To bridge an 11-day gap between starts, Jameson Taillon threw a simulated game last Friday against Cubs teammates Miles Mastrobuoni and Patrick Wisdom.
“I might have locked them in a little bit,” he joked. “They’ve been hot ever since.”
Was it a joke?
In the Cubs’ 17-3 blowout victory against the Nationals on Tuesday night at Wrigley Field, Mastrobuoni and Wisdom were major contributors. Mastrobuoni had 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 as they broke open a 3-3 game by erupting for 14 runs over the seventh and eighth innings.
Can a night like that jump-start a team?
“That’s the hope, yeah,” manager David Ross said afterward. “You build on the outing and the confidence and carry that in tomorrow. Really nice. Everybody feels good going home tonight.”
The Cubs pulled to within 7½ games of the division-leading Brewers. But if they hope to add at the trade deadline, they’ll need their offense to stay hot — not to mention a winning streak.
No matter what they do at the deadline, Taillon will have a big impact on their second half. If they add, they’ll continue to lean on their rotation. If they trade talent for a third year in a row — and especially if they trade All-Star pitcher Marcus Stroman — Taillon could take on a more prominent role.
Whether it’s strengthening their playoff chances or just attempting to put a competitive product on the field, the Cubs will need him playing at the level they expected when they signed him to a four-year, $68 million contract last offseason. He has shown promising signs, having focused on honing his fastball before it showed up in a big way in his last start in New York on July 7.
“I feel like I was on the attack,” he said after he shut out the Yankees for eight innings. “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 a rocky start as a Cub, exacerbated by bad luck: bloopers falling, grounders finding holes, defensive miscues.
But Ross saw Taillon’s even-keeled reaction as a good sign.
“He’s a really good self-evaluator, to be honest,” Ross said. “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 certainly 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, then gave up back-to-back base hits to surrender two runs. But he settled in after that and kept the game within striking distance. When he left the game, the Cubs trailed 3-1.
Seiya Suzuki homered to lead off the bottom of the sixth. Then Ian Happ and Cody Bellinger hit back-to-back infield singles and tied the game.
The Cubs took the lead in the seventh, batting through the order. Wisdom got things started with the go-ahead homer. Five more hits, a fielder’s choice and an intentional walk later, the Cubs had a six-run lead, with more offensive firepower still to come.
