No way to prevent this?
The Cubs are saddling a pitch to contact pitching staff with too much lousy defense
None of this shit is all that hard, which is why the Cubs are incapable of fixing any of it.
Even with a healthy Cade Horton (which is something we should never hope to get used to) the Cubs pitching staff features a host of pitch to contact guys. The Cubs know this. We know it because it was the stated reason why they were so comfortable giving long contract extensions to Petecrow and Nico Hoerner. Those guys are perhaps the best defender at their position in all of baseball.
So, if defense is so important, just what the fuck are we supposed to think about Matt Shaw wandering around the field doing whatever this is?
It's early, but so far he's unplayable in the outfield or at first base. This misplay was particularly egregious. That's a routine fly ball with two outs and he didn't get close to it and allowed a run to score when he should have ended the inning.
But if you think he's just hurting the Cubs in the field, he's not hitting either. He got "hot" and hit homers on back-to-back days, but that's 67 percent of his season extra base hit total. He's slashing a horrendous .205/.250/.364, and yet Craiggy and Jeddy seem to be hell bent on finding ways to shoehorn him into the lineup.
