Out of Rhythm
It wasn’t the wrong move, exactly, pulling Zambrano after the sixth inning. There were plenty of reasons why—on paper—it was probably the right move. But at the time, it certainly felt to me like the wrong move even before it all went wrong.
Baseball is a game of rhythms, and last night, the Cubs stepped out of the rhythm of the game, I thought, a risk that wasn’t worth taking, and they paid the price.
This is the thing, pulling Zambrano, that everyone will be pointing to, I’m certain, although I haven’t read the morning columns yet. Reynolds’s homerun was the turning point of the game. That means the decision to bring Marmol in turned out to be the critical decision if we posit that Zambrano would not have given up that homerun or had an otherwise similar bad inning. (Remember, Zambrano had owned Reynolds earlier in the night, especially striking him out in the fourth.)
Of course, it’s always easier to second guess the decision in hindsight. And certainly, Marmol has been great all season. Some Cubs players even listed him as the team’s MVP during interviews this week. And certainly, the idea to pitch Zambrano again for Game 4 makes plenty of sense. Zambrano can go on short rest. That being the case, you still wouldn’t want to extend him too far. So on.
The matter became, then, what was “too far” to extend Zambrano? That’s where the rhythms of the game come in. Zambrano was rolling: only 1 run, 1 walk, 4 scattered hits, and 7 strikeouts. He had pitched only 85 pitches, which for Zambrano is really more like much fewer (or in any case is largely irrelevant) because the higher pitch counts have never affected him the way it does other pitchers. He had already batted in the top of the sixth inning. And to me, as important as anything, it was a tie game. For all of these reasons, I became unsettled when Marmol began to warm up, even, and very apprehensive when he came in. It wasn’t that Marmol was coming in. It just wasn’t the right time.
If the Cubs were winning, you can bring in your relief corps that early to hold the lead. That’s fine. Relievers are used to having the responsibility of holding leads.
If the Cubs are losing, you can replace your pitcher early when the time comes to hit for him because you need to get an extra run. Of course. Letting a pitcher roll doesn’t help when you need runs, and you can't wait until too late to try a pinch hitter.
But in a tie game, with Zambrano pitching so well, it was a deviation from the norm, an aberration, to pull Zambrano. The rhythm was off. That’s what made it such a risk to bring in Marmol. In the first 162 games of the season it would never happen that way. Playoff baseball is different, and you have to make adjustments to give yourself an advantage in a short series. Fine. But the game was going along in a certain way, a classic pitcher’s duel, and when the Cubs decided to try to shake things up, they were playing with fire.
It wasn’t that there was more pressure on Marmol coming in that way, it’s that it was a different kind of pressure, the pressure of pitching as well as Zambrano would have because normally Zambrano would still be the pitcher. It’s no wonder Marmol grooved a pitch to Reynolds. Or that he walked Snyder afterward, by which point Marmol was in many ways a shell of himself after falling in line for the loss. One of the ways that you combat the added pressure of the playoffs is to keep things familiar. Instead, youth + playoff pressure + unfamiliar scenario = mistake.
OK. Enough. I thought it was the wrong move at the time, and no one likes hearing “I told you so.”
There were plenty of other reasons the Cubs lost. Soriano striking out, failing to advance Zambrano after a leadoff double, put Webb into a groove in the third inning. Webb stayed in that groove. For that matter, tip your cap to all of the Diamondbacks pitchers.
And there’s no guarantee that had the Cubs done something differently, leaving Zambrano in probably, that it would have ended differently, with a Cubs win. Plenty of normal pitchers duels end badly, too. One team has to lose.
I just hope that when Game 2 arrives tonight, the Cubs don’t mess with the natural rhythms of the game any more. If you lose, you lose. But don’t tinker and challenge the baseball gods because you think you can gain an advantage later in the series because the baseball gods know as well as anyone that there’s no guarantee of a Game 4.
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By the way - it occurs to me that the irregularity of the scenario may also have affected Soto for the same reasons I suggest it affected Marmol. Soto may have called fastball because he was reading the psychology of his pitcher, who was not pitching quite like himself. Just a thought, may be complete BS.
Anyway, on to Game 2.
Couple of things,
1) I think the bigger mistake was not pulling Zambrano earlier. Zambrano is a good hitting pitcher, but he is not a major league hitter. When the bases were loaded in the 6th, he should have been pinch hit for as it was obvious that runs were in short supply last night and that was the best chance to get some runs. Marmol and Howry have been lights out and there was no reason to think they would not be able to hold a lead if the Cubs had pinch hit there.
2)However, since the Cubs did let Zambrano bat in that situation, it was curious that they went to Marmol when they did, but again, it was not that crazy. Marmol has been brought in, in tie situations many times to keep the game where it is at and allow the bats to win it for the Cubs. I dare say Marmol has been the more consistent pitcher than Zambrano all year and there is no way of knowing if Zambrano would have given up a big inning in the 7th. Its not like he has not done that a couple of times this season when it looked like we has sailing along just fine. You never know when the blow-up is coming and I think Marmol had a better track record of not blowing up than Zambrano this season. Sometimes things just happen
3) If anything, blame the bats for not scoring more than 1 run and going 1-10 with men on base. Soriano's September heroics are great, but 0-5 does not cut it in October. His first at bat lasting all of one pitch kind of set the tone for the offense unfortunately.
4) As for the youth and the playoff situation, the Diamondbacks have no experience other than Eric Byrnes when he was on the A's previously, so I do not buy that excuse. My boss mentioned that Marmol's first two pitches were about 3 feet outside and haven been a pitcher he was calling at home that Marmol was getting ready to groove that third pitch. He said after a pitcher comes in and throws two bad pitches like that in a pressue situation, there is no way they want to miss a third time and they often end up grooving a ball and lo and behold that is what happened. I don't know if this is true in all cases, but it sounds reasonable. If that was the case, it makes sense that Reynolds was waiting on it.
5) Webb is damn good. The other Diamondback pitchers are not in his class, so losing this one while not a good thing is also not the end of the world. The Cubs could still wrap this up before they see Webb again if their bats show up as the Diamondbacks are planning on using 4 pitchers.
6) Seriously, the Cubs lost to a team of 25 year olds and Augie Ojeda? Maybe last night was just a dream.
7) Lilly has been great all season at winning after a Cubs loss. I expect him to bring his A-game tonight.
For (1) & (2) I disagree for the same rhythm argument points I write above -- mainly, don't screw with the rhythm of the game, and pulling Z in either the top of the 6th or at the start of the Diamondbacks' 7th was a screwing with the rhythm -- with these additional points:
* There are usually warning signs with Zambrano's blow-ups, and they were absent last night. Warning sign number 1, for example, is walks in the fourth - sixth innings, showing he's losing his concentration. Didn't happen. That's a major reason I wanted to see him stay in, even with the bases loaded and two outs. He was concentrating well.
* For the bases loaded at-bat in particular, extra innings from Zambrano, I calculated, were a better risk to shoot for than the difference between the likelihood of Zambrano driving in a run -- having already doubled off Webb -- and Ward or Murton or someone driving in that run. (And Z missed a single by a matter of inches, lining out sharply.)
* Let's say that Zambrano grooves one to Reynolds, same as Marmol. Who is more likely to limit the damage? I would argue Zambrano is in that situation, because of the roll he was on. (It's an argument with plenty of holes, given Zambrano's propoensity to derail, but supported by the fact that Zambrano limited the damage after Drew's HR.) Marmol, on the other hand, was shaken, and I doubt many of us were surprised.
All other points stand well, I think, especially (3).
I will allow you the mystical Zambrano rhythm that you speak of, but again, this is not just a one game series. Just a thought, what is better for Zambrano long term, leaving when it was tied and coming back strong for another appearance later in the series having not lost the game on his shoulders or possibly blowing it and being screwed up for his next start. With the dead bats of the Cubs (1-5 hittes going 1 for 20) runs were more important than an extra inning out of Zambrano. Again, Marmol was the Cub that everyone (Lou, teammates, media and fans) seems to have compelte faith in. Marmol has been nasty and no one was having a heart attack with him coming in (Dempster would have been a different story).
As for leaving Zambrano in, his at bat with the bases loaded went: Strike looking, foul ball, and strike out swinging. You can't tell me Zambrano was not swinging for the fences with that crazy head of his. Granted if he hits it hard he can go yard, but he is not a contact hitter and that's all that was needed for a run and they could have then turned over a lead to Marmol/Howry/Demptser for the 7th, 8th and 9th.
I find the statement that you were not surprised that Marmol was shaken to be surprising. Marmol had only given up any runs in 1 of his last 20 appearances. Marmol had been the rock of the staff and led the league in stranding inherited runners. That does not seem like the makeup of someone that has a propensity for getting shaken.