SAN FRANCISCO — Chicago Cubs reliever Porter Hodge stepped off the mound Thursday afternoon and waved his arms, tracking the pop-up that Wilmer Flores lifted into the clear, blue sky. The San Francisco Giants already had two runners on in the 10th inning as David Bote, a defensive replacement, charged in from third base. Right in the middle of Oracle Park, there was nearly a collision. Hodge leaned back at the last second and Bote reached out his glove toward the rookie’s chest, catching the final out of a 5-3 win the Cubs needed desperately.
“We battled our asses off,” Hodge said at his locker after the first save of his major-league career, which snapped a four-game losing streak and allowed the Cubs to finally exhale.
Here are four takeaways from the Cubs avoiding a four-game sweep.
This is crunch time
The Cubs have 80 games remaining, but they need to play with a sense of urgency. They have already lost their season series against the Giants, San Diego Padres and New York Mets, giving those wild-card hopefuls a tiebreaker advantage. The Cubs also have losing records so far against each of the other four teams in their division. Their playoff odds entering Thursday were 5.1 percent, according to Baseball-Reference, the type of calculation that president of baseball operations Jed Hoyer and general manager Carter Hawkins will take into account leading up to the July 30 trade deadline.
“At this time every year, there is a conversation about what the front office is going to do,” said Cubs outfielder Ian Happ, who received a full no-trade clause in the three-year, $61 million contract extension he signed last season. “We go out there and play every day and try to put ourselves in the best competitive position possible. That’s our job. We have a lot of trust in Jed and Carter, and let them do their job.”
.@ihapp_1 puts us on top 5-3! pic.twitter.com/wJEWJLamZP
— Chicago Cubs (@Cubs) June 27, 2024
Getting back closer to .500 would be a start for this 38-44 team. The Cubs need more big swings like the one Happ delivered in Thursday’s 10th inning, launching Luke Jackson’s slider over the center-field fence for a two-run homer. After failing to capitalize on a softer stretch of their schedule, Friday begins a two-week stretch in which the Cubs will play nine games against three of baseball’s best teams — the Milwaukee Brewers, Philadelphia Phillies and Baltimore Orioles. That leads into a four-game series — packed into three days at Busch Stadium — against the St. Louis Cardinals before the All-Star break.
“Regardless of what the outside noise is, what the inside noise is,” Cubs pitcher Justin Steele said, “we just got to show up and win ballgames. Winning will solve everything.”
Shota Imanaga deserves to be an All-Star
Imagine how bad this half-season would look if the Cubs had not signed Shota Imanaga to a four-year, $53 million contract last winter. The Cubs are now 12-3 in Imanaga’s starts and 26-41 in the rest of their games, and the Japanese pitcher has done it with a certain flair that this team otherwise lacks.
Imanaga bounced back from the worst start of his brief major-league career (an 11-1 loss to the Mets) and pieced together Thursday’s quality start in San Francisco. Across six innings, the Giants scored all three of their runs off Imanaga in the sixth, a fluky sequence aided by a wild pitch and a soft infield single.
If the baseball industry wants to showcase more personality and international appeal, Imanaga (7-2, 3.07 ERA) would be a great representative at the All-Star Game.
“Looking back at my last couple outings, I feel like I’m not quite there yet,” Imanaga said through an interpreter. “I’m not pitching to that standard. My goal moving forward for the next couple games is to hopefully keep pitching well. If it does happen, it happens.”
Shōta Imanaga’s 2nd K.
[FB Velo is up 3 mph from last start so far.] pic.twitter.com/it2cdJAZP0
— Rob Friedman (@PitchingNinja) June 27, 2024
As good as the starting pitching has been, the rotation is depleted now that Javier Assad is on the 15-day injured list with a right forearm extensor strain. Cubs manager Craig Counsell said Assad has been feeling it “off and on” for “about two weeks,” so the team decided to shut him down and hope it clears up. Assad, through an interpreter, described it as a “cramping sensation.”
Hayden Wesneski will slide into the rotation to replace Assad, who’s quietly become a very good homegrown pitcher, going 11-8 with a 3.05 ERA in his first 230 career innings as a Cub. In terms of other options, Ben Brown (neck) is making progress with his throwing program, but the Cubs will be very cautious with the young pitcher. Jordan Wicks (oblique) isn’t expected to be activated until after the All-Star break.
The offense is broken
The Giants nearly swept a four-game series without Logan Webb throwing a single pitch. The Cubs needed a 10th inning in the fourth game to avoid what would have been an embarrassing sweep. While the Cubs featured Imanaga, Steele and Kyle Hendricks, the Giants used two openers and a pitcher making his major-league debut. The Cubs scored 13 runs in San Francisco while going 8-for-37 with runners in scoring position, leaving 33 runners stranded. Their bullpen isn’t perfect, but the end of almost every game doesn’t have to be a nail-biter.
(Photo of Shota Imanaga: Darren Yamashita / USA Today)
