MILWAUKEE — For the Cubs and Brewers, it comes down to Game 5 of the NLDS on Saturday night.
“This is a nine-inning season,” Cubs manager Craig Counsell said. “For the players and for myself, it’s really about, ‘Focus on your job. What’s your job to do?’ Every player is going to have nerves going into [the] game. You’re supposed to. That’s why it’s great. That’s why it’s so much fun. How it all plays out in nine innings? I don’t know.”
Neither do the Brewers, really.
“Will they respond?” Milwaukee manager Pat Murphy said. “They always do. I fully expect them to respond.”
With the managers meeting the media virtually on Friday’s off-day and players taking part in optional workouts, MLB.com’s Cubs and Brewers writers took advantage of the break in the action to go back and forth about some of the factors that could impact a must-win Game 5. Here is that exchange.
What’s the deal with the first inning?
Adam McCalvy: Win the first inning, win the game in this series, or at least in Games 1, 3 and 4. (The Brewers and Cubs were tied, 3-3, at the end of the first inning of Game 2, although it felt like a win for the Brewers because they got a huge, two-out, three-run homer from Andrew Vaughn to erase Seiya Suzuki’s massive three-run blast in the top of the inning). The Brewers have yet to keep the Cubs from homering in the opening inning, so the pitching plan should start there.
One thing I wondered about today: How did Brewers pitchers fare in the first inning during the regular season? They were very good: Third-fewest runs allowed, tied for the sixth-fewest home runs, and the sixth-best OPS.
Jordan Bastian: All MLB pitchers combined turned in a 4.53 ERA in the first inning during the regular season and Cubs arms were basically right in line with that mark (4.50 ERA). Offensively, the Cubs’ .786 OPS in the first inning was their second-highest showing for any frame. Chicago’s hitters were only better in the fourth (.794 OPS), for what that’s worth.
Putting up a zero in the opening frame feels critical, given how this series has gone so far. And that’s probably why Counsell has hesitated to just name Shota Imanaga the Game 5 starter. The opening frame has been an issue for him, and not just in this NLDS. In 25 first innings in the regular season, Imanaga allowed 20 earned runs (7.20 ERA), nine homers and a .909 OPS.
What is the best path to 27 outs?
Bastian: Well, given the stats in the above note, maybe it does make sense for the North Siders to consider an opener before having Imanaga enter the game for a bulk outing. Either way, I’d expect Counsell to have a quick hook at the first sign of trouble with the lefty. And with the off-day on Friday, the entire staff should be available (with the exception of lefty Matthew Boyd).
Hard-throwing righty Daniel Palencia has been a high-leverage arm for the middle innings. And then if things line up correctly, Counsell could deploy lefties Drew Pomeranz and Caleb Thielbar, and righties Andrew Kittredge and Brad Keller, in the lineup pockets that make the most sense. Veteran starter Jameson Taillon will also be willing to pitch, if necessary. Those should be the main arms, but Ben Brown, Aaron Civale, Colin Rea and Michael Soroka are also available.
All hands on deck, and all roles out the window.
McCalvy: The Brewers have length available from Quinn Priester and Jose Quintana if they want it, but I’ll bet that the plan revolves on how they want to deploy rookie Jacob Misiorowski. Coming into the postseason nobody knew what to expect after he lost his spot in the rotation with a 6.03 ERA over his final eight starts. But he showed he could handle the moment, throw strikes and, of course, throw heat. He topped 104 mph twice.
The way this series was scheduled with the extra off-day, both teams’ bullpens are in decent shape going into Game 5. But I thought Taillon showed the value of covering 12 outs in Game 3. If the Brewers can get 12 outs of quality from a combination of Misiorowski and one of those other starter-types, they would be in good shape to cover the other 15 with their leverage relievers. Abner Uribe, the Brewers’ high-octane closer, has only pitched once in this series. Where to deploy him in Game 5 is one of the most important questions facing the Brewers.
Which hitter poses the biggest threat?
McCalvy: If Imanaga plays a role for the Cubs, William Contreras singled and homered off the lefty in Game 2 – the homer producing that telephone celebration that got so much play on social media. Contreras is also one of the Brewers’ power threats when he’s not feeling the effects of the fractured middle finger on his glove hand, and his 30.8 percent line drive rate and 46.2 percent hard hit rate in this series suggests he’s feeling good.
Bastian: I mean, this one has to be Cubs first baseman Michael Busch. He slots into the No. 1 spot against righties, has a pair of leadoff homers in this series, three blasts in the NLDS overall and four home runs in the postseason. In the regular season, Busch led off in 52 games and had 16 homers with a .553 SLG in that spot. He had five homers and a .652 SLG to lead off a game.
Pitching around Busch is no easy solution, either. Counsell has moved hot-hitting Nico Hoerner in the No. 2 spot. After hitting .333 in September, Hoerner has hit .429 through seven playoff games. He is one of the hardest hitters to strike out in baseball (4.9% swinging-strike rate) and boasts elite contact ability (89.9% overall and 96.7% on pitches in the zone).
What have been your biggest surprises of the series so far?
McCalvy: Twenty-seven-year-old rookie Chad Patrick started most of the season for the Brewers, spending most of the second half at Triple-A, but got some relief outings under his belt late in the year and has been a significant part of Milwaukee’s bullpen mix in the NLDS. He’s delivered three scoreless innings over three outings so far, including a one-out appearance in Game 4 and has topped out at 97.4 mph in these playoffs. During the regular season, he averaged 94.2 mph with the four-seamer, so it looks like a case of a pitcher letting it eat out of the bullpen. At the start of the postseason I would have been surprised if he’s part of the pitching plan for a winner-take-all game, but I wouldn’t be surprised now.
Bastian: I mentioned Palencia earlier, but he really jumps out for this one. Counsell said, during his Milwaukee days, he and Murphy would discuss the idea of a “mid-game closer,” or the relievers sometimes called “firemen” in the past. That was kind of the idea Counsell had going into this playoff run for Palencia, who saved 22 games this year and earned the ninth-inning job until a shoulder setback stalled him late in the year.
Outside of a rough outing in Game 2 in Milwaukee, Palencia has been awesome in this middle-inning, high-leverage assignment. He has inherited five runners with none coming around to score. He has pitched between the third and seventh innings, logging at least four outs in three appearances. With Chicago patching a rotation together with the hope of 12 outs from the starter (or “bulk arm”), Palencia has been a critical bridge to the rest of the back-end group.
Who could be an X factor in Game 5?
Bastian: Back during the Cubs’ World Series run in ‘16, the team had a “you go, we go” saying for Dexter Fowler. This year’s lineup goes to another level when Kyle Tucker is healthy and has his swing in order. Early on this year, when Tucker was hitting at an MVP-caliber level, Chicago’s offense was one of the best units in baseball. After missing three-plus weeks in September due to a left calf injury, Tucker now looks like he’s finding his footing again. He reached base four times in Game 4, walking twice and launching a homer. If Tucker can stay locked in, it would help the Cubs’ offense function better from top to bottom.
McCalvy: If Uribe is my 1A here, then Brice Turang is my 1B. There’s a case to be made that he was Milwaukee’s regular season MVP, but it’s been a very tough go at the plate in the first four games of the series against all of the Cubs lefties. Going into Game 5, Turang is 2-for-16 with seven strikeouts in the series. There was only one segment of the regular season that was comparable in terms of a four-game stretch of swing and miss; Turang had overlapping four-game stretches with eight strikeouts from Aug. 9-13 and nine strikeouts from Aug. 11-15.
“We believe in Brice and we believe in our players,” Murphy said. “We had an optional workout and every player showed up. That’s kind of cool, right?”
