In last night's Cubs loss, Sveum used 7 rookie pitchers. The Cubs have now matched a team record of using 51 different players this season. Both facts are not good signs for the future.
The box score tells the tale of woe:
Pitchers IP H R ER BB SO HR PC-ST ERA
C Rusin
(L, 0-2) 1.0 8 5 5 1 1 2 43-27 9.00
J Chapman 1.0 0 0 0 1 1 0 15-9 0.00
B Parker 1.0 2 0 0 0 1 0 17-13 1.59
R Dolis 1.0 3 3 3 0 1 2 22-14 7.12
M Socolovich 2.0 2 1 1 0 1 1 29-18 4.50
A Cabrera 1.0 2 1 1 0 2 0 14-10 8.44
J Beliveau 1.0 2 1 1 0 1 1 28-17 4.05
Totals 8.0 19 11 11 2 8 6 168-108
It took the rookie corps 5.75 pitches per out. 64.2 percent were for strikes. At least
36 strike zone pitches resulted in contact by the Nats hitters, or about a third of the time.
The rookies gave up almost as many home runs as strike outs. The Nationals set
a team record for number of home homers in D.C.
It looked like spring training batting practice.
It is September, and a team needs to test its prospects to see what they may have going into next season. From this box score, we can see Chapman was rushed up the system. He was part of the Maholm-Johnson trade from Atlanta. Socolovich is another recent pick-up. Call their initial impressions incomplete.
But as a group, it looks like this is a bunch of one inning middle relievers.
