Cubs News: Craig Kimbrel had a rollercoaster of a season

Chicago Cubs closer Craig Kimbrel had a rocky start to the 2020 season but bounced back to have a pretty good season for the Cubs.

Coming into the 2020 season, people did not know what to expect from the Chicago Cubs’ Craig Kimbrel. After signing midseason last year, Kimbrel was terrible for the Cubs in 2019. In 23 games, Kimbrel had a 6.53 ERA with nine home runs given up.

The shocking thing behind the home runs was that it was the most Kimbrel has given up in a season at any point in his career in the least amount of games. Now that might be a little tainted because of the theory of the “juiced ball,” and every pitcher’s home run numbers were up.

Now coming into 2020 people did not know what to expect to see from Kimbrel. Would he bounce back and be one of the games elite closers or would it be more of the same from 2019? People didn’t know if the shortened season would help or hurt Kimbrel because its almost exactly what he did last season.

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Kimbrel’s first appearance of the season was not a great one. In Cincinnati,  Kimbrel came in with the Cubs leading 8-5 and Kimbrel faced six batters and only recorded one out. He walked four, hit one, and threw a wild pitch before being replaced by Jeremy Jeffress, who eventually got the save. After that people were all out on Kimbrel again. Then his next appearance against the Pirates he gave up back to back home runs in the ninth.

David Ross was forced to find a new closer for the Cubs after it was clear Kimbrel didn’t have it. Ross turned towards Jeffress to be the closer and let Kimbrel try to figure it out it not has high leverage spots.

This is when Kimbrel started to seem like a different guy. His fastball velocity was back up to 97-98 MPH and his curveball was back to being the wipeout pitch like it used to be. After a few successful outings and the Rowan Wick injury Ross was forced to put Kimbrel back into high leverage spots.

In Kimbrel’s last nine appearances of the 2020 season including the playoffs had a 0.00 ERA with 15 strikeouts, zero home runs were given up, and only two walks. Those are the numbers that you expect out of an elite closer.

Kimbrel’s overall numbers in 2020 were inflated because of his bad start. Overall in 2020 Kimbrel had a 5.28 ERA with 28 strikeouts and only two home runs given up.

Moving forward if Kimbrel can keep up how he finished in 2020 the Cubs will be on to something with the closer spot.