In recent years, Marcus Stroman has built himself a reputation as one of the MLB’s better pitchers. During his career, Stroman has made the All-Star team once, in 2019, and won the Gold Glove award in 2017. Other than that, Stroman has made the postseason twice, early in his career, and made 5 appearances over 4 series.
And that lack of postseason success looks set to continue as Stroman plays for the Chicago Cubs. The Cubs have not made the playoffs in the 2 years that Stroman has been at the club. Stroman was recently involved in a touching moment with a fellow pitcher.
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Marcus Stroman fulfilled a bet that he’d made with a fellow pitcher
Marcus Stroman fulfilled a bet that he’d made with Cleveland Guardians’ pitcher Triston McKenzie. Before the start of the 2022 MLB season, McKenzie tweeted, “I need an @ROLEX with a fluted bezel.”?And Marcus Stroman replied, “If you go over 160 innings with a 3.7 ERA or lower this season? I?ll buy you a Rolex!” Notably, during the 2022 season, McKenzie pitched 191.1 innings with an ERA of 2.96, thus keeping up his end of the bargain.
Stroman a man of his word
— Zach Taylor (@Southpaw728) November 23, 2022
And in a tweet shared by Talkin’ Baseball, it seems that Stroman kept up his end of the bargain as well. The image shows a screenshot of McKenzie’s statline and what looks like him wearing the Rolex watch.
The Cubs ace kept his promise and delivered the Rolex. Baseball fans have been extremely positive in response to Stroman’s huge gesture. These are some of the reactions on Twitter.
— Blake Newsom (@NewsomSportsATL) November 23, 2022
@STR0 the commitment is awesome 😎
— Stefano Gobbo (@StefG5280) November 24, 2022
Stro is unreal!!
— It's Still Kyle Lowry Over Everything (@KLOEforLIFE) November 23, 2022
— The Hot Corner (@Hot_Corner_YC) November 24, 2022
Stroman is a heck of a friend!!! Man of his word!!
— Tab Lipscomb (@TabLipscomb) November 24, 2022
Of course he did, that guy is awesome!
— jd (@JD_Hamby) November 24, 2022
Stros always been a W
— Blake Newsom (@NewsomSportsATL) November 23, 2022
Baseball fans lauded Stroman for keeping his side of the bargain and being a good friend. He did something that not a lot of baseball players would do in making the challenge and keeping up his side of the bargain.
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The bet was a wholesome moment between a senior pitcher and an up-and-coming rookie of the game. It likely pushed McKenzie to work on his game even harder to achieve this goal.
Will Stroman and the Cubs make the playoffs in 2023?
It looks unlikely that the Chicago Cubs make the playoffs in 2023 unless they make big changes to the roster this offseason. The Cubs finished the 2022 season with a win-loss record of 74-88 and were third in the NL East. Unless the Cubs improve drastically next season, it looks unlikely they’ll finish any higher than that. In addition to this, Stroman had a relatively average 2022 season and will be looking to improve.
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Watch this story:?Japanese baseball star Seiya Suzuki smashes his first MLB home run for the Chicago Cubs
Stroman holding up his end of the bet was a wholesome moment. Do you think Marcus Stroman and the Cubs will make the playoffs? Leave your thoughts in the comments below.