To bridge the gap between starts, Jameson Taillon threw a simulated game Friday to Miles Mastrobuoni and Patrick Wisdom.
“I might have locked them in a little bit,” he joked. “They’ve been hot ever since.”
Or was it a joke?
In the Cubs’ 17-3 win against the Nationals on Tuesday, Mastrobuoni and Wisdom were major contributors. Mastrobuoni recorded the first three-hit game of his career, and Wisdom went 2-for-4 with a home run, his third in four games. The Cubs set a season high in scoring.
Can a night like Tuesday jump-start a group?
“That’s the hope, yeah,” manager Davids Ross said. “You build on the outing and the confidence and carry that in tomorrow. Really nice. Everybody feels good going home tonight.”
The Cubs pulled up to 71/2 games back of the division-leading Brewers with the win, trimming the gap by a game. But if they hope to add, they’ll need their offense to stay hot and help them go on a winning streak. And no matter what the Cubs do at the trade deadline, Taillon will have a big impact on the Cubs’ second half.
If they add, the team will continue to lean on their rotation. If they trade away talent for the third year in a row, and especially if they trade All-Star pitcher Marcus Stroman, Taillon could carry a more prominent role.
Whether it’s strengthening the team’s’ playoff chances or at least helping put a competitive product on the field, the Cubs are going to need Taillon playing at the level they expected when they signed him to a four-year, $68 million contract this offseason. He’s shown promising signs lately.
Focused on honing the shape of his fastball, Taillon saw progress in between starts before it showed up in a big way in New York.
“I feel like I was on the attack,” Taillon said after he shut out the Yankees for eight innings on July 7. “I feel like I was in a lot of good counts. I felt like, for once, I had a lot of hard hit balls right at people. They did swear some balls up. I’m a little more process driven now after going through what I went through.”
By that, he meant his rocky start to his Cubs tenure, which was exacerbated by bad luck – bloopers falling, grounder finding holes, defensive miscues.
Pointing out hard contact that found leather might seem like nit-picking after a strong outing, but manager David Ross saw Taillon’s even-keeled reaction as a good sign
“He’s a really good self evaluator to be honest,” manager David Ross said Tuesday afternoon. He knows what success looks like for him…. He’s trying to be elite, he’s trying to be a playoff-caliber pitcher. And so those types of guys are wired to be perfectionists.”
Taillon’s performance Tuesday, holding the Nationals to three runs in 5 2⁄3 innings, wasn’t perfect. He gave up a home run to Lane Thomas, the second batter he faced. The next inning, he issued a leadoff walk and then gave up back-to-back base hits to surrender two runs. But Taillon settled in after that and kept the game within striking distance. When he left the game, the Cubs trailed 3-1.
The Cubs’ Seiya Suzuki homered to lead off the bottom of the sixth inning. Then Ian Happ and Cody Bellinger hit back-to-back infield singles and tied up the game.
The Cubs took the lead in the seventh, batting through the order. Wisdom got things started with the go-ahead homer. Then, five more hits, a fielder’s choice and an intentional walk later, the Cubs took a six-run lead. And they still had more offensive firepower to come.