Cubs southpaw Justin Steele’s seldomly used sinker froze Rangers left-handed hitter Josh Smith to end the seventh inning Monday night. While most of Steele’s pitches to lefties start on the outside half of the plate and move out, this one broke that trend.
“We had two strikes, and I was like, ‘I haven’t thrown him anything that’s going the other way right now,’ ” Steele (3-1) said after the Cubs’ 7-0 victory at Wrigley Field. “So I kind of started on that same line, and I feel like it was an auto-take for him because he figured it was going to go off the plate. But it came right back towards the middle. So shout-out to [catcher Miguel Amaya] for staying with me on that.”
The called strike three capped a dominant start by Steele, his steadiest showing of the season. Throwing seven scoreless innings, he limited the Rangers to three hits and struck out eight.
“He’s dominated the right side of the plate for so long, and they know that’s a strength for him,” Cubs pitching coach Tommy Hottovy said recently. “But how can we continue to open up new areas of a strike zone knowing that, ‘Hey, this is my strength, so I’m gonna attack . . . but then what can I add?’ ”
Part of that answer lies in the rest of Steele’s repertoire. Ten of his 91 pitches Monday deviated from his bread-and-butter fastball-slider mix, according to Statcast.
But it’s also about location and making hitters think about the arm side of the plate — outside for right-handed batters and inside for lefties.
When Steele started having success early in his career, he wasn’t always sure where the ball was going to end up. Was his fastball going to cut or ride? What kind of shape was his slider going to have?
As part of his development, he has become more intentional with his approach.
“The days when your fastball is your Justin Steele fastball, good luck,” Hottovy said. “Whatever you guys want to do — move off the dish, try to get inside him, whatever — he’s going to pound you in and come at you. But on the days when it’s a little off, he has other weapons. He has other things he can go to.”
Baseball weather
The temperature had slipped to 34 degrees by the start of the game, making it the coldest temperature for a first pitch at Wrigley since April 18, 2011, when the Cubs beat the Padres 1-0 in 10 innings.
It was the kind of night when runs and extra-base hits were hard to come by. So the Cubs took advantage of Michael Busch’s leadoff double in the second inning by moving him over with a sacrifice bunt and scoring him on a sacrifice fly.
The next inning, Jon Berti was hit by a pitch, stole second and third, then beat out the throw home on a grounder to first.
In the fifth, Seiya Suzuki walked and stole second before Busch hit a low line drive up the right-field line for another run.
A four-run seventh included singles from Amaya, Pete Crow-Armstrong, Ian Happ, Kyle Tucker and Busch.
Injury updates
Utility player Vidal Brujan (bruised right elbow) is nearly ready for a minor-league rehab assignment, Cubs manager Craig Counsell said. The team hopes to send him out “earlier in the week.”
Right-handed reliever Tyson Miller (left hip impingement) has thrown off a mound.
“I’d say there’s some small progress,” Counsell said.