Six of the first seven batters Tyler Chatwood faced either reached based or drove in a run in Tuesday’s rocky outing.

To encapsulate his struggle, a look at his pitch chart tells the whole story (link). Multiple pitches hit dirt before catcher Willson Contreras’ glove, as Chatwood continually missed glove side, often well below the zone as he failed to make competitive pitches.

“To me it’s the timing in his delivery,” Marquee Sports Network analyst Sean Marshall said on Cubs Postgame Live! “What I saw in particular was him pulling off… just that little bit of movement falling to the first-base side [of the rubber] creates such a difficult chance to have a well-timed release point.”

“In the second inning, I felt like I was rushing through my delivery a little bit more,” Chatwood said after Tuesday’s start. “Pulling sinkers, that’s never a good sign.”

After Chatwood exited in a tight spot, Duane Underwood Jr. struck out two batters with heavy reliance on his changeup to keep the game close at 2-0.

José Quintana started the third inning, his first regular season game action of 2020 after undergoing thumb surgery in early July. His final line of 3 innings, 4 hits, 3 strikeouts and 1 walk fails to highlight some of the positives from his outing. In particular, Quintana generated five whiffs on his four-seam fastball and curve, with many more swings late as balls flared towards the first base dugout from right-handed bats.

Quintana took advantage of the Tigers by mixing his lively fastball with his sweeping curve, which he successfully kept below the zone. Buried curveballs are key, as nearly all of the extra-base hits he relinquished on his curveball in 2019 came on pitches in the middle to middle-lower part of the zone. This location is where hitters can recognize the spin or hump on a curveball early and stay back to put a productive swing on the ball. That difference of a few inches allows the pitch to tunnel off his elevated fastball as opposed to popping above it and stay out of the zone.

“I thought his fastball command was great,” Marshall said. “That made his curveball successful more than anything.”

Quintana’s solid performance and Chatwood’s struggles add more intrigue to what will become of the Cubs’ starting rotation when the team starts a four-game series with the Reds this weekend.

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