean inning. But Hector Neris came through for the Cubs. You had to feel the way the momentum of the game was going that if he could put up a zero the Cubs would walk it off in the ninth. He struck the first two hitters out before giving us the obligatory frustration of a walk and another stolen base allowed. This was no vulture win.

Game 62, June 5: Cubs 7, White Sox 6 (31-31)

Fangraphs

Reminder: Heroes and Goats are determined by WPA scores and are in no way subjective.

THREE HEROES:

• Superhero: Mike Tauchman (.420). 2-4, HR, BB, RBI, 3 R
• Hero: Dansby Swanson (.313). 2-3, HBP, 2 R
• Sidekick: Ian Happ (.150). 1-4, RBI, SB

THREE GOATS:

• Billy Goat: Jameson Taillon (-.294). 5 IP, 25 batters, 10 H, BB, 5 R, 6 K
• Goat: Hayden Wesneski (-.190). ⅔ IP, H, BB, R, K
• Kid: Seiya Suzuki (-.099). 1-4

WPA Play of the Game: No surprises on the biggest plays of this game. Tauchman’s walk-off was worth .362.

*Sox play of the Game: Paul DeJong’s game tying homer in the eighth was worth .247.

Cubs Player of the Game:

Yesterday’s Winner: Ian Happ received 217 votes out of 265 total. Patrick Wisdom received 39 for second.

Rizzo Award Cumulative 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.

• Ben Brown +11
• Javier Assad +10.5
• Shōta Imanaga +9
• Jameson Taillon/Mark Leiter Jr./Michael Busch +6
• Matt Mervis/Christopher Morel -6
• Miguel Amaya -8
• Adbert Alzolay -10
• Kyle Hendricks -19

*The last three days saw three Cubs starters on the Billy Goat platform, tightening the standings up significantly as the season starts to creep up on the 40 percent mark.

Up Next: A trip to Cincinnati for a four game set with the now 29-33 Reds. They appear to have straightened things out and looked like the better team in Chicago last weekend. Javier Assad (4-1, 2.27) hasn’t been on the hero side of the ledger since May 15. The Cubs could use a heroic performance tonight. Hunter Greene (3-2, 3.44) was the one Reds starter the Cubs did some damage to last weekend when they scored five in six innings against him.

This was the first time the Cubs won consecutive games since May 4-5 against the Brewers. Their last three-game streak was April 24-26 against the Astros and Red Sox. That team was 17-9. It would be wonderful if this team could continue their momentum into this one.