Chicago Cubs are ready to battle against postseason aces in October

Chicago Cubs: Expanding the viewing glass

To continue this seemingly crazy anomaly, I’ll throw in some of the elite-caliber pitchers we faced in this stretch who aren’t even in the top 30 in WAR for 2018 (add Noah Syndergaard, Stephen Strasburg and Matt Harvey).

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Those are the kind of arms and postseason studs we are likely to see throughout the playoffs, even if we don’t have to face those guys specifically.

Adding those three guys makes 10 games during that 21-game stretch in which we faced a pitcher having a great 2018 or a one-time stud who didn’t have the same kind of year in 2018 they’re used to having (either because of injury or, in Harvey’s case, a little bit of a career derailment that seems to have righted itself in Cincy).

In those 10 games against postseason quality starting pitchers, we went 9-1, with our only loss coming to Max Scherzer (who we just so happened to beat earlier in the summer).

That means the games in which lesser quality pitchers started ultimately gave us a abysmal 3-8 record during that span.