Cy Young Or Not, Justin Steele Is The Guy For The Cubs
After a historic Labor Day outing, Chicago's ace is ready to dominate in October...
Watching the Chicago Cubs on any American holiday is pretty much a tradition as set in stone as the Dallas Cowboys playing on Thanksgiving every year.
It just feels right.
Therefore, there was only one choice to make on Labor Day - crack open a beer and watch the Cubs play.
And what unfolded during that early afternoon game against the San Francisco Giants at Wrigley Field compelled me to open my laptop and start writing.
It wasn’t Cody Bellinger continuing his comeback story for the ages. It wasn’t Seiya Suzuki going 2-for-4 at the plate with a home run and 3 RBIs. It wasn’t even an electric Wrigley Field crowd basking in the glow of finally being able to enjoy meaningful baseball in September once more.
No, what really grabbed my attention was an absolute gem of an outing on the mound from Justin Steele.
I’ll be honest, when putting my predictions for the 2023 season together back in March, I didn’t have Steele anywhere near my Top 5 of National League Cy Young candidates, let alone Top 3.
For clarity I had the Atlanta Braves’ Spencer Strider winning the NL Cy Young. Which could still happen, by the way.
I thought maybe the Mets’ star-studded tandem of Max Scherzer and Justin Verlander could also be in the mix. Boy, was I wrong there.
However, not only is Steele pushing Padres ace Blake Snell hard for that honor, he’s currently in the middle of one of the best seasons we’ve ever seen by a pitcher. What Steele has done so far in 2023 is simply historic, and his start on Labor Day was a perfect snapshot of what has been a year of utter and unprecedented dominance.
The lefty became the first Cub since Jake Arrieta in 2015 to record eight plus innings, 12+ strikeouts, 0 runs and just two hits allowed in a single game. Furthermore, no Cubs starter has racked up 12 strikeouts in a game since Yu Darvish did it four years ago.
To really put into context the greatness Steele orchestrated on the mound on Labor Day, consider the fact that of all the Cubs pitchers to have achieved an 8+ IP, O R, 12+ K, 2 H stat line - of which there have only been eight in franchise history - Steele is the first LHP to do it. Steele also joins a very exclusive club of Cubs LHP to strike out at least a dozen batters in a game at Wrigley Field. Hippo Vaughn (1918), Ken Holtzman (1971), and Jon Lester (2015) were the others.
That’s what you call carving out your own little piece of history and cementing yourself in franchise lore.
As a direct result of a truly epic start, Steele’s stats for the year paint an irresistible picture when it comes to putting forward a compelling Cy Young case.
Steele’s ERA now sits at a stellar 2.55 on the year, second lowest in baseball with Snell leading the way in that category with a 2.50 mark. He has 19 quality starts in 26 outings. Steele also boasts a 2.98 FIP, which is fifth-lowest, and a 4.3 WAR, which ranks fifth-highest. Not only that, but Steele leads the way with a sublime 16-3 record and his win-loss % stands at a ridiculous .842. Plus, the 28-year-old has a minuscule walk rate of just 5.3%, while his super-human ability to limit contact to the extreme has resulted in a 24.5% strikeout rate.
Sure, as things stand, Snell has the slight edge when it comes to the NL Cy Young race. However, there’s an important caveat to consider here. Snell has been doing great things on a Padres team that have collapsed like a cheap pack of cards this year. If it were not for the New York Mets, they would own the crown as being the biggest bust in baseball this year. With the postseason a failed goal, Snell is no longer pitching in games that matter.
On the other hand, Steele and the Cubs are in the thick of a wild card chase and each start Steele makes between now and the end of the regular season will be considered do-or-die. Pitchers can really seal the deal at this time of year when it comes to individual accolades and, with 153 strikeouts against just 33 walks in 152 innings logged, Steele will have the opportunity to really bolster his Cy Young case and win voters over once and for all in the coming weeks.
You can already make an incredibly strong argument that Steele is a major factor behind why the Cubs are on the cusp of returning to the postseason. He’s absolutely dealing on the biggest stage in games that really matter. That should count for a lot when it comes down to the nuts and bolts of Cy Young voting. And, in my opinion, that should also give Steele the edge over Snell and all other challengers when all is said and done. It is one thing to pitch great with nothing on the line, it is quite something else to pitch at an all-time elite level with the pressure really on and the whole world watching.
That’s what Justin Steele is doing right now.
There’s a whole other side to this we need to explore in order to tell the full story of Steele’s historic dominance on Labor Day. And throughout 2023 in general. As with everything, stats only tell half the story. I still put a tremendous amount of stock into the eye test, and I’ll never stop believing that gut and feel can paint a whole picture just as well as any collection of stats can.
With that in mind, it wasn’t just what Steele did on the mound on Monday. It’s the way that he did it.
Seeing the 6-foot-2, 205lb lefty stride out to the mound with ‘God’s Gonna Cut You Down’ blaring out around Wrigley Field really does make for quite the spectacle. It is also fitting too because Steele does exactly that. He cuts down opposing batter after opposing batter, mowing through lineups with such ridiculous ease that you start to wonder if maybe Steele is in fact a Baseball God just inhabiting a mere mortal’s body on the mound.
In the words of the legendary Johnny Cash, ‘you can run on for a long time, but sooner or late, God’ll cut you down.’ And that’s exactly the fate hitters have staring them directly in the face when they enter the batter’s box ready to face Steele. You can be as prepared as you want to be but, eventually, Steele is going to consign you to your fate with a lethal fastball.
With 39,452 hopeful Cubs fans hooked on his every move, and in sweltering 89-degree heat, Steele wasn’t fazed by anything thrown his way. He was like a cyborg, ruthlessly throwing heater after heater to dismantle a lineup that featured seven right-handed hitters, as well as a switch hitter. Steele was locked in from the get-go, using his biggest weapons to retire 16 batters in a row from the second inning to the eighth.
There’s no thrills or hints of flash to Steele’s game. There’s nothing overly sexy that will jump out to you. Instead, he excels in the simplicity of it all, pouncing on the fear of his opponent and going about his business in a routine, stoic fashion with ice oozing through his veins as if he was The Terminator. I imagine that’s who hitters picture on the mound whenever they face Steele this year.
By shutting down the Giants so efficiently, and by becoming the first Cubs lefty since 1901 to toss at least eight scoreless innings while allowing two hits and fewer and racking up 12 strikeouts or more in a single game, Steele underlined one key fact.
He’s built for the postseason.
By putting his team on his back so emphatically as he did on Monday, Steele looked every inch the bona fide ace the Cubs have been craving ever since they took the lefty in the 5th Round of the 2014 MLB June Amateur Draft. This storied franchise have poured 10 years into their homegrown arm, hoping that one day he would morph into a starter that could win Playoff games deep into October. The Cubs never gave up hope, not through Tommy John Surgery and not through a lengthy and tough rebuild that has taken one of baseball’s premier franchises away from the spotlight.
Well, all that time, effort and patience is now paying off.
Steele has been money all year long, and he’s really elevated his game when it has mattered most. In his past 14 starts, the Cubs are 13-1. That stretches back to the middle of June when Steele was just coming off the injured list and Chicago was middling under .500. Since then, however, Steele has found a way to pitch at the very peak of his powers and clear every hurdle placed in his path.
He’s out-pitched the likes of Logan Webb, Corbin Burnes, Chris Bassitt and Charlie Morton, while earning big-time statement wins over red-hot teams like the Atlanta Braves and the Baltimore Orioles.
Simply put; Steele was born to pitch at a super-human elite level in the game’s biggest moments.
His manager, David Ross, who knows the value of having an elite lefty in the rotation having been part of an iconic battery with Jon Lester during their playing days with the Cubs, certainly agrees with the above sentiment.
“Steele wants the ball in the biggest moments,” Ross said. “Steele feels like he’s putting us on his back and carrying us wherever we need to go and going out and doing what he does best and going and competing really well. Steeley’s for sure - he’s a big-game pitcher, yeah.”
Ask anyone with even a morsel of baseball knowledge and they will tell you that, in order to survive the gruelling marathon of a 162-game slog and then succeed in the postseason, you need an uber-confident stud on the mound who isn’t going to shy away from the spotlight. Who isn’t going to crumble when the margins become razor thin and the stakes reach unprecedented levels.
The Cubs have exactly that in Justin Steele.
After captivating a packed Wrigley Field on Labor Day, Steele walked off the mound having emphatically proved once and for all that he’s the guy for this Cubs team.
He’s exactly who you want starting Game 1 of any Playoff series.
And, armed with an explosive offense, a capable defense and an all-round solid rotation, this Cubs team could make some real noise in the Playoffs if they are able to get the job done down the stretch.
Underestimate Chicago at your peril.
But their biggest weapon will be their legit ace atop the rotation. Their man for the moment. The lefty who has treated Wrigley Field to many a magical day and night already this summer. And that beautiful old ballpark has seen plenty of those in its time.
When Steele goes, the Cubs go and they will go as far as their gritty, resilient southpaw takes them.
He’s been doing this for a while too. Dating back to July 1, 2022, Steele has logged 200 1/3 innings with a 2.28 ERA, and 212 strikeouts to just 51 walks. This is who Steele is. An all-conquering ace who is leading a truly thrilling resurgence for the Cubs.
Cy Young Award or no Cy Young Award, Steele has evolved into the man for the Chicago Cubs. He has morphed into the elite ace they have long craved.
And, as he proved in his dismantling of the Giants on Labor Day, he is the guy to lead the Cubs back into the postseason and back into baseball relevancy.
He was built to thrive on the biggest stage possible. He was built to bring back the glory days to the North Side of Chicago.
