Chicago Cubs: Anthony Rizzo is most important Cub in division race

Prior to Tuesday evening, Rizzo had just four home runs since the All-Star break. The Chicago Cubs will need him to continue his recent hot streak.

Anthony Rizzo has been the heart and soul of the Chicago Cubs ever since Theo Epstein and Jed Hoyer pulled the trigger to acquire the former number one first base prospect back in January 2012.

Rizzo spent the first couple of months in the minors being blocked by Bryan LaHair but made his Cubs debut on June 26.

He smacked 7 home runs in July of that season and has shown the trend to hit home runs in spurts throughout his career.

This season, Rizzo hit 19 home runs in the first half of the season highlighted by a spectacular May in which he hit 9 home runs and collected 24 RBI’s. He’s been awfully quiet though since the All-Star break, hitting just 4 home runs entering Tuesday night.

As I am typing this, Rizzo has homered twice in this game against the San Francisco Giants so perhaps I should filibuster until this game is over. Including this game, he’s now homered 4 times in the last 5 games. The Cubs will need someone to carry this offense with the hopes that it’s enough to win the National League Central.

They were idle on Monday night following a 4-6 road trip (in which they probably should have gone 6-4) and saw the Cardinals take a 0.5 game lead on the division. Right now, it looks like they will be the primary threat to the Cubs winning the division, but the Milwaukee Brewers are not far behind.

Rizzo had a fairly solid 10-game road trip slashing 0.267/0.463/0.500 with 2 home runs, 6 RBI’s and took 8 walks. In the Sunday night finale against the Pirates, Rizzo smashed a two-run shot off the scoreboard at the Little League World Series site in Willamsport, Pennsylvania. His splits indicate that he’s been much better at Wrigley this season (0.322, 146 wRC+) than the road (0.247, 124 wRC+) and after today, the Cubs will have just 21 home games remaining.

They will need Rizzo to continue his hot stretch to hopefully help the Cubs grab the division and start to distance themselves from the rest of the pack. Time is running out for the 2019 Chicago Cubs.