Frigid day at Wrigley is a new beginning for two veteran Cubs pitchers
False spring is over. The Cubs were back to playing in dreary conditions Friday, with a cold wind howling off the lake and a two-hour rain delay at the start.
At the same time, this day was a bright new beginning for a couple of veteran pitchers as the Cubs blanked the Philadelphia Phillies 4-0 at Wrigley Field.
Starter Colin Rea, 34, pushed into the rotation after the season-ending injury to Justin Steele, is pitching as well as he ever has. He finished 5 scoreless innings with 7 strikeouts and just 3 hits allowed.
Then newly acquired lefty Drew Pomeranz, 36, made his first big-league appearance since Aug. 10, 2021, by pitching a scoreless eighth inning.
Both pitchers are soft-spoken, bearded, 6-foot-5 and grew up in the country. Rea is from Cascade, Iowa, which sits roughly 20 miles south of the “Field of Dreams” site in Dyersville. Pomeranz is from Collierville, Tennessee, which is sort of an outer suburb of Memphis.
Rea actually still lives in Cascade. He and his wife, Megan, chose to make the Iowa town with roughly 2,300 residents the permanent home for their four kids.
“Just a good place to grow up,” Rea said. “Both me and my wife are from there. That's just a spot where we have a lot of family and we wanted to raise our kids, have them go to school there. We love it there and it's home and it's always been home, so it's a good spot for us.”
Rea spent the past two seasons pitching for the Brewers, posting ERAs of 4.55 and 4.29. Milwaukee declined his contract option for 2025, he joined the Cubs as a free agent and after Friday's gem, his ERA is 0.96.
“His stuff is better than you think, that's what hitters say,” Cubs manager Craig Counsell said. “Sometimes you think, 'Pitcher in his 30s, what you see is what you get.' He's continued to kind of make improvements.
“The slider was the first thing that got a lot better. The changeup's improving right now. So it's just finding a couple more tools to keep improving and just keep the league at bay a little bit. He's done a good job of it.”
The gap in Pomeranz' pitching career was due to surgery to repair a torn flexor tendon, plus a follow-up procedure roughly 18 months later. He got a little bit of work in the minors the past three seasons and was with the Seattle Mariners' Triple-A team when the Cubs worked out a trade earlier this week.
Friday's inning of work was an interesting. Pomeranz started by striking out Bryce Harper and Kyle Schwarber, then hit a batter and gave up a walk, before ending the inning with a flyout.
After the game Pomeranz talked about what pushed him to come back for another try this season.
“I honestly thought I was done,” he said. “I didn't really have any desire to play. Then some months passed, and it just really was like, 'Man, it'd be really nice to just pitch one more time; just go out there and give it everything I've got one more time.'
“And finally got a chance to. Hopefully that wasn't the last one. We'll try and get a few more of those.”
This was clearly not a hitters' day with the weather conditions, but the Cubs (17-10) smacked 6 doubles and added 4 stolen bases to peck away with single runs. Ian Happ and Seiya Suzuki each had a pair of doubles, while Jon Berti had a double among 2 hits.
“That's what's so fun about this team,” Berti said. “We definitely have guys who can slug, but we have a lot of speed and we have a lot of guys who can drive balls in the gaps and we play good defense and we're pitching well. That's always a recipe for success, but offensively it's a lot of fun.”