MILWAUKEE – Are Jed Hoyer’s worst fears coming true?
The Cubs’ team president cited an inconsistent pitching staff as a concern during his most recent meeting with the media, and a week later, he hasn’t been given any reason to think those issues have been ironed out.
“The position-playing group, we’re the No. 1 offense, No. 1 defense right now. That’s wonderful. Obviously, that’s the backbone of our team,” Hoyer said last week. “There’s no question of what our strength is. [But] we do need to get consistent starting pitching, throw strikes consistently and hopefully let the position players do the work.”
While a stumbling bullpen is generating the most fan complaints, it was starter Kevin Gausman – imported by Hoyer’s front office at the trade deadline to be a top-of-the-rotation arm – who was knocked around by the Brewers on Wednesday, crushed for three homers and seven runs in his briefest outing as a Cub to date.
A night after lefty David Peterson didn’t make it out of the fifth inning, Gausman lasted just four innings, his third Cubs start not to make it to a 15th out.
Gausman has gone back and forth between looking capable of starting (and dominating) Game 1 of a playoff series and getting hit around.
In other words, he’s been inconsistent, adding fuel to Hoyer’s nightmares that a hit-or-miss pitching staff could help sink the Cubs in the playoffs.
Though lefty Shota Imanaga has received season-long attention for surrendering long balls – he entered Wednesday still leading the majors with 33 home runs given up – Gausman has been taken deep plenty since coming to the Cubs in a trade at the beginning of last month, now with nine homers on his tab in eight starts.
Hoyer spent big, in terms of prospects, at the deadline to net Gausman and fellow right-hander Clay Holmes, whose worst outing as a Cub came Sunday, when he allowed a career-worst eight runs and didn’t make it out of the fifth inning.
Gausman has now had three starts in a Cubs uniform allowing at least five runs, the sort of thing that can tank a playoff game – and a season, along with it.
That’s not what Hoyer envisioned, obviously, and though Gausman and Holmes – who pitched in the two most recent World Series, respectively – have the experience and ability to straighten things out, that inconsistency is evidently worth fretting about for the guy running the show.
On top of it all, this wasn’t some random team on the other end of a bad outing. These Brewers are the team that have owned the NL Central, eliminated the Cubs from the playoffs last year and figure to stand in their way again this October.
If the Cubs are going to clear the Brewers-shaped hurdle in front of them, they need what Hoyer said they need: more consistency from their arms.
Helping Happ heal
Left fielder Ian Happ was in the Cubs’ lineup Wednesday a day after fouling a pitch off his foot the night before, serving as the DH instead of playing the outfield.
“It’s a little sore today,” manager Craig Counsell said. “He didn’t feel great cutting and things like that, so we’ll try to minimize the impact and the exposure to it with the DH.”
Surgery for Maton
Counsell relayed that righty reliever Phil Maton will have surgery on his ailing knee later this week.
The Cubs inked Maton to a two-year free-agent deal in the offseason, but bedeviled by the knee injury throughout the summer, he was ineffective when on the mound, the owner of a 6.18 ERA.