Cubs Number-Crunching

It’s been hard to do this since I started my job in January.  I’m hoping to improve my skills and get on the blogging thing more.  Let’s get better. 

It’s also been hard to write when I’ve been caught up in speeding home to watch the Cubs play.  I’m excited.  I’m also pretty much scared.  It’s a good looking team, maybe too good for me to live through it without a stroke or a coronary. 

Let’s just pay attention to starting pitching lines from this week’s series with Milwaukee:

Monday - Lilly - 6IP, 7H, 3R, 3ER, 4K, 1BB

Tuesday - Zambrano - 8IP, 5H, 0R, 9K, 2BB

Wednesday - Dempster - 7IP, 5H, 1R, 1ER, 9K, 1BB

Thursday - Harden - 7IP, 6H, 1R, 1ER, 9K, 0BB

Add that up: from Cubs starters, 28IP, 23H, 5ER, 31K, 4BB (!) 

That would give you a WHIP of 0.96 (that’s good), and an ERA of 1.61 (that’s really good). 

The Cubs scored as many runs as the Brewers had strikeouts.  That with a couple of O-fer performances from D-Lee.  Someone came up big at the plate every day, though. 

Starting pitching has been very, very good for the Cubs this year.  Jason Marquis, as frustrating as he can be, might be the best fifth starter in the whole league. 

Marquis is averaging 6 IP over his last 10 starts.  He tends to struggle early in games, which isn’t a great attribute, but when the bullpen needs a break, he can settle down and gobble up innings better than anyone. 

But it doesn’t matter.

We can say that “starting pitching wins championships” but we know that there are no hard and fast rules to this business.  The 2006 Cardinals went 83-79 and tiptoed through the playoffs with a patchwork rotation that included 2 guys who barely have jobs in the league anymore in Jeff Weaver and Anthony Reyes.   How about the whole “small ball” thing.  I don’t know if you noticed, but the 2008 Red Sox could really drive the ball, and I think there were quite a few 1920s Yankee teams that might have had a little pop in their bats. 

The Cubs, and the Sox, and any team can sign up or trade for all of the “left-handed bats with pop,” or “power righty in the bullpen,” or “dreaded 1,2 combination at the top of the rotation.”  For all the stat-keeping and stat-creating we can do, every champion and pennant winner has a few exceptions to the rules.  The formulas definitely don’t always work, and it gets even more jumbled in the playoffs.  Bullpens and lead-off hitters don’t guarantee anything right now.  Wins don’t even guarantee anything now.  The only win that will give you a guarantee is the last one.  The rest of them just give you another chance.

 AJD