The Chicago Cubs manager Joe Maddon quite possibly is the best Skipper in the National League if not all of baseball. He continued to show why in Thursday’s contest against the Milwaukee Brewers. While it might have just been another game in April, the Cubs skipper is already preparing the team for a deep October run.
With giving up his first run at Wrigley Field in 52 and the third innings, Joe Maddon decided to pull starter Jake Arrieta from Thursday’s contest. No Jake had thrown 92 pitches already in the afternoon, and is coming off of his no-hitter in which he threw 119 pitches. So it is safe to say that Jake could have come out for a sixth inning.
Pulling Jake after only five innings not only snapped his scoreless streak at home, but ended his pursuit of Bob Gibson’s quality start streak of 25. Jake streak would end at 24 with the early exit, but the more important goal is the prize at the end of October.
“I saw 92 pitches,” Maddon said of Arrieta’s effort over five innings. “I saw Jake Arrieta, I saw the Cubs trying to win a World Series. I saw the next five years of his career. … All that stuff mattered much more than breaking Gibson’s record right there.”
Not only is he right, but Jake understood the logic is well. Additionally the Cubs that had a preseason meeting in which they discussed how to handle higher elevated pitch counts early in the season, and even how to handle no hitters in the event that a pitcher’s pitch count is high. This was all done for the higher goal of preserving Jake for the next 30 starts as opposed to making sure that he gets a quality start in April.
“In this position last year, I might have been a little more frustrated with that decision,” Arrieta said. “I think it was 92 pitches after five, and I really had to work through that outing. You take everything into consideration and the extra off-days and the rainout [Wednesday], cold weather, extended pitch counts, long first inning — it is the right way to go. Our most important ballgames are still ahead of us. From this point moving forward, we’re still lined up well.”
This is an important thing for players to understand. Jake wasn’t going to make any more or less money from one more inning in April, but he could earn more money from one more in October. The Cubs weren’t going to win a division in one game in April, but Jake could help them win one more in September that does.
Jake wasn’t the only cautionary move he made on Thursday. Kris Bryant also saw his day end early.
After extending the Cubs lead running from first to home on an Anthony Rizzo double in the third, he didn’t appear to have the typical giddy-up he normally does after rolling his ankle a bit rounding second.
“You saw him jog off the field when I pulled him off,” Maddon said of Bryant, who was lifted after four innings in the Cubs’ 7-2 win over the Brewers. “I wanted to get him when he went back on [for the fourth], but I got him too late. I saw him jog back in. I don’t want to create conjecture. Let’s just see what happens and look at the tests.”
While Bryant did undergo an MRI, and will be out for a couple of days according to WSCR’s Bruce Levine, if this was later in the season he would be back in there.
MRI on Kris Bryant confirms lower ankle sprain . Will miss a few days . No projection on exact return
— Bruce Levine (@MLBBruceLevine) April 29, 2016
These are important things a manager does early in a season to help keep his guys strong later in a season. Giving guys a day off after or before a scheduled day off. Pulling a guy who may have tweaked something in a cold weather game early on. These things help ensure players are strong towards the end of the season, which keeps them a lot more fresh cone playoff time while other teams are buring their roster in late September trying to earn a playoff bid.
Nothing is guaranteed in baseball, and even if Joe needs to slam on the gas late in the season to earn a spot, hopefully these precautions help keep everyone a lot more fresh for when that happens.
