PHOENIX — When Julian Merryweather jogged out of Chase Field’s visitors bullpen on Saturday, he was facing the Diamondbacks for the fourth time in nine days. But over the course of multiple innings, Arizona hitters were just as lost against the hard-throwing Cubs reliever as they were in the first three contests.
“He is probably the unsung MVP of our team,” manager David Ross said this past weekend. “When we locked things in, his success, him holding down that seventh inning really transitioned us to set a lot of guys up in roles that have really helped.”
Merryweather seized that seventh-inning role in June, with splitter-tossing Mark Leiter Jr. serving as a setup man and solution to the Cubs’ lefty matchup equation and Adbert Alzolay emerging as the closer. Now, with Alzolay and veteran Michael Fulmer — another right-hander whom Ross trusts in high-leverage situations — on the injured list, Merryweather’s major-league career-high workload is only ramping up.
That’s how Merryweather ended up throwing two innings in the 13-inning loss Saturday and pitching in three straight games against the Diamondbacks last week, earning the save in the third.
“We’ve been through the battles this year,” Merryweather said of the bullpen. “We’re ready for this final stretch and ready for any situation that comes up.”
Until the Cubs’ offense can reverse the slump it has been in for about 1½ weeks, expect the back end of the bullpen to continue to carry a heavy load.
The last time Merryweather pitched this many innings in a year was in 2017 as a minor-league starter, which is a much more predictable routine. He underwent Tommy John surgery in 2018 and has navigated a myriad of injuries in the years since.
This season, he already has thrown 67 innings, the most relief innings of any Cubs pitcher and more than double his previous major-league career high. His fastball is still averaging 98-99 mph, and he entered the off day Monday with 91 strikeouts, trailing only four other major-league relievers: the Orioles’ Felix Bautista, the Mariners’ Matt Brash, the Rangers’ Aroldis Chapman and the Marlins’ Tanner Scott.
“That’s been obviously a great change this year, being able to feel better physically,” Merryweather said. “Some adjustments I’ve made have helped that. Keeping it day-to-day is still the hard part. Every day, my body, honestly, feels a little different. So not worrying too much about the past, but just being aware of it — what areas am I usually having to keep tabs on?”
Those adjustments include the recovery work he’s doing with the athletic training staff, his weight-room routine and some mechanical tweaks he made working with the coaching staff this offseason after the team claimed him in January.
He didn’t know exactly what to expect going into spring training. He was joining a bullpen that, by design, had seen a lot of turnover the last couple of rebuilding years.
“Everyone looked around at each other early in the year, and we thought, ‘Hey, we don’t know what our roles really are at this point,’ ” Merryweather said. “But we’ve gotten to this point in the year, and I think it’s been a great learning experience for a lot of guys. Me especially, just going through all those different roles and knowing what a full season really holds.”
Merryweather served as a bright spot in the Cubs’ disappointing season series against the Diamondbacks. The Cubs lost six of seven, swapping places in the National League wild-card standings. Merryweather didn’t allow a hit in five scoreless innings against the Diamondbacks.
The last pitch he threw Saturday, in the ninth inning of a tied game, whizzed by rookie of the year front-runner Corbin Carroll for a watched first strike. It gave catcher Yan Gomes time to pop up from a one-knee stance and catch Gabriel Moreno attempting to steal second, ending the inning and ushering in extras.
