The Cubs need a bullpen fix — and fast

Sunday’s meltdown was one of the worst in recent memory.

As a refresher, one of the things that torpedoed — to use a current baseball-related word — the Cubs’ 2024 season was some awful bullpen work over the first couple of months.

These are the pitchers who were in the Cubs’ Opening Day bullpen in 2024:

Yency Almonte, Adbert Alzolay, Jose Cuas, Mark Leiter Jr., Luke Little, Julian Merryweather, Hector Neris, Drew Smyly

Here are the pitchers who were in the Cubs’ Opening Day bullpen this year (using the North American opener last Thursday as the benchmark):

Porter Hodge, Brad Keller, Julian Merryweather, Eli Morgan, Nate Pearson, Ryan Pressly, Colin Rea, Caleb Thielbar

That’s almost a complete turnover — just one pitcher (Merryweather) is in both lists. Six of the eight 2024 relievers aren’t in the Cubs organization anymore.

What went wrong? It appeared Jed Hoyer & Co. did address the issue by acquiring some decent relief pitchers from outside the organization and promoting one (Hodge) from within.

There are a couple of things at work here. First, the game Sunday might have gone better if Matthew Boyd had been able to go more than five innings. But all the walks and long counts resulted in him throwing 92 pitches in those five innings, and that had to be it for his first start of the year. But that resulted in an already-overworked pen having to throw more innings.

The other thing is the curious non-use of Merryweather. Why did that happen? (Bluesky link)

This is something the Cubs seem to do quite a bit — get guys up and sit them down and then do it again and then they don’t even appear in the game. And “didn’t recover well” doesn’t sound good, either. Merryweather spent much of 2024 injured and one would hope that’s not the case again in 2025.

There are six relievers on the Iowa Cubs roster who have options and could be recalled. In alphabetical order: Gavin Hollowell, Caleb Kilian, Luke Little, Jack Neely, Daniel Palencia and Ethan Roberts. To my knowledge, Little is still rehabbing from injury and might not quite be available. He is on the Iowa active roster, but has not yet pitched.

There are also a handful of free-agent relievers not yet signed. Many of you have cited David Robertson, who will turn 40 next week. Despite the age, Robertson did have a good 2024 and maybe he’d be worth a look. Also available: Brent Honeywell Jr., who had a decent year for the Dodgers last year.

At some point, the Cubs are going to have to make some changes. Or get their current relievers to throw more strikes — they threw only 101 in 168 pitches Sunday, and the staff is averaging five walks per game. That’s not sustainable if the Cubs want to win.

I continue to believe this is a 90-win team that should win the NL Central. The Brewers, alst year’s division champs, got swept over the weekend by the Yankees and outscored 36-14.

But that pen is going to have to get better.