This is The Jose Quintana Everyone Was Hoping For
By: Dan Schmuldt
Tags: MLB, Baseball, Sports, Chicago Cubs, Major League Baseball

Image via @Cubs on Twitter

The Cubs closed out their first series win of 2019 (god, that hurts to say) last night against the Pirates behind a dominate 7 innings from Jose Quintana. It was another weird game all around, but the pitching from Q showed what the lefty is really capable of (and that maybe Theo didn’t get completely fleeced by Rick Hahn and the White Sox).

Quintana was commanding his fastball from the jump as he punched out the side in the first inning really setting the tone for the Pirates hitters. His breaking ball was on, and he worked out of some jams. Q kept his sinker, changeup, and curveball low, while elevated the 4-seam fastball. He worked in perfect fashion tonight. This is the grit I’d like to see out of every starter if Joe Maddon allows it. If Jose Quintana can continue to shove like he did last night, then our staff is actually starting to look like the guys I thought they would be. Right now it looks like this; Lester: huge nuts, really good, but hurt now, Yu Darvish: making tons of progress, but a very short leash from Joe/maybe the front office, Quintana: Looked good early on, got his shit rocked, but was dominant and is finding his groove, Hamels: another man with iron balls, shoved against Milwaukee, puts the team on his back, and Hendricks: still looked lost last time out, hopefully he figures something out (sigh).

While we’re on pitching, the bullpen hasn’t given up a run since April 10th in Milwaukee. So, I think they’re starting to figure that shit out which is nice. To be fair, they’re playing a Pirates team which was pretty bad at hitting, but I’ll take what I can get. 0 runs is better than 10 runs.

The Cubs pushed across 2 with the help of Jason Heyward, Daniel Descalso, and Victor Caratini in the bottom of the 7th. It’s honestly pretty fucking weird to think that Heyward is the MVP so far this year, followed closely by Caratini. I’m all here for it, and Caratini seemed to really be stepping up in big at-bats this year. Unfortunately, the backup backstop needs hand surgery on his Hamate bone (which is the weirdest injury of all of sports), but whatever He’ll be out 4–6 weeks recovering. It is what it is. Let’s go Taylor Davis(?). I literally have only seen that dude on the bench, so hey maybe he can something, who knows? One last point: Daniel Descalso > Daniel Murphy.

As for the weird I mentioned earlier. This game was pretty jam packed full of oddities. Joe Maddon got tossed in the nicest ejection in MLB history for arguing balls and strikes, Javy Baez got caught in a double-play after supposedly fouling a ball off of his foot (which the umps didn’t rule as the case). The game went on a 69 minute (lol nice) rain delay, and Heyward’s base shit that would lead the eventual winning run came on a misplay by the Pirates infield. This 2019 season has been full of these kinds of games, and honestly, as entertaining as they are, I’m just really hoping that things go back to normal for the Cubs. I think this team is very strong when luck and oddities don’t affect play. Oh and I really hope that Kris Bryant starts hitting the baseball again. That would be really, really cool.

The Cubs take on the Angels at 1:20 today in the first game of a three-game set. Cole Hamels is on the bump tonight against Tyler Skaggs looking to build off his dominant start last time out where he shoved against the Brewers. Maybe a dry day game can kick the offense back into shape. (sidenote: no Mike Trout or Tommy La Stella in the lineup today. Trout is fine, he would kill us. Tommy is sad, I like Tommy)

Follow me on Twitter @DanSchmuldt. I tweet about everything in the MLB, live Cubs updates, and some hot Mariners takes (hop on this train now, the M’s are a future powerhouse and you can say you liked them before they were good)!