If it’s not about how you start but how you finish, then the Cubs have a lot to figure out in their bullpen without much time to do it.
Until then, get a load of how they start.
A starting rotation that seemed questionable at best even before José Quintana showed up injured for summer training camp has been the surprising strength of a 4-1 start that tops the National League.
When Alec Mills pitched six quality innings Tuesday in an 8-5 victory over the Reds, it meant an unheralded, sometimes maligned rotation completed its first full turn with a combined 1.80 ERA, 0.63 WHIP, 26 strikeouts and just five walks in 30 innings.
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Also: It’s the first time since at least 1901 that Cubs starters have allowed as few as 14 total hits in their first five starts, according to Cubs historian Ed Hartig.
“You don’t know what’s going to happen in that downtime, right?” manager David Ross said of the three-month coronavirus shutdown. “We were excited going into the season and how our starters were looking [in March]. But that downtime’s tough.
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“And everybody’s come back from that differently. But to a man that starting staff has looked really good.”
It’s only five games in a 60-game season, during a pandemic no less.
But anybody who predicted those kinds of results the first time through, with Yu Darvish making the worst start of the five, is lying.
“I think we all knew what we had here,” right-hander Tyler Chatwood said.
Yeah, right. Chatwood is the guy who signed a $38 million free agent deal and lasted half a season in the rotation before getting demoted to the bullpen. He battled Mills in March for the fifth starter job, then moved up to fourth with Quintana’s injury — then third when Jon Lester needed more time to build up once camp opened.
Then Chatwood pitched six powerful innings in a victory Sunday. Then Lester was in command, if still on a tight pitch limit, and spun five no-hit innings Monday.
And it all started with Kyle Hendricks, who got the call for Friday’s opener because he stayed sharper than anybody else during the shutdown — and proved it with a three-hitter against the Brewers.
“We were all confident in each other,” said Chatwood, who struck out Brewers’ lefty-hitting monster Christian Yelich three times Sunday.
Mills, a location, off-speed-mix right-hander in the Hendricks mold, said he thinks if anyone disrespected or undervalued the rotation going into the season it might have been because only Darvish and Chatwood are classic power pitchers.
“Maybe underrated, yeah. Maybe not,” he said. “All of us put in the work to be good. Seeing the success is always a good thing.”
That success has been especially critical for a team with an underwhelming bullpen full of question marks that turned would-be routs into close games the last two nights in Cincinnati.
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Twelve relief pitchers have combined to allow 15 earned runs in 15 innings on 15 hits and 14 walks.
And you can’t blame it all on $43 million closer quandary Craig Kimbrel — who owns only four of the walks and two of the runs as a result of his lone outing.
Eight different Cub relievers have given up runs; nine have issued walks (none intentionally); and the bullpen has given up five of the six home runs allowed by the staff (none by Kimbrel).
“With a few of these guys it’s their first or second time in a game,” Ross said, referring to a short second training camp that included only three exhibition games.
Ross talks about some relievers still learning and growing as the season progresses, and stays optimistic, especially watching some of the bigger arms. And the first-year manager certainly will learn quickly who can be trusted with leads.
But for now, for one time through the rotation, he has that to lean on. How much longer it will last at that level, how much longer it will help cover for bullpen flaws — stay tuned.
Either way, Mills, Chatwood and Co. don’t seem to care what anybody else thinks.
“We just pay attention to what we can control,” Chatwood said.