Suzuki stays sizzling, however Cubs fall in opener with Wild Card implications

CHICAGO — The ivy clinging to Wrigley Field’s wall in right-center discipline softened the carom of the baseball launched by Seiya Suzuki on Thursday night time. It dropped to the warning monitor and rolled previous the ft of D-backs middle fielder Alek Thomas.

The bounce gave Suzuki simply sufficient time to tug off a triple within the fifth inning — protecting his extended sizzling streak going — however it was one in a handful of photographs by the Cubs blown again by an unfriendly wind. The D-backs didn’t have the identical difficulty, belting a trio of homers to provide Chicago a 6-2 loss to open a sequence ripe with potential playoff implications.

“Tonight was a weird one right?” Cubs supervisor David Ross mentioned. “We hit some balls really hard. They just all went to the track. Seiya’s, I can’t believe Seiya’s stayed in.”

According to Statcast, Suzuki’s deep fly off the bricks and greenery would have been a house run in 20 MLB ballparks. The Cubs’ proper fielder did discover his method residence, jogging the remaining 90 ft when Jeimer Candelario adopted with a shot to proper that resulted in a sacrifice fly.

That was the type of night time it was for the Cubs, who had a slew of hard-hit balls flip into hard-luck outs, whereas Tommy Pham (two homers) and Ketel Marte (one) broke by way of for the D-backs. It occurred once more within the ninth, when Suzuki ripped a pitch from nearer Paul Sewald up the third-base line. The ball had an anticipated batting common of .580, however resulted in a game-ending groundout with two runners aboard.

It was a turn-the-page loss, however the web page did at the least characteristic one other sturdy night time from the resurgent Suzuki.

“His skill set and his raw talent and what he can do with the bat is really, really special,” Cubs second baseman Nico Hoerner mentioned this week. “And I don’t think there’s a ceiling for it. I think we’re just starting to get to see it.”

It has been well-documented how Suzuki was given a four-game psychological break in early August, when his season slash line stood at .249/.327/.388 on Aug. 7 after a two-month droop. The proper fielder’s confidence had taken a success and Ross wished Suzuki to take a deep breath, watching the sport with out the stress of competing.

Since Suzuki returned to the beginning lineup on Aug. 9, he has slashed .363/.405/.735 with seven residence runs, 11 doubles, three triples and 21 RBIs. In that 27-game stretch, he has produced a 15.3% strikeout price, which is a dramatic drop from the 26.5% strikeout price he had from June 1-Aug. 7.

Overall, Suzuki is now slashing .275/.345/.468 in 118 video games, elevating his season OPS to .813 from .715 in his previous 27 video games.

“When you sit and watch a game from the bench,” Cubs hitting coach Dustin Kelly mentioned, “and you watch peers play it at a really high level, I think you start to realize that it’s probably not as fast and as pressure packed as what you can make it at certain times. So I think that was really big for him.”

Kelly added that Suzuki made some modifications behind the scenes across the similar time.

Since Suzuki signed with the Cubs previous to final season — coming into the fold by way of a five-year, $85 million pact — he has displayed a tireless work ethic. That has included a excessive quantity of swings earlier than, throughout and after video games. Recently, the Cubs’ hitting group teamed with Suzuki on discovering cage work that higher addressed particular objectives.

Kelly defined that Suzuki has “condensed” his routine, reducing again on the sheer quantity of swings being taken. The hitting coach mentioned the outfielder has been in a position to study some from the work of Dansby Swanson, Cody Bellinger and Ian Happ, who’ve routines that concentrate on sure elements of their swing and strategy.

“We kind of started doing some slower tosses with him,” Kelly mentioned, “just to help kind of move his body forward a little bit and feel the contact point out in front a little bit more. He does almost like a slow pitch softball type flip. That’s really helped him kind of move through the ball, stay behind it, and look to drive the ball in the air.”

The outcomes have been essential for the Cubs’ lineup.

“He’s in a confident place,” Ross mentioned. “I think he came back with a joy to play baseball, like, ‘I’m just going to go out there and have fun.’ And you see how much fun he’s having. You see the production and then the confidence builds. Am I shocked? No, because this is the player I thought we were getting.”