SAN DIEGO — Craig Counsell and his out-getters.
New band name, I call it.
This is October, when teams and managers start using their pitchers very differently than they did all summer long.
For Counsell and the Cubs, that means forgetting who’s a starter and who’s a reliever and who’s supposed to pitch in which inning.
It’s all about the out-getters.
“There’s a rhythm to [the regular season]. There’s a rhythm to how players get used. There’s a rhythm to how everything is done,” Counsell said Monday. “Then you turn the calendar to [the playoffs], and everything is done with the utmost urgency.
“It just matters that we win. That’s the bottom line, because we’ve got to win two games in the next three days, so everything — how anybody does, how anything happens — it doesn’t matter. You’ve got to win the game.
“We’ve just got to figure out how to get 27 outs, and the order that that happens? Starter, reliever, closer, setup man, those words don’t matter.”
The Cubs opted against naming a starting pitcher for Game 2 of their best-of-three playoff series against the Padres, unsurprising considering how Counsell and the team operate, choosing to keep all options on the table.
Righty Kevin Gausman’s left shoulder could impact that decision, though Counsell said Monday that Gausman will pitch in the series. He said the same of lefty Shota Imanaga, who threw only 12 pitches in Sunday’s game.
It could be anyone and everyone with the stakes this high.
“This is the playoffs,” Counsell said Tuesday. “Everybody just wants to contribute in the playoffs and do whatever they can to help you get a win, help you get to the next round.
“The buy-in on that, it’s easy. You don’t have to ask for that. They want to do that.”
The ‘uplifting’ Bregman
Alex Bregman, a little more than a week after taking a foul ball to the face and suffering facial fractures, made it to the postseason.
“It’s hard to imagine anything keeping him out of a playoff game,” second baseman Nico Hoerner said Tuesday. “But you start having a broken face, and that definitely would creep into the thoughts of, ‘This might be [the thing].’”
But no. Bregman wowed — and simultaneously didn’t surprise — his teammates by returning to action just a few days later in Boston and then homering twice Sunday.
“It was super uplifting just seeing him on the field at all in Boston, just that he seemed to see the ball and took strong swings,” Hoerner said. “Then to do what he did on Sunday was pretty remarkable.
“Just his attitude within hours of being hit in the face, how quickly he reoriented everything to being ready for the playoffs, every decision he made worked backwards from that. It was just kind of a reflection of what he values.”
Counsell chose to use Bregman as his DH on Tuesday, rather than play him at third base.
“I played it safe, I’ll be honest with you,” Counsell said. “This is a man seven days off of facial fractures.
“His at-bats are the most critical thing for our team, that he gets his at-bats this series. … This is a better way to guarantee that he gets these at-bats.”
Roster choices
There wasn’t much drama involving the Cubs’ playoff roster, but the team kept veteran lefty reliever Caleb Thielbar off its 26-man group for the series with the Padres after he finished the regular season with a 4.68 ERA and 11 home runs allowed.
With Bregman DH’ing, the Cubs also put rarely used infielder Gabriel Arias on the roster to provide depth.