The Cubs are good. Very, very good.
Best record in baseball at 47-20, 12.5 game division lead, 99.8% playoff odds on Fangraphs good. So it has to be a bit frustrating for the rest of baseball that the Cubs can still call up a top prospect like Willson Contreras (ranked the 18th overall prospect by ESPN’s Keith Law in May) to essentially function as the team’s third catcher. Contreras made his big-league debut behind the plate on Friday, but he hadn’t stepped into the box until Sunday night’s NL Central tilt with the Pirates.
Willson apparently subscribes to the theory that you only get one pitch to make a first impression:
Wilson Contreras in his 1st MLB at-bat = Home Run https://t.co/b9BpNNYPtR
— Nathanael Rutherford (@Mr_Rutherford) June 20, 2016
That’s a first-pitch tater to the bleachers in center, igniting an electric moment at Wrigley. Joe Maddon had faced some (extremely mild) questioning as to why he hadn’t sent Contreras to the dish earlier in the series. Apparently Maddon was just picking his spot.
This is good news for the Cubs, who have suffered injuries to Kyle Schwarber, Jorge Soler, and now Dexter Fowler (all with varying degrees of severity), and being able to draw upon premier minor-league talent to fill gaps in their lineup is a luxury few teams have. It certainly makes their 12.5 game lead all the more daunting for teams like the Cardinals and Pirates.
Welcome to the bigs, Willson.