I, and most Chicago Cubs fans, were pretty much done with Tyler Chatwood before the All-Star break, but the team gave him a few more starts to figure it out.
Sure, he pitched OK against the San Diego Padres and picked up a win against the St. Louis Cardinals, but shitty starts and endless walks continue for Chatwood.
The success he’s had this season was pretty much luck. Yeah, the first month you could say he was effectively wild. Since then, Chatwood has been effectively awful.
His start on Thursday against the Arizona Diamondbacks marked the 11th time Chatwood walked at least five batters this season. Once again, Chatwood couldn’t make it out of the fifth inning for the sixth time this year.
Overall, Chatwood has 85 walks in 94 innings this season. Early on he was getting extremely lucky, as the walks weren’t leading to runs and even after he would leave with runners on, the bullpen wasn’t letting them score.
The grand slam that Brian Duensing allowed on Thursday came after Chatwood left the game with two runners on. Those two runners that scored on the grand slam were the first two surrendered by the bullpen that Chatwood left on.
Fun(?) Fact: The 2 runs charged to Chatwood on that grand slam were the first 2 runners he's left on that the bullpen has allowed to score
— Ryan (@ThugBeast21) July 26, 2018
Chatwood can’t go more than five innings in a start, constantly puts runners on and even when he doesn’t walk guys the other team hits him.
Fun Fact: Tyler Chatwood 10 starts 5 or more BB’s- 3.72 era. 8 starts 4 or fewer – 6.02 era. Go figure.
— Jim Deshaies (@JimDeshaies) July 26, 2018
He’s bad. There’s no other way to put it. He simply can’t start another game for the Cubs and really he can’t pitch for the Cubs again this season either. At least in any games or situations of major consequence.
Chatwood won’t be DFA’d, but the next time he starts for the Cubs better be next spring training because this team can’t afford to have him go out there again in the middle of a division race.
Oh and by the way, Brian Duensing, goodbye too.
I don't like calling for guys to be DFA'd. But, um, a 7.18 ERA is pretty bad. It's 5th worst of 355 pitchers with 30 IP. 6.38 FIP is 8th worst. 6.14 xFIP is 4th worst. It's not working out.
And that's definitely not a guy you bring into a 1-run game, but that's another story.
— Aaron Kennelly (@aaron_kennelly) July 26, 2018
