Joe Maddon Gets Career Win Number 1,000

Last night, Cubs manager Joe Maddon celebrated his 1,000th win as a professional manager when the Cubs defeated the Cincinnati Reds 9-5 at Wrigley Field. During his 14-year managerial career, Maddon has accumulated 27 wins with the Anaheim Angles, 754 with the Tampa Bay Rays, and 219 wins with the Chicago Cubs. With last night's win, Maddon became the eighth active manager to reach the 1,000 win plateau and just the fifth Cubs manager in the past 30 years to surpass the 200 win total with the team. Maddon has rightfully built a reputation as being a "outside the box" thinker and I'd dare you to find another manager that would make some of the crazy decisions that we've seen throughout his career. Maddon himself acknowledges that he's a bit crazy.

Honestly, I could care less about his wins in Anaheim and Tampa Bay because I'm a Cubs fan so I thought I'd look at some of Maddon's crazier managerial decisions during his time with the Chicago Cubs.

Who's In Left?

On June 28, 2016, the Cubs were in a tightly contested ballgame with the Cincinnati Reds. "As per usual in the late innings of close National League games, the Cubs ran through many options out of their bullpen after Jon Lester departed in the eighth. More to the point, they found themselves needing to get creative in the final two innings of the marathon contest. What this meant, amusingly enough, was that manager Joe Maddon could turn to three pitchers -- lefty Travis Wood and right-handers Spencer Patton and Pedro Strop -- as a three-headed pitching/left-field platoon tag-team for the 14th and 15th." It was the first time since 1913 that a MLB team used three pitchers in the field. The Cubs went on to win the game 7-2 in 15 innings.

The Five Man Infield

On May 19, 2016, the Cubs were in a tight spot up at Miller Park in Milwaukee. With the game tied at 1 in the 12th, the Brewers loaded the bases with nobody out, prompting a flurry of defensive maneuvers. Bryant came in from left field to third base for a five-man infield against pinch-hitter Hernan Perez, who pitcher Travis Wood got to fly out to Dexter Fowler in shallow center. Chris Carter, who was at third, didn't advance. "Baez, who had entered in the ninth as a pinch-runner and then took over at first, then switched gloves and places with Bryant against Aaron Hill, who popped up to shortstop Addison Russell. Bryant dashed to the dugout and grabbed his outfield glove to return to left and Baez went back to first against Martin Maldonado, who Wood got to pop up to Baez." Good luck keeping track of that one on the scorecard. The Cubs got out of the bases loaded, no-out jam and eventually went on to win the game 2-1.

The Walk-Off.....Squeeze?

Better known as the Brian Matusz game. (Remember that guy?!) The Cubs fell behind the Seattle Mariners 6-0 early during an interleague game played at Wrigley in early August last year. The Cubs clawed back and cut the deficit to 6-3 going into the ninth. The Cubs managed to push three runs across that inning and we also got a chance to see Travis Wood in left field (again) and he made one of the best catches of the season. With the game knotted at 6-6 in the bottom of the 12th, Maddon called on pinch-hitter Jon Lester to drive home the winning run waiting at third. You heard that right folks -- Jon Lester as a hitter. What fans didn't know was Lester was one of the team's best bunters and Maddon signaled in a suicide squeeze to give the Cubs the walk-off squeeze to win one of the crazier games of 2016.

The Quick Hook In Game 7

I already know what you're thinking. "Joe got lucky on that one." Maddon made one of his ballsiest decisions in his managerial career when he decided to have a VERY quick hook on his pitcher, Kyle Hendricks, in Game 7 of the 2016 World Series. The 2016 ERA leader was DEALING through 4 2/3 innings with the Cubs leading 5-1 when Maddon unexpectedly made a trip to the mound and pulled Hendricks from the game. Unbeknownst to 99.9% of Cubs fans everywhere was the fact that Maddon already had a Game 7 pitching plan in place.

"Hendricks to Jonny (Lester) to Aroldis. That was it. I didn’t want to use anybody but those three guys. I was looking for Kyle to get out of the fifth. He had Santana up (with two outs, none out). He gets him to two strikes and all of a sudden it’s ball four."

The walk was enough for Maddon to bring in Lester to bridge to Chapman which as we all know is exactly what happened. I'll admit when I was at Game 7 I was pretty puzzled by this decision but Maddon kept reiterating after the fact, "There was no Game 8." It's also pretty cool that the highlight of Maddon's coaching career could have easily went down as the biggest mistake of his career. That's the beauty of baseball. Congrats on 1,000 wins, Joe.