I’ll admit that I wasn’t too familiar with Trey Mancini’s defensive prowess at first base when the Cubs signed him to a two-year contract, but looking at his metrics he seemed to be at least average. Well, heading into July, we’ve had enough of Mancini playing first base because he hasn’t just been bad, he’s been god awful.
As someone who didn’t want Eric Hosmer anywhere near the Cubs this season, I bit my tongue early in the season when Mancini had a few errors when he was getting more regular starts at first base. The team has slowly been limiting the veterans playing time at first during the past month, but Mancini has somehow still found ways to hurt the Cubs. That was the case once again on Sunday, when the Cubs were trying to finish a quick, two-game sweep of the Cardinals in London.
The Cubs jumped all over St. Louis in the first inning, taking advantage of three Cardinals’ errors that led to four runs. It appeared as though the Cubs were on their way to another victory behind Marcus Stroman, the National League ERA leader, but then the Trey Mancini experience happened.
In the second inning, Stroman got in a jam as he faced Paul DeJong with the bases loaded and only one out, but the Cubs’ righty made easy work of the shortstop, striking him out on three pitches. Tommy Edman stepped up to the plate and he hit a slow chopper to Nico Hoerner, who charged in from his second base position.
It was an easy out, but Mancini made two crucial mistakes that led to disaster. First, he didn’t realize that Hoerner was in a perfect spot to field the ground ball and because of that Mancini’s first few steps were to his right, as he made an attempt to get the ball. Once Mancini realized Hoerner was on it, he scrambled back, but he was all out of sorts and wasn’t in a good position to make the catch. Mancini tried to make a bare-handed catch on Hoerner’s flip, but it bounced off of him that allowed a run to score and the inning to continue.
I still have no idea how this was ruled a hit.
Brendan Donovan followed up with a two-run single that cut the lead to 4-3.
By the way, in the first inning, Mancini couldn’t come up with a ball from Dansby Swanson, who made a nice play deep up the middle on a hard-hit ball. Swanson was charged with the error, but that was also on Mancini.
Mancini’s offense doesn’t come close to justifying him getting more playing time other than facing left-handed pitching and it’s unfortunate that Cody Bellinger was feeling under the weather this weekend, which David Ross said is the reason he was taken out midway through Saturday’s game.
The Cubs aren’t going to DFA Trey Mancini, but they should honestly think twice before they put him in the lineup as the starting first baseman moving forward. He’s bad. So, so bad.
