This can be as hard or simple as we want to make it.
Personally I prefer the simple.
The point is easy.
The Cubs are unnaturally good in rookie starts this year, which has been a lot.
About 40% of games started have been by rookies.
I offer the above for context.
Nothing more or less.
I merely want you to understand just how good theyve been so far.
Ben Brown delivered again last night with 7 hitless, scoreless innings alongside 10 strikeouts.
Thats because his curveball is grading out in the top 1% of the league.
And even with all that, the Cubs are 3-3 in his 6 starts.
In all ways, Shota is the exception.
Somehow, someway, a 92mph four-seam fastball from an undersized lefty is objectively the best pitch in baseball.
And a lot is tied to the deception and command across the delivery.
But nowhere along the way did anyone expect him to be this good:
9 starts.
Team record: 8-1.
53 innings vs. 58 strikeouts and 9 walks.
5 total earned runs for a 0.84 ERA and just 3 HRs.
The peripherals/advanced suggest its legit.
The FIP is league low.
The ERA+ is league high.
Groundballs, flyballs, strikeouts.
The whole fuckin bag is in play with this guy while the league stumbles over another 2-pitch Cubs rookie.
Thats everything were seeing right now and theres quite literally no reason to doubt where it goes.
Theres plenty of other issues, much like any other team.
Were injured, inconsistent and often powerless.
Baserunning is atrocious and the defense look like an Aramis Ramirez/Soriano team.
Theres no shortchanging how shitty this team can be when they want to be shitty.
Theyre special in that respect.
But the hard stuff is finding quality, healthy innings that dont cost $25,000,000 a season.
I dont want to sit here and blow smoke when we cant put two fuckin hits together.
The reality is that its such an impossibly long season to think straight in a given moment.
Ask me tonight and Ill say we need to extend BB.
Tomorrow he could the centerpiece of something special.
Next week well need another 6 scoreless.
On it goes, the carousel of finding happiness as a baseball fan.
Alas I resort to one last simple truth.
Where the Cubs go from here.
What the lineup does and how much we over/underperform… a lot of baseball to be played and judged.
Whatever the outcome, nobody better be bitching about Jed Hoyer finding starting pitching.
Not when the rookies are 15-6 in late May.
