Yeah, yeah, yeah, you know the Willson Contreras thing already, but the dumbest base running mistake during Sunday's 2-1 loss to the Reds by the Cubs was Daniel Murphy's slow ass getting thrown out at second base to end the eighth inning.
So, the offense hadn't done anything at all against Luis Castillo, besides Contreras' double off the wall that led to the Cubs' lone run in the fifth and one or two other squandered chances. Anyway, in the eighth inning, Murphy lined a ball down the left-field line, that bounced off the side directly to Phillip Ervin.
The play was right in front of Murphy, who for whatever reason decided to stretch the single into a double.
He was out by a mile.
The ball gets to second base and Murphy isn't even in the frame. Just brutal.
The way the Cubs' offense has been going lately you can't guarantee that they score anyway, but Murphy took out any chance they had to get something done.
All Murphy had to do was realize that he had a zero percent chance of getting to second base, because for starters he could see that the ball went right to Ervin and two, he's really slow. Even on a bad throw, Murphy is probably still out.
Also, the Cubs have Terrance Gore for these exact situations. He already has five stolen bases, and would have come in to pinch run for Murphy and more likely than not would have gotten to second base anyway.
The only positive from that play was that Murphy finally got a solid hit, after going 1-for-25, with a weak infield single against the Nationals.
Murphy's been awful since his first week with the Cubs, when he gave the offense a boost, but now with him not hitting he has no value. He's slow, he doesn't walk much and his defense is terrible.
But Murphy has been hitting the ball harder in the past couple days, so let's hope that leads to better results because Addison Russell and David Bote haven't been contributing on offense either in September.
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