Chicago Cubs: What’s with the sudden influx of position players on the hill?

Chicago Cubs: Boys, welcome to the other side

In less than a week now, the Cubs have managed to find opportunities to fit position players into relief roles, not of course by their own accord. The first came a few days back, in a game which quickly got out of hand against the St. Louis Cardinals.

After the game got away, in a combined effort, three position players finished off the game. Tommy La Stella pitched 1 1/3 innings, giving up a run on three hits. Victor Caratini replaced him, going an inning himself, surrendering two runs. Finally, Ian Happ logged a scoreless inning to finish the blowout loss. It was a way to entertain fans during an otherwise terrible outing for the Cubs.

Once Farrell quickly faltered, and an already overworked bullpen logged even more innings, the Cubs once again turned to position players to pick up the back half of the game. Caratini made his second appearance in a few days and Rizzo, making his first career appearance, got the call to make it happen.

The results did not disappoint.

Chicago Cubs: Meet the man who can do it all

As Caratini finished his second career relief appearance with a scoreless inning, Anthony Rizzo toed the rubber in preparation for his first career pitching appearance. The mantra of enjoying oneself in a lopsided game rang true, especially for Rizzo, as he was all smiles.

Rizzo recorded one out, a fly ball from A.J. Pollock after a two-pitch at-bat. For a moment, the world stopped, and every Cubs fan in the grandstands and bleachers around Wrigley took in, and seemingly enjoyed, the momentous appearance of Rizzo pitching in a game which counted.

As Rizzo has made an incredible mark when tasked with leading off, creating the ‘joke’ among many is that Rizzo is the greatest leadoff hitter of all time. After not allowing a run to score, Rizzo will retire from his pitching career with a spotless earned run average. Now, he assumes the mantle of greatest relief pitcher of all-time.

Rizzo posted some interesting pitch speeds, picking up the velocity between the first pitch and the second pitch by almost thirty miles per hour. It was his first time pitching in a baseball game since his last high school game.

Chicago Cubs: Finding joy in a bad situation

Fans of baseball flock to the ballpark, or their television, to watch their teams win. When this is not the case, it can be painful to stomach. It can be especially tricky at certain times, such as blowouts because all we want is for the game to be over.

Despite the 7-1 final score Monday night, the bright spot in the game became the fact that Anthony Rizzo pitched. As easy as it was to find oneself upset about Luke Farrell’s start, Cubs fans can take solace in that there was a feel-good story in the slugger’s pitching debut.

Next: Farrell's outing indicative of Cubs'struggles

As the saying goes, “you have to take the good with the bad, smile with the sad.” Monday night no doubt was disappointing. However, games such as those do happen. The best things fans can do is to enjoy the little moments, one of which is watching Anthony Rizzo pitch.

It could end up being something that can keep this fan base close when games such as this get out of hand. In times such as those, keep Rule 32 in mind – Enjoy the little things.