(670 The Score) Cubs right-hander Jameson Taillon has seen several starts this season like the one Tuesday night, as the Nationals hit him early and jumped out to a 3-0 lead. But this outing represented a change in his work on the mound.
Taillon settled in after allowing those three earned runs in the opening two innings, working 5 1/3 innings and offering the Cubs the chance to win – which they took late with 17 unanswered runs in a 17-3 victory at Wrigley Field.
Cubs pitching coach Tommy Hottovy pointed to how Taillon adjusted on Tuesday night as part of how he has improved this season.
“Last night was a good example of some of the work and the focus that he’s been putting in over the last month, month and a half,” Hottovy told the Mully & Haugh Show on Wednesday morning. “Definitely, the start of that game felt like some of his earlier starts – and early homer, a walk and a quick double, and next thing you know you’re staring at runners in scoring position in the second inning and that spiral of events that kind of happened in some of those outings.
“Being able to limit that and then regroup, refocus the thoughts, reassess what we’re seeing with their hitters. You go into a game, you have a game plan and you kind of have a feel for what they want to do. A lot of times, you’re assessing what their plan is and also what you have that day. l I think he’s been putting in a lot of time and effort in getting his four-seam fastball moving back the way he wants it to, focusing on the curveball, getting the right movement on that pitch as well. You’re always assessing to make sure if there’s something off early in the game, is there something we can tweak from the mechanical perspective or a location perspective to kind of clean some of that stuff up.
“I thought he did a great job of kind of taking all that stuff, taking all that information, making some adjustments and then keeping your team in the ballgame.”
Taillon is 3-6 with a 6.05 ERA over 16 starts in this his first season of a four-year, $74-million deal with the Cubs. He marked his best outing of the season on July 7 in working eight shutout innings of one-hit baseball and earning the victory over the Yankees in New York.
The Cubs host the Nationals on Wednesday night in the rubber match of their three-game series at Wrigley Field.
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