The writing was on the wall ahead of Ryan Pressly’s historic implosion this week

Ryan Pressly's extra-inning implosion Tuesday night won't soon be forgotten. But that doesn't mean the Chicago Cubs are ready to move on from the 36-year-old right-hander. Pitching coach Tommy Hottovy believes that more regular work could be the answer, but the underlying metrics suggest otherwise.

According to The Athletic (subscription required), just one eligible reliever has a worse strikeout rate than Pressly, and only three have a worse swinging strike rate. He's not missing bats - and he's walking batters at the highest rate of his career. That combination rarely, if ever, leads to success - and this week, we saw the worst-case scenario when the San Francisco Giants plated nine runs against Pressly, chasing him before he could record even one out.

Cubs have to listen to the data and re-evaluate Ryan Pressly's role

Prior to that disastrous appearance, Eno Sarris penned a piece titled, "10 early season MLB numbers that could be cause for alarm" - and on that list, Pressly made an appearance for all the wrong reasons.

He looked at closers with three or more saves across the league, then sorted them in reverse order of Stuff+, a metric that 'looks at the physical characteristics of a pitch,' according to Fangraphs. Pressly ranked second on that list, meaning he's been working with subpar stuff looking to close out ballgames, something that rarely leads to good results in the ninth inning.

Sarris points out that Pressly's arsenal has been on the decline, leaving him with just one 'plus' pitch, his curveball, and his diminishing returns on his fastball have had him pitching backwards off that pitch - again, not something you want to be doing as a late-inning arm. He's nibbling, rather than attacking hitters, leading to repeated calls to replace him with Porter Hodge in the ninth.

Pitching to contact can be a recipe for success, but it tends to work better for starting pitchers or middle relievers than it does for closers or high-leverage relievers. What you like to see in the ninth is someone with shutdown stuff - and the Cubs have that in Porter Hodge who, apart from one blow-up in mid-April against Arizona, has been as steady as they come for Craig Counsell.

He's excelled at limiting hard contact and has a wipeout breaking ball that gets elite chase rates from opposing hitters. This isn't to say that Ryan Pressly can't play some role for the Cubs this summer, but given the alarms that sounded even before Tuesday's meltdown, it's got to be Hodge in the ninth moving forward.