The Cubs have turned into appointment viewing for all the wrong reasons. One run here, one run there, a bullpen door spinning like it's auditioning for a sitcom. Cheah has been logging the misery in real time, and the latest tipping point came Wednesday night when Counsell decided 69 pitches was the magic number to lift Colin Rea with the game knotted at 4.
Cheah laid out the obvious question after the hook.
Cubs game tied at 4. Why exactly did Craig Counsell pull Colin Rea after just 69 pitches?
That's the entire frustration in one tweet. Rea wasn't blowing up. He wasn't laboring. He was sitting on a pitch count that most starters consider their warmup phase, in a tied game, and Counsell still went to the pen. For a manager who built his reputation in Milwaukee on bullpen wizardry, the early hooks are starting to feel less like wizardry and more like a tic.
This didn't come out of nowhere. The whole night had the stench of another lost Cubs evening — a starter doing his job, an offense doing nothing, and a fanbase Googling tee times. Cheah had already been venting hours earlier about an offense that can't string anything together.
The mood heading into the late innings was already cooked.
Watching the Cubs the past four weeks has just been awful. Another game with one effing run.
That's the context the Rea decision lands in. When you're scoring once a night, every pitcher who's giving you length is precious cargo. Pulling a guy who's cruising at 69 pitches in a tie game is the kind of move that maybe plays in May when you've got runs to burn. The Cubs have not had runs to burn in roughly a month.
Even the bright spots have come wrapped in the same complaint.
Good outing my Jamo! Now if we can only get a few runs…
And the lineup tinkering on top of it isn't exactly inspiring confidence. Moving Dansby Swanson up the order is the kind of shuffle that says the coaching staff is searching, not solving. Cheah's reaction to that one said it all without saying anything.
The side-eye to the lineup change spoke for the whole fanbase.
The bigger picture: Counsell was the splashy hire, the guy who was supposed to squeeze every drop out of a roster that needed managing. Instead the Cubs are stuck in a stretch where the manager's biggest decisions are getting second-guessed in real time by their own broadcasters, beat reporters, and now the loudest Barstool voice in the fanbase. 69 pitches isn't the whole problem. It's just the cleanest example of it.