Decisions, Decisions, and a One-Run Loss – Bleacher Nation | Chicago Sports News, Rumors, and Obsession

When a team loses a one-run game, there’s pretty much never just ONE SINGULAR thing that caused it. A whole lot of individual things – player performances, managerial decisions, etc. – could’ve gone differently to change the outcome. Don’t stress about finding the ONE thing. Be comfortable talking about ALL the things as contributing factors …

And yes, there were many last night, as the Cubs came up 90 feet short in a 4-3 loss to the Mets.

The performance issues are easy enough to note, with the bats going 0-9 with runners in scoring position, and only Seiya Suzuki having a really huge game. Christopher Morel led the game off with a homer, so you can say he had a good night, but obviously staring at a middle-middle strike three with the tying run on third and one out in the 9th kinda hurts the overall effort. I can’t say what happened on that one, since Morel was clearly geared up for the fastball. I guess because most had been elevated, as soon as his eye level changed he got caught guessing off-speed? You don’t see a strikeout like that too often from a big league hitter, and hopefully there’s some learning value for Morel.

Kyle Hendricks was solid overall, but a bit inefficient and set up some of the bullpen decisions. He also did make one extraordinarily terrible pitch to Pete Alonso. No, I won’t beat up on a guy for one bad pitch, but that’s definitely the guy in the lineup you can’t make that kind of mistake to. And he hit a two-run homer in a game his team won by a single run. So yes, that’s definitely among the “things” that cost the Cubs the game.

Then, of course, there was Hayden Wesneski’s performance (more on the decision to use him in a moment), which was brief but ineffective. The two run-scoring hits were both extremely well-struck and came on pitches that missed their spots badly. So, again, yes, Wesneski’s performance was a “thing.”

So, some pitching and hitting performance stuff contributed to the loss. That is basic, obvious stuff – the players are the ones out there playing the game! – but I think sometimes we lose sight of it in these tight games, because we’re searching for that one decision that could’ve been different, and would’ve changed the game.

Which is not to say there weren’t decisions that could have, possibly, changed the game.

The two that really stood out to me were the 9th inning Nick Madrigal pinch-hit bunt and the use of Hayden Wesneski in the 6th. I disagreed with both, though upon reflection, I’m not flipping any tables about them.

On Wesneski, I understand – and agree with – using him for bulk middle innings, even in tight games. I think he can really do that job well overall. In general. Context-neutral. All that.

Where I didn’t like it last night is that five of the first six batters he would’ve been asked to face were lefties! That’s such a terrible, terrible match-up for him. I’m not sure there would be a good time to use Wesneski right now against the Mets, because they have so many lefties and so many switch-hitters. I do get the counter, that you have to use the guys you have, because you can’t grind the same four relievers into dust. But then again, you wound up using two of those guys (Merryweather and Leiter) anyway. I wonder if someone(s) was unavailable.

And as for the Madrigal bunt, well, I admit to having a strong predisposition against giving away outs no matter what. Ross’s explanation for pinch-hitting with Madrigal and having him bunt the two runners over is that he wanted to avoid the double-play risk (I presume he feared it with Amaya AND with Madrigal):

I don’t know if I’d call it outcome bias, as Ross does, especially because I don’t love playing only for the tie anyway. Moreover, the mention of having a good contact guy behind Morel doesn’t much matter when you gave away an out – meaning that Nico Hoerner would’ve been up there most likely in a situation with two outs, so “contact” doesn’t really matter.

By the way, Nick Madrigal’s groundball rate since he returned from Iowa and has been hitting well: just 44.2%. It’s just not accurate to say that he’s a more extreme double-play risk than anyone else. And even if that were a problem, then just let Miguel Amaya hit! His groundball rate is barely 30% …

Like I said, I’m not utterly outraged on this one like some other bunt calls this year, but I do not agree with the decisions there.

Ross also got into the decision not to pinch-hit for Morel there in the 9th, and on that one, I agree. He’s one of the Cubs’ best hitters. Yes, you just need contact there, and Morel ain’t your guy for that – but to me, that’s why you don’t bunt in the first place. Once that (wrong-ish) decision was made, then you have to look at the landscape with fresh eyes. Morel can do a lot of damage, so I wouldn’t necessarily have pinch-hit for him either.

There were other things, too, of course. Some batting order complaints, which I do get, but which rarely have as much impact as you think. There’s not starting Mike Tauchman, which I absolutely agree that he must be in there almost every day – but he also does need days off sometimes, and yesterday made as much sense as any to get Seiya Suzuki and Patrick Wisdom in there against a lefty. So those ones don’t really get my dander up, either.

Mostly, for me, it was some player performances that weren’t quite what the Cubs needed – it happens, especially on the 16th day of playing a game every single day – and a couple managerial decisions that I don’t think were correct.

Maybe the Cubs do things differently and lose the game anyway. Who knows. These one-run games: they’re close enough to give you an opportunity to rile yourself up after the fact. I’m not saying we should ENJOY the process of sorting through a one-run loss, but I will say I’ve spent a lot more time thinking through this 4-3 loss than I did the 11-2 loss on Monday, even as they both count the same in the standings.

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