Cubs Start To Course Correct With First Series Win Since May 7th

A trip to Coors Field was justifiably scary, as I forecasted last week. The offense wasted a chance to take advantage of the high altitude and slept through the first two games. Colin Rea got blown up for 9 hits and 7 ER in Game 1 while the offense went 0-for-8 with RISP. Michael Lorenzen entered Game 2 with an incomprehensible 8.01 ERA and silenced the Cubs over 5 innings. Cubs hitters claimed one true Coors game with a 3-HR performance in a Game 3 win. A rematch series in San Francisco wasn’t too inviting, but they were able to string together 2 more good performances to win 3 straight games and win their first series since May 7th. Javier Assad and Ben Brown combined for a brilliant 1 ER allowed over 11 innings. Unfortunately, their good vibes came to an abrupt end when they ran into red-hot Logan Webb in Game 3 who fired 8 shutout innings.

A 3-3 road trip against the two worst teams in the National League wouldn’t normally be something to prop up, but the Cubs had legitimate contributions from all over the roster that provide hope for a real turnaround. The pitching staff had a bounceback week outside of two Colin Rea clunkers, but the biggest moments were long balls. These home runs carried weight for a team desperate to find some slugging: Seiya Suzuki’s grand slam, Alex Bregman’s first June HR, Michael Busch’s splash into McCovey Cove, Pete Crow-Armstrong’s first pitch leadoff HR, and Pedro Ramirez’s first career HR. For a team that lacked big moments for an entire month, seeing all of those swings in a single week was special. After a 7-22 stretch, the Cubs are only 1 game out of a playoff spot. With Seiya on a 10-game hitting streak and PCA hitting .383 with a 1.229 OPS in June, the lineup will start racking up more wins.

Minicamp concluded as the team heads into a 6-week break before training camp. It sounds like Ben Johnson’s program is thriving in its second offseason with high energy and the intensity he demands. Coby Bryant, Luther Burden, Colston Loveland, Kalif Raymond, and Caleb Williams have all been talked up as standouts in practices. The offense has a chance to be special with a year in this system under their belt.

The draft is inching closer, and the burning question remains the same: will forward Ivar Stenberg be available for the Blackhawks at #4? It will be interesting to see if the trade market moves at all before the draft or if it will take some time to percolate. Kyle Davidson wants to add an elite talent to his young roster this offseason, and he’s going to be aggressive to make it happen.

A new head coach will be hired soon as the list is reportedly down to four names: Tiago Splitter (Blazers), Micah Nori (Timberwolves), Wes Unseld Jr. (Bulls), and Ryan Schmidt (Hawks).

Jed Hoyer is the best lead executive in Chicago.

A frustrating month of baseball causes some fans to call for people’s jobs, but it’s not enough evidence to make actual changes. Jed Hoyer’s contract was extended last year around the trade deadline, and I believed it was the right move.

Even now, he’s currently more successful than all of the other executives in town and has a more impressive resume from previous jobs. Kyle Davidson and Chris Getz have promising teams, but they’re both in the middle of their initial rebuilds. Bryson Graham was just hired and has never been a lead executive. Ryan Poles was one win away from the NFC Championship and seems to be the right man for the job, but he also has a laundry list of questionable decisions on his ledger.

There’s no debating that Jed Hoyer won 2 World Series in the Red Sox front office, won the 2016 World Series as the Cubs General Manager, and has now rebuilt the Cubs organization as President over the last 5 years into a respectable 92-win team with a lot of talent. Their position players are objectively one of the most productive groups in the league (despite lengthy unexplainable slumps), over $100M is coming off the books this winter to give them flexibility, and young arms like Cade Horton and Jaxon Wiggins provide optimism for a modernized rotation in the near future.

There are real questions about if he spends his allotted money as efficiently as he could, about how infrequently the organization develops pitching, and about how they continuously look up to the Brewers in the standings, but every decision maker in sports has flaws. Even with his shortcomings, Hoyer has proven he can do the job and can lead the Cubs to another ring.