“He’s going to keep getting better and better,” Cubs manager Joe Maddon said of Carl Edwards Jr. on May 1st. “He’ll be a closer someday, there’s no doubt.”
Three months after the Cubs manager cast that vote of confidence, Edwards has moved further away from the closer role. The lanky righty has struggled in his latest ~400-pitch sample, walking well over 6.5 batters per nine innings since the start of June. Isolating the Cubs reliever’s performance even further, his BB/9 in July was a decimal below eight per full game.
Edwards’ struggles were capped by a Matt Wieters grand slam in the finale of the Cubs’ three-game set against the Washington Nationals.