The Cubs have a rough week and everyone loses their damn mind. Fans want guys benched and radio hosts are out here calling for drastic lineup changes. Mark DeRosa added to the discourse on MLB Network, also suggesting that Craig Counsell needed to shake things up.
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DeRosa, along with 670 The Score’s David Haugh, both want Pete Crow-Armstrong batting leadoff and Ian Happ moved down in the batting order. Well, during Tuesday night’s 8-4 win over the Phillies, Happ responded to the idiotic lineup suggestion with a bang, crushing two home runs, adding a couple walks and scoring three runs in the victory.
Happ’s third-inning home run off Phillies’ rookie Mick Abel tied the game at two and then the Cubs’ left fielder gave his team the lead in the sixth inning, blasting a two-run homer against Taijuan Walker.
What males these types of conversations so dumb is that you don’t even need to look too in-depth into the struggles. That’s the premise for wanting to shake things up from Haugh on the radio Tuesday morning.
“Mix it up, it’s a struggling offense.”
Hmm, I wonder if a major reason for the Cubs struggling during this road trip has anything to do with facing MacKenzie Gore, who now has a 2.87 ERA, the reigning AL Cy Young Award winner Tarik Skubal, Zack Wheeler and his 2.85 ERA and to a lessor extent, but still very solid pitcher in Jack Flaherty, who has a 3.41 ERA this season. Yeah I wonder if maybe facing more quality pitching has anything to do with the Cubs not scoring more runs recently.
It’s not that difficult, guys.
Over to DeRosa, who thinks that PCA at leadoff will unlock him.
I love Pete. He’s been amazing and he’s fine exactly where he’s at. You know what PCA has been so good at this year? Crushing the ball. He’s got 17 home runs and a .545 slugging %. Beautiful! You know what he’s not good at? Getting on base on a consistent basis.
Following Crow-Armstrong’s 0-for-5 game on Tuesday he’s down to a .305 OBP this season. He’ll get on a hot stretch here soon again and that number will climb as the hits come, but no one is expecting PCA to be anything close to an OBP machine and well that’s kind of the job of the leadoff man: get on base in front of the sluggers.
Besides the two homers that Happ hit against the Phillies he showed exactly why he shouldn’t move from the top of the lineup. After Michael Busch’s solo home run in the fourth inning the Cubs began a rally and with two outs and two men on base Happ worked a walk that brought up Kyle Tucker with the bases loaded.
Unfortunately, Tucker didn’t come through that time, but Happ walked again in the eighth, which led to back-to-back RBI-singles hit by Tucker and Seiya Suzuki.
Those two hits after Happ’s second walk of the night took the pressure off the bullpen and the Cubs cruised to an 8-4 win. You don’t move the guy with an OBP barely above .300 to the leadoff spot and replace the guy who has a solid track record going back to 2022 just because the team has a tough week.
What the hell are we doing here?
By the way, those numbers that DeRosa rattles off about PCA hitting first were from an eight-game stretch in May. In six of those games the Cubs played the Marlins and White Sox. As long as we’re talking about who the Cubs are hitting and who they’re struggling against lately, don’t miss that context either when it comes to PCA’s great leadoff numbers.
The Cubs offense isn’t broke right now. You already know the saying, you don’t need to fix.
