Cubs’ Garza effective, but he’s still losing
Matt Garza has been the Cubs’ most effective starting pitcher this season.
He has done it with a major adjustment to his repertoire.
Think back to early this season. Garza’s first start was a 7-inning performance against the Pirates, during which he gave up 12 hits while striking out 12.
He got hit for 8 hits and 5 runs in his second start, at Milwaukee. The Colorado Rockies then touched him for 7 hits and 5 runs over 6 innings.
The record wasn’t pretty: 0-2 with a 6.27 ERA.
To his credit, Garza adjusted. In came more sliders and changeups. Those came at the expense of the fastball, by far his dominant pitch with the Tampa Bay Rays last year.
Whatever the case, it was the same old hard-luck story for Garza on Tuesday night in a 3-1 loss to the Washington Nationals.
All it took was one inning, and it was the sixth this time. Michael Morse crushed a 3-1 slider for a home run over the shrubbery in center field with one out. Two batters later, Jonny Gomes hit another slider for a 2-run homer.
The Cubs did nothing with Nationals starter Chien-Ming Wang, who pitched 6 scoreless innings. The only Cubs run came on Starlin Castro’s homer in the eighth against Tyler Clippard.
For the fifth time this season, Garza left a game with his team having scored no runs.
“Wang had his sinker going good,” said Garza, who fell to 5-9 with a 3.81 ERA. “It is what it is. He kept the ball down in the zone. I did all right. Mechanically, I felt a little off. I kind of fell into a pattern and got beat.
“A slider to Morris … he hit it a long way. Gomes, I just hung one, and that’s usually what happens when you hang a slider in this league.”
No doubt Garza’s won-loss record should be better. Much of that’s out of his control. What’s in his control is how he attacks hitters, and that’s where the major change has come.
“After the Milwaukee game early in the year, when he got beat on pretty good, and we went to Colorado, that’s when he started mixing his pitches,” said pitching coach Mark Riggins.
“So I think it’s evolved from the start of the season, philosophy wise, he and I talking about it, mixing his pitches. He’s evolved with that.”
Pitchers like to play coy with this kind of information, but the numbers from fangraphs.com tell the story. According to the website, Garza’s percentage of fastballs has gone from 71.5 percent last year to 53 percent this year. The use of the slider has gone from 14 percent to almost 23 percent, and the changeup has gone from 5.5 percent to 12.5 percent.
Riggins praised Garza for having both the repertoire to get hitters out and the open-mindedness to use it.
Garza came out firing against the Nats. Of the 18 pitches he threw in the first inning, 9 were fastballs, a couple reaching 95 mph. Garza would hit 96 mph regularly as the game wore on.
“He threw the ball well,” said manager Mike Quade, whose team has dropped two straight following a seven-game winning streak. “He’s been up against it a lot. He’s thrown the ball extremely well.”
bmiles@dailyherald.com