SAN DIEGO – Right-hander Jameson Taillon had three words for manager David Ross after the Cubs’ 2-1 win against the Padres Friday: “Now we go.”
Taillon was talking about himself, after a rocky start to the season. But the team as a whole could adopt the motto after a rough month of May.
Their victory against the Padres was their fourth straight one-run game. They won three of those contests, reversing an early-season trend. And they got Taillon on track. He held the Padres to one run through 5 ⅔ innings, limited them to three hits, and didn’t issue any walks.
“I love everyone here, and I love the staff and players,” Taillon said, “but I haven’t felt like a huge part of what we’re doing yet, just because I haven’t been pulling my weight. So it’s nice to contribute and be a part of a win.”
Friday not only marked the first time Taillon was credited with a win as a Cub, but it was the first time his new team had won a game he’d started.
Even when Taillon threw five scoreless innings against the Dodgers in mid-April, the Cubs lost in a low-scoring bout. The right-hander landed on the injured list right before his next scheduled start. And over his first five starts back from the groin strain, he posted a 10.90 ERA.
“Just grinding trying to find it,” Taillon said. “After you come to a new team and organization, you want to impress, and you want to prove that you’re worth the commitment that they gave you. And feel like up until this point, I haven’t been doing that.”
The commitment was a four-year, $68 million contract that Taillon signed this winter. The Cubs saw in him a strong track record and potential for growth.
From a team perspective, how important is it that Taillon proves to be the player they thought he was?
“I think he’s going to be,” manager David Ross said.
First, the coaching staff and Taillon had to do a deep dive. When the Cubs reinstated right-hander Kyle Hendricks from the 15-day injured list last week, they used his return to push Taillon’s last start back a couple days and give him time for extra side work.
They reviewed his pitch usage and focused on the decrease in four-seam fastballs and increase in cutters. Entering Friday, he was throwing his cutter (26.1%) more often than his four-seamer (24.5%), according to Statcast.
“When I’m pitching well, that four-seam’s at the foundation of everything that I do,” Taillon said.
On Friday, 35% of the pitches he threw were four-seamers, and 12% were cutters.
“Just get back to who I am,” Taillon said. “Attack, find pitches that I can cut big parts of the plate to, just be aggressive with those, and then everything else will play off of that. So, still throw the cutter, but make sure I have the four-seam going first. … Throw the strengths and then work everything else in after that.”
That approach worked wonders.
Taillon’s performance was even better than his final line. Two of the three hits he allowed were infield singles.
The first was Fernando Tatís Jr.’s dribbler up the middle in the fourth inning, splitting second baseman Nico Hoerner and shortstop Dansby Swanson and getting under Hoerner’s glove on the run. Tatís was the first Padre to reach base against Taillon.
In the sixth, Rougned Odor led off the inning with a short line drive into left-center field. He advanced to third on a groundout. Then, Xander Bogaerts chopped an outside fastball up the third base line. Cubs third baseman Patrick Wisdom let it roll, hoping it would curl into foul territory. But it stayed fair, and Odor scored.
In every other inning, Taillon faced the minimum.
“We always had confidence in him,” catcher Yan Gomes said. “But now, we’re starting to see him having confidence in himself.”
