This Chicago Cubs pitcher has been extra special lately

For the most part, the Chicago Cubs have had a disaster of a season. They are one of the worst teams in the National League for the second year in a row as they are trying to rebuild their roster. However, despite all of this turnover leading to losses, there are a few players having good years.

On an individual level, Justin Steele is one of those players. As a starting pitcher, he has been marvelous for the Cubs this season. He is only 4-7 because his team is bad but his ERA of 3.25 and WHIP of 1.346 are pretty good.

He also has 120 strikeouts over 113.2 innings pitched which is an amazing total. He loves to fan hitters using his very impressive pitches. All of these great stats have accumulated a WAR of 2.0 this season and that is great for him.

As good as these stats are, they don’t tell the whole story. In his last nine starts, he has been even better than that by a lot. He has a 1.47 ERA over that span which is the best in the national league. He has six quality starts out of the nine with 59 strikeouts over 49 innings pitched.

In his recent stretch of starts, Justin Steele has been elite for the Chicago Cubs.

Since the All-Star break, the ERA is even better as it is under one at 0.86. This is all after his most recent start against the Milwaukee Brewers on Sunday afternoon. It was one of the best starts of his season as he went 6.0 innings pitched with nine strikeouts, two hits against, and one walk.

David Ross took him out after those 6.0 innings pitched. He yielded 0 runs in the start and only had 89 pitches on him. It became a mistake to take him out that early as the Cubs’ bullpen allowed the Brewers to score five runs over the 7th, 8th, and 9th innings combined.

Steele couldn’t get the win as a result as Rowan Wick was charged with the loss on the afternoon. It isn’t really fair that Steele was robbed of the win but baseball is barely ever fair. All the Cubs can do is hope that this 27-year-old stud can keep it going for a long time moving forward. He has truly been remarkable lately.