Early Bullpen Concerns, Moral Victories, Bad Steals, and Other Cubs Bullets ...Middle East

That was a really disappointing weekend, eh? Obviously things could’ve been worse in the game outcome department – at least the Cubs won once – but you combine two losses with a bullpen implosion (and questions that are really starting to rise about the group), with an offense that still isn’t quite clicking, and with a potentially serious injury to the team’s most important starting pitcher? Weekends rarely look that bad.

I better find some good post-Easter sales on candy later today …

Just about all of the story from game one was the pitching, and we’ll hit on Edward Cabrera’s successful (if slightly wild) outing later. Caleb Thielbar, Hoby Milner, and Daniel Palencia covered 3.1 scoreless in that one, which almost certainly mattered a few hours later when the rest of the bullpen was blowing game two, because the trio was almost certainly unavailable. Maybe it wouldn’t have changed things if the games were separated, but it’s notable that a lot of the damage in the two innings that sank the Cubs came from lefty bats. Maybe if Thielbar and/or Milner had been available, things play out differently. The point there is not to excuse Ben Brown’s or Jacob Webb’s ghastly performances, mind you; instead, it’s just a pretty on-the-nose reminder of how difficult it is to win both games in a double-header. Often, ensuring that you win one of them can directly impact your ability to win the second. But, yeah, can’t excuse the poor performances. The relievers who are on the roster have to do their job more often than not, or none of it works particularly well, regardless of who is available. More on Brown later, because there’s a lot to say there, but on Webb: it’s waaaay too early to pull any rip cords, but he has not looked particularly impressive, even going back to Spring Training. He was a guy we kinda wondered a little more about, given that his cheap deal with the Cubs ($1.5 million, plus a cheap club option for 2027) didn’t quite line up with the results of his performances the last few years. That suggested that teams were suspicious of the stuff carrying over into a successful 2026, and it also suggests that there might be less leash here than there would be for another “signed a big league deal” reliever. Speaking of “signed a big league deal” relievers, the two guys who got the biggest deals – Phil Maton and Hunter Harvey – didn’t even pitch yesterday at all. In two close games. One of which the bullpen blew. In the very early going, the Cubs’ bullpen as a group has a 4.25 ERA, 17th in baseball, but the FIP, xFIP, and xERA are all considerably higher, and the unit’s -0.5 WAR is third worst in baseball. (Tied with the Rays, off a whom the Cubs will hopefully score a lot this week!) Call-up Riley Martin also did not make an appearance in the games, which was not necessarily a huge surprise, as the good bet was he’d be the long lefty out of the bullpen if needed to cover innings in a not-close game. (Might’ve been nice to use him as a match-up lefty for some of those spots where Thielbar and Milner weren’t available, though …. ) Great story, Martin is. Most folks know that he didn’t have a lot of options to pitch in college coming out of high school, and then was planning to go to pharmacy school. For him to have wound up getting drafted and then worked his way up to reach the big leagues? It’s an incredible story and a credit to his character. It’s also a reminder why you don’t ignore even the “senior sign” draft picks who get small bonuses in the early rounds to clear bonus pool space for other players (Martin signed for just $1,000, but the bonus was never the thing – it was the chance to pitch professionally.) A modest credit to the offense in game two: in spite of the bullpen twice blowing the lead, the bats briefly got the lead back, and then later got the tying run to third base as the game ended. Moral victories don’t show up in the standings, but they can mean something to a team early in the year when they want to build a little scaffolding for comebacks later in the season. Good to be reminded: yes, we can win games even when we’re behind late and/or even when the pitching blows it multiple times. Speaking of moral victories meaning only so much, can a guy be hitting the ball better than Alex Bregman with nothing to show for it? Dude has a 61.3%(!!!) hard hit rate, and a .138(!!!) BABIP. Just keep swinging at the right pitches and ripping the ball. All that said, while the numbers aren’t wholly explained by the lack of elevation (even with a 40+% groundball rate, you’d still expect the BABIP to be MUCH higher with that much hard contact), that’s the one piece to watch on the performance side:

An overlooked part of Bregman’s underperformance is his lack of elevating the ball.Compared to past years, his ground ball rate is up and his LA Sweet-Spot% (how often he hits liners) is down, despite 96th percentile average EV.Positive regression will come, but how much? t.co/8blQMexY2g pic.twitter.com/Qxw1boSKXA

— Nate Roper (@NateRoper_) April 6, 2026 It’ll look odd, and then normal, and then odd again, and it’s just messing with my brain the more I watch it:

Tatsuya Imai's Wrong Way Slider. ?13 inches arm side run. pic.twitter.com/sFYc1Hm1tQ

— Rob Friedman (@PitchingNinja) April 4, 2026 Speaking of looking odd but working:

Jake Burger is using new amber contacts this season …He's hitting .333 with a .947 OPS so far, whatever works! t.co/pxwyPvWJTF pic.twitter.com/lsJwohZddX

— MLB (@MLB) April 5, 2026 I can only assume a teammate ran up to Matt Chapman after this and cursed him out in front of everyone, since that’s how he handles things:

Gary Cohen: "A terrible decision by Chapman as he gets gunned down for the first out of the ninth with his team down by three runs!" Todd Zeile: "Gunned down, and rightly so. His run means nothing." Cohen: "It caps off a horrible, no good, awful week for Matt Chapman." #MLB pic.twitter.com/zzsUlDvLHA

— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) April 6, 2026 Not that I want to defend Chapman here, by the way, since that was a pretty poor decision … it’s not strictly true that stealing second base there has no value. If he is successful, a double-play is taken off the table, which could wind up making a difference in an attempted comeback from there. Not worth the risk unless you’re sure you’ll make it, but again, there was at least SOME reason to try. (But if you get yourself thrown out anyway, then you’d defeated the entire purpose of the attempt. So, yeah, terrible decision when you see how not even close it was.) Glad Tango did the math, too – basically, Chapman needed to be around 92% sure he would make it for this attempt to be worth it (and there was no way it was that certain when, again, you see how close it wasn’t):

Yes, insane steal attempt. Lets describe insanity in mathematical termsDown by 3 runs, gaining the base brings you from 8.3% chance of winning up to 8.9%, or +0.6%Losing the base and getting the out is a 1.7% chance of winning, or -6.6%That's 11:1 odds of insanity t.co/4GK91TBoHr pic.twitter.com/1iGfFU8HsN

— Tangotiger ? (@tangotiger) April 6, 2026

New Giants manager Tony Vitello got the boot thanks to an interference call that was clearly correct:

Tony Vitello ejected for the first time in his MLB career after umpires call the runner out here pic.twitter.com/rPURZ9YBQy

— Jomboy Media (@JomboyMedia) April 5, 2026 I hate the rule mostly because of where the runner’s lane is painted in relation to the base – WHY would you have the lane in foul territory but NOT the base? It’s so asinine. Just use the safety base at first already – but it’s the rule. Correctly called. No real beef there with the umps. Hawk:

Andre Dawson acknowledging the Bleacher Bums in his return to Wrigley Field, 1995. Dawson making 4 All-Star teams and winning an MVP in Chicago. pic.twitter.com/gLJ868afeL

— Baseball In Pics (@baseballinpix) April 5, 2026 MORE CUBS FROM BLEACHER NATION: Go Ad Free | Subscribe to the BN Newsletter

The 2026 Masters Field: Player Guide? on all 91 golfers in the field from @RyNoonan•highlighted text so key takeaway are clear if you're skimming•A navigation bar so you can jump around easily•Visuals from the Rabbit Hole•SG: Masters t.co/mzD4wZ8ATW

— Betsperts Golf (@BetspertsGolf) April 4, 2026

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