Managers and players will caution against making too much of any one series in a season, especially one that comes in early April. But it’s hard not to make note of what happened at Wrigley Field over the weekend. The Cubs took two of three games from the Dodgers in what could be called a measuring stick series, at least for the home team.
On paper, the Dodgers are the best team in the National League. The PECOTA projections have them as the only 100-win team in baseball. So whenever you face that team, especially as another National League team with playoff aspirations, it’s to some degree a test of how well you measure up.
With that in mind, let’s take a look at the good and bad of the series, from the Cubs’ perspective:
The Good —
Pitching: Only Kyle Hendricks really struggled. He gave up five runs in 4 innings on Friday, but Saturday starter Jordan Wicks held the Dodgers to two runs in almost 5 innings, and on Sunday, Shota Imanaga had the Dodgers scoreless for four innings. He would have gone longer, too. When the almost three hour rain delay started in the bottom of the 4th inning, Imanaga had only thrown 43 pitches.
Otherwise, the Cubs bullpen allowed just three earned runs in 14 1/3 innings pitched over the weekend. Even when Julian Merryweather hit the injured list with a right shoulder strain, Daniel Palencia came up from Triple-A and pitched three very solid innings on Sunday.
And in the one loss, Jordan Wicks showed an important sign of development by being able to pivot to using his slider more than his changeup during his start on Saturday. That’s a skill he said he worked on specifically during the offseason and spring training, so it’s good to see the fruits of that labor in just his second start of the season. You can read more about that in my story from the ballpark on Saturday.
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