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How Colin Rea’s unheralded performance helped Cubs’ pitching staff

1 month agoAndy Martinez

If you were asked to pick a most valuable player from the Chicago Cubs’ historic, 18-3 rout of the Athletics on Monday night, what would your choice be?

Carson Kelly hitting for the franchise’s first cycle in nearly 32 years is definitely a solid choice. Kyle Tucker was 4-for-7 with two doubles, a home run and four runs scored. Michael Busch drove in four runs himself. Heck, Ben Brown looked good in his five innings as the team’s starter.

[Cubs Takeaways: What we learned in blowout of Athletics in MLB debut in West Sacramento]

But how about Colin Rea? Yes, we’re talking about the swingman who threw three innings of essentially mop-up duty in the blowout. Hear us out: we’re choosing to look at the long-term view and not just one night – regardless of how epic it was. Rea picked up the save on Monday, pitching three scoreless innings for the Cubs.

The Cubs are opening the season with seven straight games before an off day – something almost unheard of. Most teams have a day off after Opening Day built in – to cover for rain delays. The Cubs didn’t have that luxury – in fact, they’re playing 13 games in the first 14 days of the season.

Oh, and that’s not factoring in the MLB Tokyo Series, which broke up a normal spring training and affected the ramp-up of pitchers. We can see what it does for starters pretty clearly: they weren’t stretched out in their first turn through the rotation. But bullpen arms were hit by the wonky schedule, too.

Usually, near the back end of spring training, relievers will start pitching in back-to-back games to prepare them for that rigor of the season. But no reliever pitched on two consecutive days this spring and had yet to do it this season.

Sunday, the Cubs suffered a brutal loss to the Arizona Diamondbacks, surrendering a four-run, eighth-inning lead, dropping the series finale by four runs and using four different relievers. In that game, Cubs manager Craig Counsell avoided his top two leverage arms, Porter Hodge and Ryan Pressly, after they had picked up the final six outs in Saturday’s win. Julian Merryweather, another reliever, had warmed up twice on Saturday and was down, too.

Brown was pulled after five innings and with a big lead, but you still must pick up the final 12 outs of the game somehow. Merryweather had a seven-pitch sixth inning. Instead of trotting Merryweather back out or burning another two or three relievers, Counsell turned to Rea – who pitched Sunday and became the first reliever to pitch on back-to-back days.

“I think, it’s one of those things, it’s like a footnote in the game, but you go three innings and nothing else happens, nobody gets up [in the bullpen],” Counsell told reporters after the game. “That’s a big deal for the rest of the staff, and it really resets us and puts us in a good position for the next two days.

“You win by a lot and seems like an easy win, but the three innings from Colin is a big deal tonight.”

Counsell should be able to turn to any of the other seven arms in his relief corps the next two days. That’s a luxury that comes from Rea’s performance. He won’t be the talk of the game, but as Counsell and the Cubs try and figure out their bullpen in the early part of the year, Rea’s outing was clutch – and almost perfect.

Counsell tried to work in some rest for some of his position players, too, which meant Seiya Suzuki played left field late in the game, forfeiting the DH spot. That meant Rea had to take an at-bat in the ninth inning.

Rea fouled off a couple of pitches but struck out looking to catcher Jhonny Pereda.

“I was hoping he’d get a hit,” Kelly quipped to reporters after the game. “But, no he did a great job, too. He came in yesterday for a little bit and then coming in today and picking up three innings – big for the boys and ride it into tomorrow.”

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