How Cubs’ starters-turned-relievers allow Craig Counsell to make playoff-style pitching decisions in August

PHOENIX — You might have heard that the Cubs are in a playoff race.

While there’s still more than a month of baseball before the postseason begins and the Cubs play their most important games of the year, the games are pretty important already, with the Brewers threatening to pull away in the NL Central and teams like the Phillies and Padres hot on the Cubs’ heels in the wild-card standings.

And though the Cubs adhere to pro sports’ favorite strategy of taking things one game at a time — going as far as citing it as a key element of their success — they’re still playing like a team with expectations of a deep October run as the stakes increase down the stretch.

Just look at Sunday’s win over the Mariners. Though it ended up being a 19-2 laugher, things were close early. With lefty starter Shota Imanaga struggling and the Cubs fresh off taking the lead in the top of the third inning on Ian Happ’s grand slam, Counsell didn’t wait around to see if the southpaw could figure things out. The skipper brought out the quick hook, and Imanaga was done after recording only six outs, the shortest start of his major league career .

Considering the only thing the Cubs can do to make up ground on the Brewers when they’re not playing their division rivals is to win the game in front of them, this aggressive move made sense, the Cubs needing a win after losing the first two games of the weekend series in walk-off fashion.

But Counsell wouldn’t have made that playoff-style move — starters typically have much shorter leashes in the very different world of postseason pitching — without his contingent of long relievers in his bullpen.

“This is why we have some length in the bullpen. We can do things like this with the length in the bullpen,” Counsell said after the game. “As soon as Ian hit the home run, honestly, my thought was, ‘If Shota’s in trouble, we’re going to go. We have length. We have innings to cover if the game goes wrong. We’ve got Colin [Rea] or Aaron [Civale] to cruise through the game.’

“It was the time to do it, and that’s why we’ve got those guys down there.”

The Cubs maybe didn’t draw things up this way, but they’ve wound up with numerous would-be starters in their relief corps after Jed Hoyer’s front office brought in a couple top-of-the-rotation arms at the trade deadline .

Guys like Rea and Javier Assad – the latter stashed in the minors as the Cubs play by baseball’s roster rules – are relief options in situations like Sunday’s, able to log the innings that would have been expected of starters like Imanaga and prevent Counsell from having to wreck his bullpen by using a bevy of arms to get through the game.

Civale was the savior Sunday, throwing four scoreless innings of one-hit ball in Imanaga’s wake to preserve the ‘pen.

On a day when his lineup produced 19 runs and two of his players hit grand slams , Counsell said Civale’s work was “the story of the game” for him, bringing to mind the manager’s description of Assad’s 6 1/3 innings of scoreless relief in a June game as “heroic.”

Counsell could have a bullpen full of those types of pitchers come October. In addition to Rea and Assad — and possibly Civale, who was part of the Cubs’ playoff roster last year, pitching 4 1/3 scoreless innings in Game 1 of the NLDS — right-handers Edward Cabrera and Ben Brown are expected to return from their respective injuries as relievers.

It’s only a luxury if those guys keep pitching well. But they have to this point, giving Counsell the option of pulling out quick hooks and plotting playoff-style pitching decisions well before the postseason arrives.

Because hey, these games are important, too.

“There’s a lot of confidence being instilled,” said Civale, whose work Sunday moved his ERA in a Cubs uniform this season down to 1.80 in 20 innings. “It’s just taking the ball whenever you’re called upon and going out there and getting outs.”

Indexed and credited by AIPROPX. Originating outlet: Chicago Sun-Times. Open at source →