Can Cubs starting pitchers overcome shaky bullpen? How Chicago’s relievers have threatened strong start

The Chicago Cubs enter play Wednesday with a 22-15 record, good for a virtual first-place tie in the NL Central, mere percentage points behind the Milwaukee Brewers. They’ve gotten there on the backs of their rotation and in spite of their bullpen, to almost extreme lengths. 

Funnily enough, they coughed up a lead in the eighth inning Tuesday against the Padres — only to come back and win in walk-off fashion — and it was the starter who gave it up. Still, one can’t help but wonder if Shoto Imanaga was still in the game, at least partly, due to how bad the bullpen has been. 

Imanaga has been one of the best pitchers in baseball. He’s now 5-0 with a 1.08 ERA, 0.82 WHIP and 43 strikeouts against five walks in 41 2/3 innings. He’d be in the conversation to start the All-Star Game and win the Cy Young if such conversations happened after seven games. The Cubs are 7-0 in his starts. 

He isn’t alone here. 

Javier Assad, who probably wouldn’t have even been in the rotation to start the year if everyone was healthy out of spring training, is 3-0 with a 1.66 ERA and 1.03 WHIP. Jameson Taillon, who started the year on the IL, has returned to make four starts. He is 3-0 with a 1.13 ERA and 0.88 WHIP. Returning ace Justin Steele has only made two starts due to his hamstring injury suffered on Opening Day, but he sits with a 0.96 ERA. There have been good starts mixed in from Hayden Wesneski, Ben Brown and Jordan Wicks while the veteran Kyle Hendricks has done some heavy lifting in ruining the staff numbers (12.00 ERA in five starts). 

Even with Hendricks’ awful start, the Cubs trail only the Phillies and Red Sox in starting pitching WAR and ERA. The rotation ERA is a sparkling 3.03 compared to a league average of 4.00. 

The bullpen is, of course, another story. 

Individual wins and losses are an archaic measure for myriad reasons, but sometimes there’s use for the stat. In this case, it’s telling that the Cubs are one of the better teams in baseball but they have nine bullpen losses. That’s only two off the MLB lead and trails only four teams, with the White Sox, Marlins and Astros at 11 (the Red Sox have 10). 

The high-profile failure in the Cubs’ bullpen would be Adbert Alzolay, who entered the season as the closer. He blew the save on Opening Day by allowing a homer to Travis Jankowski. He blew three more games through April 20 before losing his closer role. Each blown save resulted in a loss and came via home run, like extra punches to the gut along the way. This past Friday, in the eighth inning, Alzolay was tagged with another blown save. That puts him at five. No one else in the majors has more than three. 

It isn’t just him. Current closer Hector Neris has 13 walks in 14 innings and sports a hideous 1.71 WHIP. The group as a whole gave away an 8-0 lead on April 8 for one of the more improbable losses in the 2024 season. The Cubs’ bullpen ERA is 4.74, ranking 24th in the majors. They have eight blown saves, trailing only the pitiful White Sox (who have nine). The 1.43 WHIP is better only than the White Sox and Rockies. Cubs relievers are walking 11% of their batters, which is 26th in the majors. 

With the rotation performing as it has, it’s a major problem to have such an unreliable bullpen. 

The Cubs had expectations to win the NL Central heading into the year and they — other than the relief corps — look the part. They’ve dealt with injuries to their ace and 2-3 hitters (Seiya Suzuki and Cody Bellinger, the latter of whom returned with a huge night on Tuesday) and still sit in a first-place tie. This means the bullpen needs to be fixed and it cannot wait until right before the trade deadline. 

Part of the fixing has to come internally. Alzolay needs to work through his issues. Neris needs to quit walking players. Yency Almonte has been terrific in 12 of his last 13 outings and can work in high-leverage situations. Mark Leiter Jr. has been great nearly all year and also has a high-leverage spot locked down. The more manager Craig Counsell gets to know his personnel, the more he’ll be expected to find his groove with his new squad. 

Still, Cubs president Jed Hoyer, who expertly built this club in every other facet, needs to do a better job with relief pitching. It is far too early to have a litany of sellers on the market, but there are a few teams already open for business. The Marlins are 10-28 and just traded a two-time batting champion. 

“I knew that trade was in the works,” Hoyer said earlier in the week (via Marquee Sports Network). “I’ve been talking to the Marlins — just in general, you talk to different people. So that [deal] wasn’t a surprise.”

Of course, he also said that he doesn’t expect that to be much more than a “one-off” trade, but the point is, he’s been talking. 

Marlins lefty Tanner Scott could be a fit as a rental. Hoyer can also hit up teams like the Rockies, White Sox and Angels in search of bullpen arms.

Whatever happens moving forward, it’s pretty jarring to see such a divide between awesome starting pitching and awful bullpen work. The Cubs would be around .500, or worse, without such great starting pitching and they’d probably have the best record in baseball if the bullpen wasn’t giving games away. 

They sit in the proverbial happy medium, for now, but things cannot continue on this path. Something needs to change, otherwise the bullpen is going to blow what could otherwise be a special season on the North Side.