When you take a risk and it works out, you are a genius. But if you should not have had to take a risk in the first place, one could say you are reckless and lucky.
The Cubs are a much better team than the AAA Reds. But it took 15 innings to put away the last place club. And in the process, it was another maddening game.
Joe Maddon ran out of position players in the 13th inning. That should never happen. But Joe continues to believe that he can mix and match players like it is a Stat-O-Matic card or video game. By the end of the game, three relief pitchers had played left field.
Travis Wood and Spencer Patton alternated pitching and playing left in the 14th inning like it was a 7 year old youth baseball game. Wood pitched the 15th while Pedro Strop, for no apparent reason, stood out in left field.
Maddon justified the bizarre situation. "We
were down to almost nothing," he said after using 22 of
the 25 players on his roster. "Travis, my God, what an athlete. ...
Travis made everything possible. He may have had his best stuff all
year."
But it should have never come to that point. The Reds pitching staff is a mess, but the Cubs could only scratch out 2 runs in 9 frames. The Reds Brandon Phillips was hobbled like a 75 year old man after taking fouls off his ankle, arch and rib cage. But Hector Rondon blew another save, and that started a weird shuffle the lineup deck in Maddon's mind.
When Maddon put in 40 year old reliever Joel Peralta in the 13th, he replaced OF Chris Coghlan in left field with Wood. That move makes no sense. Period. Coghlan is a better defensive player. In a tied game, in extra innings, defense matters.Especially when the Reds had the winning run at second base! Maddon could have always replaced Peralta with Wood without taking out Coghlan.
Maddon must have mentally justified keeping Wood in the game to get pitcher-batter match ups. Wood got to bat in the top of the 14th before going
back out to left field in the bottom of the inning while Maddon called
upon Patton to pitch. After Patton got an out, he replaced Wood in left
field and Wood took the mound to get left handed hitter Jay Bruce out on a ground ball. Patton then came back in from left to get the final out of the 14th.
The Cubs away with the over-managing moves by scoring 5 runs in the 15th, highlighted by Javy Baez's grand slam to deep center field. But it did not stop Maddon from using Jason Hammel to pinch hit for Patton, requiring Pedro Strop to play left field in the bottom of the 15h.
After the game,Maddon
said he had never used three pitchers in the outfield in a single game
and was shaking his head trying to remember all the decision-making that
went on to pull this game off.
And that is part of the problem. The decision making process of making so many moves leads to potential problems, including situations later on in the season. As many other commentators have said for more than a week, throwing players in different positions can lead to Kyle Schwarber injuries, especially using much needed catalyst Willson Contreras in left field.
Maybe things will calm down when Jorge Soler and Tommy LaStella come back off the DL. But probably not.
