Baseball

Cardinals Spotlight: Paul DeJong And Fiendish BABIP Kung Fu Treachery

By Sam Fels 1173 0

If you want to be truly embarrassed by the spot the Cubs find themselves in the standings, tied with the Cardinals for first, consider that in terms of fWAR, Paul DeJong is the best player on the Cardinals. By some distance actually, as he’s accrued nearly twice the WAR of Marcell Ozuna in second. And that’s with DeJong unable to hit a bull in the ass with a snow-shovel since April. Some of that is Paul Goldschmdit’s struggles and playing first base (thus getting little to no defensive credit), and Matt Carpenter being ouchy, old, and grizzled (the official motto of St. Louis). But yeah, the Cubs are tied with a team whose best player got there almost entirely through defense.

If you feel like the Cardinals have been advertising DeJong as a future star for half of eternity at this point, and being influenced on another level by some big homers against the Cubs, you’ll probably be shocked to learn he’s still only 25. But their version of Javy Baez he has not become, nor anywhere close, and let’s all revel in the fact that Cards fans so desperately want their own version of Javy who also happens to be white.

For a minute there, DeJong looked like he might just be that in April. That month saw a .342/.403/.607 slash-line, good for a 163 wRC+. To go along with his spectacular defense, and it looked like you had a real player here, and us lamenting the Cardinals finally being right about a product of their system.

DeJong has been living in an abandoned boxcar since with one can of baked beans, at least offensively (by defensive runs he’s been the best SS in the NL). He hit .200 in May, .218 in June, and .225 in July. His wRC+ have been 95, 66, and 100, as he walked a ton in May (17%), and slugged just enough lately to barely claim average.

It’s not hard to find the discrepancy in DeJong’s start and the rest of the season. DeJong’s BABIP in April was .389. It hasn’t been above .236 since. And yet DeJong, for the most part, has hit the ball extremely hard. Only in June did DeJong not have a hard-contact rate above 45%. Since May 1st, DeJong has the worst BABIP in the National League.

It’s weird. DeJong doesn’t hit an abnormal amount of flies, which tends to lower one’s BABIP because they don’t just fall in when they don’t go out of the park all that much. He doesn’t hit a ton of line-drives, which would help, but that rate isn’t so low as to explain three months of taking it in the moon fortune-wise.

It doesn’t really work to say the past three months have just been market correction on DeJong’s April, because that would entail a higher force equaling out DeJong’s numbers simply to balance the universe. And as we all know because we’ve been told all our lives, if there’s a higher power it definitely works for the Cardinals. Still, DeJong’s numbers are right where they should be according to Statcast, as his batting average and weighted on-base are right in line with his expected-batting average and expected-weighted on-base.

And yet that low of a number over three months seems a tad harsh. DeJong doesn’t have an abnormal amount of flies not leaving the park, as his HR/FB rate is about league average at 12%. As we said, he doesn’t hit an abnormal amount of fly balls. It’s just weird.

Still, with all of that DeJong is a couple of weeks away from his best season in the majors, which was 3.3 fWAR. And if he finds any luck at all in the next two months, he might give Baez a run for title of best shortstop in the National League (0.5 fWAR behind right now). It’s been an odd year for him, and you wonder what the Cardinals might conclude about him if it doesn’t change. They’ve given up on better players, y’know.

Baseball

Is There Anything Wrong With Lucas Giolito?

By Sam Fels 1216 0

Things have been rough for the White Sox in July. A 7-15 record, injuries have kept Eloy Jimenez and Tim Anderson out for either all of it (Anderson) or part of it (Eloy). They were swept by the Royals and A’s, and after showing some life against the Rays, they chucked that into the bin by laying an egg against the Marlins and Twins.

In the grand scheme, their July record doesn’t matter. Whether the Sox compete or don’t as soon as next year won’t be because of a couple wins not gotten in this month. Unless you’re using it as a referendum on Ricky Renteria, though most concluded long ago that when the Sox matter in the standings again, Ricky is going to get himself left by the side of the road and chasing a piece of meat tossed out of the car as it speeds away. Again.

Still, the month has been rough for Lucas Giolito. After a May and June that got him to the All-Star game, introduced him to the top echelon of pitchers in the AL, July has seen a 7.08 ERA, and a slash-line against of .291/.358/.547. That’s some bad slashes right there. Certainly if Giolito were to have this current balls-up continue through the rest of the second half, one would have to reconsider the projection of him on top of a rotation next year.

However, if you’re a Sox fan you don’t have to worry, because that looks unlikely.

The overriding factor on Giolito this month has been luck. In that he can’t seem to get any. Some of it is a bit of a correction, as in May and June, Gio’s left-on-base percentage was 84% and 90.5%. In July it’s 63%, which is about 12 points lower than average. So far more runners he’s letting on are scoring, which basically speaks to sequencing. And there are more getting on base against him because his BABIP in July is .357, just about 80 points above his season mark.

Because Gio isn’t giving up any different contact. His line-drive rate is actually lower in July than it was in May and June. His hard-contact rate is lower than it was in May, and only three points higher (31.8 vs. 28.1) than it was in June. It’s just more of those baseball are falling, though the Sox defense in spots could have something to do with it as well. Still, this is mostly bad fortune.

That doesn’t mean everything is rosy, though most of it will be corrected simply by regression and what not. As I mentioned in the Royals recap, Gio’s change-up has lost just a touch of bite.

Now it’s been the same in June as it was in July, which speaks to luck again, but isn’t getting off the barrel or bats quite as much. You can see that in the greater amount of slugging against it:

That’s against both righties and lefties, but Gio mostly throws the change against lefties. It’s movement away from them, as with most change-ups from right-handed pitchers, that’s the key. But it’s actually righties who have been crushing the change this month, slugging 1.200 against it even though he throws it about half as often to them as he does to lefties. And the difference from earlier in the season is that he’s been leaving it up too often:

These are easy corrections though, and as soon as Gio’s metric even out, things should be fine. He has to throw the change to righties sometimes, as otherwise he’s just fastball-slider, but when he keeps it low and in, he’ll find the mark once again.

Hockey

Hey Everybody! An Old Man Full Of Himself Is Talking!

By Sam Fels 2521 0

I suppose it will be a real sign of growth and maturity (or I’ve just gone on to do something real with my life instead of playing in this sandbox in adulthood) when I just let an interview with John McDonough slide by. But I’m not there yet, not by a damn sight. McDonough loves to talk, especially when the subject is himself, and these days he’s got a lot of figurative ass to cover. Especially if he’s going to survive a third-straight playoff-less season, or justify that season without the major changes the front office looks more and more like it needs. So he’s already starting, and as always we will stand as the gatekeeper. We can’t go through the whole thing, as his interview with The Athletic’s Scott Powers goes for two parts. But we’ll go through some of the “highlights.”

“We don’t compensate the players. The players come in. Because our players, like the Cubs’ players, they get it.”

Yes, well, I’m sure there’s no benefit to getting free suites in a five-star hotel for young men in their primes of their lives. Can’t imagine what it would be. Maybe it has to do with the reason Sox players used to call SoxFest “SexFest.”

Powers: Have you had a chance to reflect on that season, what that Cup team means to the city?

Well, I think that was kind of the lightning strike.

Yeah ok, there’s a lot to unpack here, or a lot to unpack to find all the ways McDonough is trying to give himself credit for when he was mostly along for the ride. I’ll do my best.

First off, the 2010 nostalgia tour that you’re going to see a ton of this season is understandable, but also extremely awkward. Because most of the core of that team is still here, and if you asked them they would tell you they’re not done trying to win Cups. If Marian Hossa didn’t have that skin condition, he would almost certainly be still playing as well. He probably isn’t comfy looking at his career in the past tense yet either. So it’s an odd celebration when in some ways, you’re still in that window.

I get it. 10 years is a nice round number. And it’s rare that the core of a championship team is so young (except the Penguins were too) so that they would still all be playing in the same place 10 years later. And hey, the Hawks very well might have to be selling something come February and March if this defense is as bad as it could very well be and the goaltending isn’t as good as we think it will be.

As for McDonough’s “lightning strike” comment, that’s a load of shit and he goes on to contradict himself like five sentences later. As McD points out literally in the next sentence, the Hawks did manage to go to the conference final the year before, were just about everyone’s pick to win, and even the year before that had barely missed out on the playoffs, which was the true lightning strike.

While it happened fast, the Hawks had sucked for six seasons or so and had accrued draft picks like Keith, Seabrook, Crawford, Bolland, Brouwer, Hjalmarsson, etc. Even before Toews and Kane capped it off, and they’re the most important picks no question, people were starting to notice the Hawks had a fair amount of prospects coming through.

And the regular season in our sport doesn’t even resemble the postseason.

This is a continuing theme throughout the interview, and it’s really frightening for what’s happening to the team now. Yes, the NHL playoffs are different, if only because of structure, but to say they have nothing to do with the regular season is false. Two of the three Cup wins for the Hawks were as division champs, one Presidents’ Trophy winners. The other they were a 100+ point team that watched Kane miss the last quarter of the season through injury in his first MVP-level performance. Generally, the best teams in the regular season kind of remain the best teams in June.

The Hawks seem to be banking on the notion that the Blues have somehow disproved all of this, because they keep saying it. Jonathan Toews gets it, because he’s the only one in the organization who has rightly pointed out that the Blues first half was nothing more than a massive underachievement. After their ’18 summer, the Blues were picked by many to be near or at the top of the Central, which they would have been had they gotten their head out of their ass before January. And thanks to the Jets and Predators, they were anyway.

The Hawks keep making it clear they’ve learned all the wrong lessons from what they think the Blues did or are, and this idea that they have to be heavy to get through the playoffs they very well might not make is going to take everyone down. Which it probably should.

I think one of the events that helped changed the course of the franchise was the outdoor game at Wrigley Field.

Oh do you now? You mean the event you strong-armed and pleaded with the commissioner to get?  You think getting that game had tangible, on-ice results later? Look, it was a fun day and a definite marker that the organization was finally taking itself seriously and the team was on the rise, but it’s a marker, not a direction-changer. How many ribs did you have removed for this one?

The importance of hiring Joel (Quenneville), how he was the perfect fit for all this. Bringing in Marian Hossa, that in my opinion, we don’t win three Stanley Cups without Marian Hossa. I don’t know if you win any. But you got Marian Hossa come in and Brian Campbell and other free agents that played a role, and other players that just emerged in the 2010 Cup team. It wasn’t just your primary players, you think back now and you had Andrew Ladd and you had Dustin Byfuglien and Colin Fraser and Adam Burish and all these guys who played a role, it was a significant role.

Funny how all the moves he was a part of are at the top here, where all the players that were drafted were here when he got here. And what did Fraser and Burish do again, exactly? I’ll hang up and listen for my answer.

That we’ve seen the game go in the last 10 years from being a heavier game, more physical game, fighting played a role in the game before, now it’s speed and skill, and it will probably at some point spin back again. 

No, it won’t, and you need to stop building a team that acts like it will.

So, you’ve got to make real good decisions, prudent decisions on the complimentary players, people that you know may not show up on the scoresheet every night, but they add a lot to your culture.

How’s that gone the past few years? The Russian judge just asphyxiated.

But we recognized, and we did recognize a few years ago, the conference is tougher.

You did? What have you done about it, then? You said a lot of things, we’re still waiting.

We talk about our process and our system every day, and I’m a real big believer that if you do have a good process and a good decision-making system, the wins are going to come, the results are going to come.

Here we go with this happy horseshit again…

It was difficult last year where obviously our penalty kill … we had a very poor season on the penalty kill. It was almost indescribable that we would be ahead in a game and relinquish that lead in many instances within 60-90 seconds or two minutes, and that kind of became a trend. And our penalty kill was just ineffective.

Y’know, all offseason the Hawks have addressed their problems on the kill as something that just happened to them, instead of rightly pinpointing that they had the worst defensive corps in the league and really haven’t improved it that much. Get better players, and you’d be amazed at how much better the kill would be. They think they can solve this systematically, and they can’t.

the St. Louis Blues had the worst record in the NHL on Jan. 1. That’s just the reality of our game. The L.A. Kings won the Stanley Cup a few years ago as the eighth seed in the conference. So, those things can happen.

Per my last email…

Over a period of time, he (Jeremy Collitoin  did a terrific job of earning the respect of our players.

Oh, I think I could find one that might disagree on that one…

I’m not even going to get into the soliloquy about the new scoreboard, but man is he taking credit for that like it’s a new signing.

The fact that we are able to tap into our season-ticket waiting list and they can fill that back up, I think that is remarkable and great credit to Jay Blunk and Chris Werner and their respective staffs to be able to come up with creative ways to do that.

I’m going to let you in on a little secret, folks. They didn’t just tap into it. They burned through almost all of it, and another season missing the playoffs and you’re going to see some shit.

I don’t want to emulate other franchises. I want us to be inventors. I want us to be trailblazers.

This might be my favorite part. He’s talking about game presentation here, the arena experience. And anyone who is even close to the Hawks knows that when McDonough took over, in order to improve the in-game experience at the United Center all he did was follow the Hawks on the road and lift what he liked from other arenas. Even the new scoreboard is following a trend, as Tampa, Denver, and a few other places have brought it the Tyrana-scoreboard years before. McD doesn’t have an original idea anywhere in his body nor within arm’s reach.

When I mentioned to you earlier, what I’m seeing now more than ever before and it’s been an eye opener I think for everyone in our sport, the regular season and the postseason, they don’t resemble each other. The Tampa Bay Lightning were tied for the best record in the history of the NHL. They were swept. There’s a cautionary tale there. You almost need to have two different teams, two different styles, and that’s not easy. 

Again with this. It’s simply not the case. Playoffs are different but they’re hardly uncoordinated to the team you’ve built to get through the 82. What you need is a flexible team, especially when you’re really good, because in a series teams are going to try specific things to beat you that they’re not concerned with in February. The Hawks didn’t fundamentally change their ways when they won in the playoffs, they just turned it up. They could wade through trapping teams because of their skill and they could out-run-n-gun anyone who tried that (except for the Kings that one time) They never out-heavy’d teams. If you tried to be the Blues against them, and the Blues tried it once in that run, they just skated around you, got the puck up the ice quicker, and took advantage of all the odd-man rushes they had.

It feels like this organization’s brain broke when it comes to building a team, and McDonough is all too happy to showcase that.

Ok I’m tired now. Enough.

 

 

 

Baseball

Series Recap – Cubs Blow Their Own Toes Off Two Of Three Times Vs. Brewers: So You’re Serious About This?

By Sam Fels 1452 0

Game 1 Box Score: Brewers 3, Cubs 2

Game 2 Box Score: Brewers 5, Cubs 3

Game 3 Box Score: Cubs 11, Brewers 4

Whatever hopes I had of the Cubs turning into an actual plus team, or at least one that can fake it, pretty much died this weekend. That doesn’t mean they can’t win the division. They still very well might, and I am tempted to say probably might. They could even win a series or two in the playoffs. Stranger things have happened.

But that’s just it. I’m now sort of relying on the “stranger things have happened” portion of my baseball brain/fandom. This was a chance for the Cubs to play like the big boys they claim to be. They didn’t do it. And there are just enough flaws0–the bottom half of the roster and the bullpen–that can’t be entirely fixed before the trade deadline and will just keep the Cubs from ever ripping off 14 of 17 or something like it to put this division to bed.

It’s going to be the drunk sex-est version of the last two months possible. Let’s run it through.

The Two Obs

-Let’s start right at the headline of the weekend and that’s Joe Maddon’s handling of his pitching staff. Now, according to any spreadsheet or analysis, pulling Hendricks after five on Friday is actually the right move. The value of one more inning out of Hendricks, the max you would get, is not equal to Kyle Schwarber taking that AB which essentially became a leadoff one after Bote homered with no outs. In a vacuum, or usually, that would be the right move.

Usually.

However, that doesn’t factor in the utter shambles the pen is right now, and Joe’s plan to get 12 outs involved absolutely nothing going wrong. With this bullpen. It’s the same thing that got Joe in Game 163 last year (what is it about the Brewers?). Normally, not letting your starter see the lineup for a third time, as Joe chose to do back in October, is the right call. But that assumes you have anyone who can consistently get outs from the pen, which you don’t have. In this case, the actual tools at Joe’s disposal outweigh what the “right” call is.

So things don’t go right, everyone throws too many pitches, and you have to use Strop. Who can claim he’s healthy all he wants but it’s pretty clear he isn’t.

-Then again, we’re not talking about any of this, probably, if Eric Thames is rightly rung up. Check out #3 here:

Or there was a pitch to Hiura before that that was a strike. If I want to be Sammy Sunshine, then the Cubs take two of three and we don’t worry so much. On such margins…

-Let’s skip to today and then get to the rest. Still up four runs, Joe pulled Q to get to a pen that just set the season on fire again. Yes, it was a bad 5th inning, but it’s not like Q was getting whacked around. The walks were bad, but he had gotten Saladino to strike out, Cain to lazily fly out, and Yelich’s double was off his fists and simply flared out to the right spot. Yes, you’ve got the off day tomorrow, but you still need innings from your starter. Joe got away with this, but had it gone balls-up it was not hard to see Joe looking for a job by Tuesday.

-Of his last eight outings, Cishek has only managed a clean one in two of them (no hits, no runs). He’s going to be toast earlier this season than last because Joe goes to him five times a week. Using him in the 8th last night was inexplicable, and Wick getting the Cubs out of it only made it more so. Yeah yeah yeah, not wanting to toss an untested kid into big spots and all that. Well that’s if the rest of your pen isn’t disgruntled clowns. He’s here, he has to pitch. This isn’t so hard.

-Right, to Kimbrel. I feel like anything this season we’re just going to have to live with, given the weird build-up for him. The dude probably hasn’t had March-June off since he was like eight years old. Most of the time he’ll look fine if not great. But there are going to be spotty outings, and that’s even with ceding the fact that sometimes the reigning MVP will just do that to you sometimes.

-Maybe moving out of the leadoff spot leads to the Schwarber binge. Maybe it’s too much pressure. That’s two high-leverage situations he finally homered in, so that’s a whole thing. That second homer is a juiced ball joke there, as that was a defensive swing. Then again, so was Yelich’s last night, so it giveth and taketh away.

-The importance of walks and hustle. Happ extends two innings for Schwarber. Contreras beats out some shoddy Brewer defense before Caratini’s homer. At least this was the kind of shit the Cubs weren’t doing earlier.

-Bryant looked terrible the past two days, and it would be a major surprise if he escapes an IL stint to deal with the knee that’s bothering him.

Hey, it could all still look ok with a sweep of the Cardinals. Onwards…

Hockey

Friday Foofaraw: Our Famous Blackhawks Convention Primer

By Sam Fels 1877 0

It’s that time of year again, when John McDonough tries to neuralize the past three or four seasons from Hawks fans’ brains and make them buy stuff! If you’re heading to the Convention, here’s our handy guide to what’s really going on downtown all weekend. 

Friday

5pm – Opening Ceremonies: Hey, do you love championship parades, but without the actual cathartic journey of a season, or actual success, or the actual parade, but just the rally at the end where players stand awkwardly in their jerseys in the heat? Well then this is for you! They’ll even sing the national anthem for no reason!

8pm – Blackhawks Variety Show: Do you like what the Cubs have done with Ryan Dempster, where middling comedians feed him lines he half-delivers (I can say that because I’m friends with them)? Well watch us try it with even dumber Canadians! Except Adam Burish, who is from Wisconsin, which is probably worse. Enjoy the journey of Burish and Dempster one day becoming Chicago’s Statler and Waldorf on all sports.

Saturday

8am – Blackhawks Fitness Presents Pure Barre: Wasn’t Barre like the trend five years ago? How hockey is this that even at a gimmick convention they’re still behind the times? What would be contemporary? OrangeTheory? That nutcase Mark Lazerus just went to work out with? Whatever.

9am – “On The Clock” With Kirby Dach: Follow Dach’s and the Hawks’ journey to what could be a franchise turning moment with the #3 pick…or all the ways he’s not Bowen Byram.

9:30 – Colliton’s Command: You’ll get the chance to make Colliton cry just like Chris Block did in Rockford. Don’t bother asking any questions, because every answer (including during the season) is just going to be…

10:30 – “My Next Guest Is…” with Patrick Kane: Can’t we give Bob Verdi something better to do? Can we get him writing for the Trib again? God knows they could fucking use it. I didn’t realize how good we had it with him and Bernie Lincicome as columnists when I was a kid. And then Bernie went off the goddamn deep end himself.

11:30 – Blackhawks Leadership: Do you want to see a bunch of entrenched white guys who’ll never lose their job but can’t afford to visit Congress? Well, here ya go. Come watch McDonough, Rocky, and Seabrook point at three banners the entire time.

12:30pm – Kids Only Press Conference: You can apparently ask Tommy Hawk a question, even though I’m fairly sure birds don’t talk. Why it’s called “birdwatching” not “bird discussion.” Some parent is going to try and get their child to ask Connor Murphy what it will be like to be traded to Vancouver because of cap concerns though, I’m sure.

2pm – Blackhawks Family Feud: By holding it this early the Hawks are hopeful, just, that Jeremy Roenick won’t be drunk enough to spout something stupid/racist. Why did we continue this show after Richard Dawson was pawing at everything on set before falling down in his own vomit? Have you ever watched Steve Harvey zombie his way through the real thing? The man almost literally cashes his check on camera. But hey, more power to him.

2pm – Hockey Operations: Is it a coincidence they’re having this panel directly opposite the fun and light gameshow one with Hawks legends? Of course it’s not fucko! How dare you think such a thing! Get a look inside the front office as they stare blankly at scouting reports before asking each other, “Hey who was that guy who played on our third line fiveyears ago? Let’s get him back. No way he’ll be worse because he’s older now.”

3:30 – Welcome Back Andrew Shaw: Do not be shocked if they have him come out and beat up one of those dolls the Hanson Brothers do when they make appearances. In fact, maybe Shaw will be dressed as a Hanson brother. I mean, that’s essentially what we’re doing here, right?

4pm – Blackhawks Top Prospects: After answering a fan’s question with, “Yeah, I think I should be on the team this year, I mean, have you seen this oil spill that wears #7? Boqvist is traded to Tampa on Sunday.

4:30 – Reliving The 2010 Stanley Cup: Hooo boy, get ready for this all the time. When you don’t have anything going on presently, nothing sates the people like pumping as many CCs of nostalgia straight into their veins, even if 10 years barely counts as nostalgia. The look on Duncan Keith’s face during all of this next season is going to be priceless. Come hear Adam Burish talk about the one thing that makes anyone know who he is, even though Chris Pronger should have rightly killed him directly afterward. And maybe Dave Bolland can get his wheelchair up the dais!

6:15 – Team Hochberg Shoot The Puck Challenge: Can we get this Hochberg guy to fight that Ankin guy to the death at an intermission some time?

6:30 – The Second City: It’s like the Variety Show but worse! I do this rant every year, but I can never say it enough. Second City is a goddamn scam. While it has produced some very talented people, it has used those names to create an assembly line of incomprehensibly mediocre talents who simply kept paying their money to the name and were moved along simply due to that. But hey, no better way to learn how to be funny to tourist and rubes!

Sunday

10am – “Blackhawks Talk” with Dylan Strome and Alex DeBrincat: Watch Pat Boyle (how is this guy still involved, really?) lob softballs at no-way hungover Strome and DeBrincat. They’ll talk about heading out of their entry-level deals, with Top Cat trying to refrain from yelling, “I’M RICH BIATCH!” and Strome trying to convince everyone he’s not Schmaltz II.

11am – Storytelling With Hockey Hall of Famers: Boy, you have to love a segment that’s called “storytelling” with a bunch of people who took blows to the head for a living. That’s it’s own storytelling right there, people.

Baseball

Series Preview – Cubs vs. Brewers: Please Stand Up

By Sam Fels 1167 0

vs.

RECORDS: Cubs 55-47   Brewers 54-50

GAMETIMES: Friday 7:10, Saturday 6:10, Sunday 1:10

TV: NBCSN Friday, ABC 7 Saturday and Sunday

YA HEY DERE: Brew Crew Ball

PITCHING MATCHUPS

Kyle Hendricks vs. Gio Gonzalez

Jon Lester vs. Chase Anderson

Jose Quintana vs. Zach Davies

PROBABLE CUBS LINEUP

Kyle Schwarber – LF

Javier Baez – SS

Kris Bryant – RF

Anthony Rizzo – 1B

Willson Contreras – C

Robel Garcia – 2B

David Bote – 3B

Ian Happ – CF

PROBABLE BREWERS LINEUP

Lorenzo Cain – CF

Christian Yelich – RF

Yasmani Grandal – C

Mike Moustakas – 3B

Ryan Braun – LF’

Eric Thames – 1B

Keston Hiura – 2B

Orlando Arcia – SS

 

Let’s cast our mind back to 2008. At the end of July that year, a Cubs team that had stormed out of the gates had a bit of a slip, and the Brewers behind them had gotten within touching distance. A series at this time was billed as a division decider, or at least a big indicator. The Cubs proceeded to turn the Brewers brains into mush for four games, and the division was never under discussion again.

To 2015. The Cubs had gotten into the wildcard discussion, but entered a four-game series against the wildcard leading Giants three games back. They beat the Giants every which way twice for four games, moved into the wildcard spot behind the Pirates, never looked back.

2016. The Cubs had stomped all over the NL for the entire season so they never actually had to worry about this shit.

2017. A little later in the season, but a Cubs team that kind of muddled through the whole season trying to find ways to shove its head up its rectum faced six games in September against the Cardinals. They took five of them, including clinching the division in St. Louis and making them watch.

2018. The Cubs faced a decisive Labor Day weekend series in Milwaukee. They got what appeared to be a season-defining, game-turning homer from Anthony Rizzo off Josh Hader, and everything seemed poised to right itself.

Then Carl Edwards Jr. went to the zoo, and you know how the rest goes. See the difference?

It feels like the rest of this road trip is one of those moments for these Cubs. Six games against the other competitors in the Central. On the road, where they have to unfuck themselves tout suite if they have any designs of being something. A scuffling Brewers team that can’t get a start from anyone and has a couple players decaying rapidly in the outfield. The Cubs can’t end the Brewers season here, not with two months to go and the gap so small. But they can certainly make it more challenging, and they can throw some serious questions the Brewers would have to wrestle with. Although, they could end up doing the same to themselves.

Since June 1st, the Brewers are 22-24. In that time, they have a 5.22 ERA from their starters and a 4.69 ERA from their relievers, which is worse than the Cubs even if you don’t believe it. They haven’t even hit that well, though fifth in the worse-than-you-thought NL in the past seven weeks. But that’s what’s kept them somewhat afloat, though the generous nature of the division hasn’t hurt them either.

Yelich you know about. Hiura has done his part to fill in as well, but Moustakas has cooled off considerably since his mega-start. Ryan Braun will occasionally flash the form of old, and he assuredly will again this weekend because that’s what we’ve been sentenced to for our perceived sins, but a lot more of the time he looks like he got his foot stuck in a garbage can. Eric Thames has taken up the mantle after Jesus Aguilar went back to whatever upside-down he emerged from last year, but hasn’t quite matched the production of Aguilar of ’18. Lorenzo Cain died, and yet still hits leadoff for this team. You could argue Craig Counsell has been beholden to name value too much, as Braun and especially Cain probably don’t deserve to hit as high in the lineup as they have based on what they’ve done this year.

He’s got bigger problems in the rotation, though. Brandon Woodruff just went TWANG! and is out until September. Chase Anderson and Kyle Davies have kept the ship afloat of late, but Jhoulys Chacin went back to being Jhoulys Chacin and Gio Gonzalez has been meat for everyone but the Cubs for years now. The Cubs will get a chance to put that right tonight, though consider their struggles against lefties–i.e. having to play some or all of Almora, Bote, and until now Russell–don’t hold your breath. If any lefty can get the Cubs bats going, it’s Gonzalez, who is striking out all of two hitters per nine the past month.

The problems extend to the pen as well. It was never going to match last year’s dominance, because that’s not what pens do. Hader has been good, at times more so, but at other times gettable as he’s actually given up homers this season. Freddy Peralta has some scary strikeout numbers of late but also some scary walk numbers, too. You go ahead and trust Jeremy Jeffress long term if you choose, you can get your pleasure through pain, y’know. Junior Guerra? Get outta here.

For the Cubs, they made a small move today in telling Tim Collins to do one while picking up Derek Holland from the Giants. Holland’s numbers are horrific, but mostly as a starter. Here he’ll be asked to get lefties out, which he’s done pretty effectively. This is exactly the kind of move you make for a bullpen. Costs you nothing, might get something.

In addition, Ian Happ is up, though no word if he’ll go straight into the lineup or not. You’d have to believe he will though, and he’s been better this year right-handed so that’ll just about do it for Almora’s playing time for a while. He could also be playing left for Schwarber to sit against a lefty. We’ll see.

No more bullshit. The Cubs have it in their hands for the next seven days. Do the thing, get yourself out ahead, and play with a lead. Time to play like you were designed or to shut the fuck up about it.

Baseball

Brewers Spotlight: In The Midnight Hour

By Sam Fels 1211 0

Christian Yelich will tell you there haven’t been any swing changes. He’s not trying to make a more uppercut swing. Cubs fans will tell you it’s all the product of strange vents and signals at Miller Park. Brewers fans will tell you they just got the right player at the right time. There’s obviously way more to it and different than that, but whatever the cause, the Brewers have a player who is living in Trout-land this year (you really need to take a minute to consider that as bananas as Yelich’s season is, this is the year Trout puts up every time out. This is just the norm for him. He just shits them out).

While it certainly hurts that the Cubs placed calls to the Marlins about Yelich only to watch him go up the wrong side of I-94, they never could have matched the package the Brewers sent south, nor could anyone have predicted this is what the Brewers would get. While Yelich was certainly entering or had just entered his prime upon moving from Miami to Milwaukee, you don’t expect this kind of spike. “Spike” probably doesn’t even convey it correctly. “Eruption” comes closer.

So what’s fueling the jump from his Marlins days to last year, and last year to this year? Appears to be a couple things, but we’ll see if we can’t find out.

As a Marlin, Yelich used to be your gap-to-gap, line-drive guy. And he still hits a fair amount of line-drives, but over the past two seasons he’s been less and less concerned with going the opposite way. Though when your home stadium rigs your pulled fly balls to ride the jet stream into the bratwurst of Bob and Beverly from Fond du Lac, why wouldn’t you pull the ball as much as you could? Yelich’s opposite field percentage dropped to 27% last year from its usual perch around 30%, and this year it’s a mere 20% as he’s gone whole-hog on the grip-and-rip-it school of hitting philosophy.

He’s taken that last part to a bit of an extreme this year, as he’s swinging at almost 10% more pitches in the zone than he did last year. For the first time in his career he’s above league-average in that department. And much like Anthony Rizzo, there doesn’t seem to be too many places you can go on him now that he can’t get to and do something with. Look at this stupid chart:

So like, low and in is just about the only place. But he can cover all the way past the outside corner while also being able to turn on anything on his hands, keep it fair and send it far. That’s a pretty small target to hit to find salvation on him. Even compared to last year, you really have to go to the extremes to make him miss, and he’s still awfully disciplined so he’s not going to chase the ridiculous:

So yeah, you can’t throw strikes to him because he’ll crush those, and he won’t chase but if he does he’ll probably get to those too and deposit it in a gap somewhere. Great.

Yelich is also hitting the ball harder than just about anyone else, though he always has. His average exit-velocity has always been 92 MPH or above, except for his last year in Miami. So all the Brewers had to do was to encourage him to get it higher, and well here you go. There’s been a ridiculous spike in that this year, with 38.5% of his contact being considered fly balls, compared to just 23% last year. And this is where you might see some swing changes:

So everything in the middle of the zone he’s sending up now, same goes for high in the zone, and even above the zone he’s putting into the air. And in case you think he’s wasting his time going above the zone, he’s slugging over 1.000 in each of the three spots above the strike zone. You can’t beat him high. But go low in the zone and he thwacks those for the line-drives he still puts up and slugs over 1.000 there too. So yeah, you’re fucked.

And the Brewers have needed it to hang on in the Central, thanks to Lorenzo Cain turning into a fine paste at the plate and Jesus Aguilar running dropping and breaking the vial of magic elixir he had leftover from last year. No one has backed up MVP wins in the NL in a decade since Pujols did it. Cody Bellinger will have a say, but the Dodgers are going to be fine if he drops off a bit. The Brewers need every single bit of this from Yelich. Lucky it looks like this is what he is now.

Football

Once Again, The Burden Of Expectation

By Sam Fels 1445 0

Oh I got football thoughts, buddy.

We’ve been here before. No matter who you follow, or what you’ve come here to read, you know. The comparisons ran all last season. The ’08-’09 Hawks. The 2015 Cubs. And now the 2018 Bears. Seasons that went far better than expected, teams filled with young(ish) stars announcing themselves on the big stage for the first time, unadulterated joy from the off (well, after the Packers game that is). The first two portended to much bigger stuff. But before we got to that, we had months of just living in a fantasy world where no one really had to worry about the bigger implications to come. You got to be in the moment, completely, which is rare anywhere these days.

So the Bears find themselves in between the steps that both the Hawks and Cubs took. The larger implications are here now, which really means the expectations. Anything less than confetti showers and Virginia McCaskey being knocked over by trying to hold the Lombardi Trophy will be considered failure. The pure exhilaration of last year, the seemingly out-of-nowhere success, AN ACTUAL USEFUL BEARS TEAM FOR FUCK’S SAKE, that’s all gone now. Every win will have a context, a meaning to what comes next, until you get to the end. It’s now a simply pass/fail class.

And yet, football is different (wow, keen analysis, hockey boy). Whereas those seasons for the Hawks and Bears ended with nothing but expectation and excitement for the following campaign, there is a feeling of missed opportunity for the Bears. One, they weren’t simply outclassed at the last hurdle like the Hawks were back then by the Wings. Or simply helpless at the feet of a machine that had everything go right, as the Cubs did that year to the Mets pitching staff (which has never been able to duplicate it since because METS). The NFC was open for the Bears, and they lost to Nick Foles tossing up wounded turkeys that they could only pick off twice instead of the four it should have been. The Rams and Saints were obviously vulnerable, too. It was all there for them.

Internally, the Bears may never have as healthy and functional of a defense as they did last season. Already we have the questions about Chuck Pagano taking over for (Boers Voice) Vic Fangio. Adrian Amos is gone. So’s Bryce Callahan. HaHa Clinton-Dix has pedigree, but is far from a sure thing. Buster Skrine certainly gives the platform for a ton of Coen Brothers jokes, but will he be as exposed as non-Callahan slot corners were last year? And that’s not even getting into health, because it’s unlikely you’ll get 16 games of Earth-destroying play from Akiem Hicks again. Those four picks could have happened if Eddie Jackson was on the field. Will the defense suffer if he misses time again?

Of course, we’ve been here before with the Bears. The 2005 season was the same kind of joy, with another young, brash, emerging defense (though absolutely carrying a decidedly wagon-wheel offense). It ended with a bitter playoff loss at home as well (where your local mechanic was covering Steve Smith for some reason). It felt like the Bears missed something then too, as the Seahawks were hardly a great team.

But the 2006 Bears responded, didn’t shy from the expectations and predictions, roaring to a 7-0 start and eventually a 13-3 record (only the third time the franchise has amassed 13 wins or more, which seems off). We won’t talk about how that ended.

And just like before that season, a lot of hope hinges on a quarterback we have more questions than answers about. Just like Rex did before it all became clear, there are flashes of top-level throws and plays from Mitch. And then there are the ones that leave you with an expression on your face that if you hold for just one second longer will cause permanent damage to the muscles contained therein. We just don’t know. Anyone who says they know is selling something. But Mitch will be swallowed and spit out by this town if they even get a whiff that he’ll be a reason it doesn’t get its second Super Bowl. We’ve done it before.

If you Occam’s Razor this, the most likely ending is with the Bears in the NFC Championship game at worst. There are playmakers all over the field. You can’t make the QB’s job much cushier. The defense is laden with game-turners. They have the swagger already. And while you know there will be injuries, they could just as easily be small and to non-vital players or vital ones for just a week instead of catastrophe. It can go either way.

It just won’t be possible to be as in the moment as we were last year. You’ll always have one eye on the end this time around. You can’t say, “This is so much fun, it doesn’t matter where it goes.” We already did that. You only get it once. You can try, and you’ll maybe even succeed for a short time.

But January will still deal the only feeling and verdict that matters for this team. And this is a definite chance. Unless you’re the Patriots and you’ve found some vortex that only they can see, you only get three or four years. Hell, the Bears are three years away from having to pay Trubisky the boat and losing other pieces to do so or concluding he’s not good enough–which probably means you haven’t won–and starting over.

It goes fast in football. Faster than anywhere else. You can’t miss the bear now.

 

Football

The Sons Of Wilber Marshall – Introducing Our Bears Wing And Training Camp Opening Roundtable

By Sam Fels 1709 0

We threatened you. We warned you. And because no one told us no, we’re going to do it. We’re bringing our madness to the Chicago Bears. Because you know they deserve it. So today, we introduce you to our troika of misfits that are going to take this on: Brian Schmitz, Wes French, and Tony Martin. LET’S KICK THIS PIG!

So with vets reporting today, what are you guys looking for in B0urbonnais, other than no one getting hurt?

Brian Schmitz: I personally cannot wait to see Robbie Gould back in a Bears jersey. Too soon?

Defensively, I want to see how how well the players transition from Vic Fangio to Chuck Pagano. The Bears are so talented on defense that a lot a alignment and assignment mistakes will be covered up by pure athleticism.  Offensively, I can’t wait to see who is the first reporter to declare what a great camp Adam Shaheen is having. I’m also excited to see if a healthy Anthony Miller will get more looks. This guy has the skills to be a #1.
Tony Martin: I’m with you on Anthony Miller. Dude is a beast, and I think if he recovers from his shoulder injury he could be a dominant wideout. 

I’m actually interested in seeing if any major names don’t make the team as the Bears start looking towards future salary cap constraints. If Danny Trevathan gets cut I’d be shocked, but if Taylor Gabriel were to be released I wouldn’t be nearly as blown away.  I’m super interested in seeing if Kerrith Whyte Jr makes the squad and how he’d be used. If some of these draft picks pan out, the Bears offense could look like a Madden playbook I created while high at 3am, with like spread formations with  four running backs and a tight end on the field.
Brian: Trey Burton is another guy who needs to have a good pre-season. The organization isn’t exactly happy with the way he ended last season and at this point, it’s more than fair to label him as unreliable and soft.
Tony: I think Burton is the most likely candidate to win “Starter from last year who is cut this year”, but that also implies Shaheen has a good preseason, which isn’t a given. 

So, does Matt Nagy take the next step and open up even more of the playbook this year? I’m all in, let’s get weird. If Akiem Hicks is running for touchdowns in year one, what sort of bananas shit can we expect to see?  Calling it now: Khalil Mack catches a touchdown this year, from someone who isn’t Mitch Trubisky. You heard it here first.
Wes French: I’ll start on defense, where I agree I’m interested to see the shift from Fangio to Pagano, but I want to see if anyone slips/steps up under the new boss. Will we see Roquan Smith become the defensive centerpiece/signal caller he was at Georgia or will that take another season or so under a new coordinator? Quan seemed pretty well ready to take over the defense late last year…Was Vic a “whisperer” to any major contributors to the defense that could fall off under the new boss? Will anyone clash with Pagano/his style? I think we’ll get that answer sooner than later with how camp starts on that side of the ball.  

Count me as the third amigo/musketeer/likely dipshit that’s beyond sold on Anthony Miller as a sure star. Get him the ball, do it often…but will there be enough touches to go around? I also agree Nagy and Co. will get weirder (in the best way) this year, and the guy I am most intrigued by is Corderelle Patterson. He lined up at RB for half his touches in Foxboro and I have to think the versatility is going to bring some funky ass sets this year. 3 RB/2TE? 2RB/3 TE? I can guarantee you that man will be in motion pre-snap basically every time he’s on the field. 
The biggest question about the myriad options with the personnel and playbook is at the center of it all: Mitch. They made the playoffs last year with their signal caller playing WILDLY inconsistent. How, and more importantly if, Mitch has progressed with a full year/offseason under Nagy’s watch is going to be the real driver of this campaign. All the fun that they draw up won’t matter if Mitch keeps sailing balls to wide open targets or missing open reads. I love me some Mitch, but this is a massive year for him and his GM that staked his reputation on Trubs tapping that potential of his.
Brian: I’m honesty glad and proud of each of you for not mentioning the placekicking situation in your early emails. Thank you for that. It’s such an overblown and ridiculous storyline that lazy ass media members continue to talk about only because it’s low hanging fruit and requires no prep work or research.

We are all in agreement that Nagy will continue to get creative in the regular season. Are we also in agreement that he will continue to shit down his leg in the playoffs and choke games away? Asking for a friend.
Tony: Yeah, the kicking game is not really much of a concern for me, it’s literally a meme at this point. Thanks a lot, Cris Collinsworth. Does the lack of a solid kicker worry me? Of course it does, but there’s plenty of time to see who does well this preseason both in Bourbonnais and in other camps and bring them in. 

I’ll also go on the record saying the one downside to having a team that people want to watch on prime time is how many times I’m gonna have to hear Collinsworth or Joe Buck call a game. I’m so used to Fox’s C-level announce team that I want Kenny Albert to do the play by play at my funeral. 
As for Nagy, I think having the ability to use more of his playbook will be a good thing. That “next step” phase that we’re all looking to from Mitch also needs to apply to play calling. Sometimes on 3rd and 3 you need to be able to feel confident in your teams ability to get those yards without having to resort to some play that looks like a deleted scene from Little Giants. I’m not that old school meatball fan who screams about running the ball up the middle the entire time, but I think the offense is good enough to not need to run a triple option to pick up a crucial first down. 
You guys have mentioned a few guys on offense you’re watching closely, and you’ve mentioned Pagano as well. Is there a player on defense you’ll be watching closely, either for a breakout season indications or possibly be a surprise demotion or cut?
Brian: The Bears thought enough of John Franklin III to bring him back again this year. This guy is arguably the most athletic player on the roster and is trying to make the transition from a lifelong quarterback to a DB – to make this position change at the NFL level, you have to be special, and I believe the organization thinks he is. Depending how impressive he is in camp, he could, at the very least provide some insurance for the old and oft-injured Prince Amukamara; and at best, be a value replacement for the 30-year-old who, while having a solid season in 2018, has been on the downside of his career for a while now.
Wes: Whoa, hey, I wanted to get in on the kicker talk since it’s all anyone seemed to care about in the Spring! Not really, I think it’s pretty embarrassing that the mini camp was basically devoted to coming up with wild scenarios for guys to kick meaningless FGs in. They’ll have some rookie or camp cut rookie/vet and that’ll be that. I won’t be shocked if they burn through a couple kickers by seasons end. I can’t help but notice no one has mentioned the new backfield savior, David Montgomery, either. Maybe we’re already tired of hearing about how great his character is and what a steal he’s set to be. To me this screams of future disappointment, but I guess we’ll find out soon enough.

I’m watching the defensive backfield closer than other position groups at camp. Pagano made his money coaching up the Ravens secondary through their years of dominance and I’m interested to see how everything settles with the DBs. That’s the only group that sees new faces in starting roles, so the easy answer is will Buster Skrine/Ha Ha Clinton-Dix come in and keep the status quo or better, or will we see some troubles early on replacing the stud nickel Bryce Callahan and the under appreciated Adrian Amos? The Skrine signing was met with some raised eyebrows and Ha Ha is already on the PUP so we’re off to a very Chicago sports start on that front. 
An individual I’m keying on is probably in direct competition with your boy J Franks the 3rd – Stephen Denmark. If you’re not familiar with the 2019 7th Rd pick, he’s got a pretty winding path to the DB group as well. Denmark is quite new to the defensive backfield, having lined up only one season there at Valdosta St. after playing wide out his whole career prior, with a lot to be desired. You won’t find many 6’3″ Corners around the league, and there’s no guarantee that Denmark sticks there, but he’s got the bloodline (father, three brothers all played some level of D1 college or pros) and the athleticism to make a stand out impression, be it at corner or safety. I’d guess the Bears try to stash him on the practice squad and develop him for the year, but if he shows the kind of promise discussed out of the draft the vultures could circle to pluck him off the squad. 
I’m going to add a player on offense here as well because I’m five hours behind on vacation and feel a bit left out, and there’s nothing you can do about it, Fels (besides edit it out and make this all just wasted time). Riley Ridley seemed like a guy that should not have been around in the late 4th Rd, but there he was and the Bears made him a luxury pick given what they’ve spent on the WR position in the last two seasons. I believe he’s well worth it, though, as an elite route runner dropped into a system predicated on receivers being in the right spot, every time. Someone up there mentioned Taylor Gabriel as a possible shocking, albeit mildly, cut. Thanks to our friends at Over The Cap you’ll see that cutting Gabriel now would have zero cap savings and $6.5M in dead money, but say another team thin at the position or sees a string of camp injuries at wideout and a trade for a future pick materializes. Trading Gabriel is much more palatable with a little under $2M in dead money against almost $6M in cap savings. If the WR room gets crowded this Fall because Ridley, Miller and any one of the many WR fighting for special teams reps force the issue, I’d look for Gabriel to get dealt on the cheap before anyone gets outright cut. 
Tony: I could see Gabriel as trade bait, for sure. In terms of next steps being taken, Bilal Nichols is going to be a beast this year. I don’t see Jonathan Bullard breaking out, but I think this year finds Nichols and Roy Robertson-Harris stepping up in a big way. 

The David Montgomery hype is getting to me, tbh. Let’s see this man suit up and play before he’s anointed the next great Bears RB, ya know? He has to learn the offense, and his scouting report via PFF lists his receiving ability as a weakness, something that might limit his snap count. 
At the end of the day, I’m interested in what sort of formation/personnel wrinkles we’ll see in the new defense. Is Pagano going to consistently use his front 3/4 to generate pressure, or is he going to utilize the greatest buzzword in all of football: “exotic blitzes”. Is Eddie Jackson going to be asked to continue to roam the middle of the field and read the QB, or will he have less freedom in this new system? There’s no doubt that Bryce Callahan is a beast at nickel corner in a Vic Fangio defense, can we even be sure Chuck Pagano will ask Buster Skrine to do something similar? The fit between scheme and player was ideal last year, and I’m hoping this year is more of the same. I think Ha Ha will play well and earn that multi year deal somewhere else next year. 
Baseball

Series Recap – Cubs Lose Two Of Three Vs. Giants: You Can’t Live With The Anal Horseshoe

By Sam Fels 1146 0

Game 1 Box Score: Giants 5, Cubs 4

Game 2 Box Score: Giants 5, Cubs 4 (13)

Game 3 Box Score: Cubs 4, Giants 1

It’s hypocritical after I got emotional after last night’s loss, and there was nearly a hole in my wall to prove it, but sometimes you run into a team that’s got a horseshoe up its ass for a period of time and there’s little you can do. Yeah, four runs isn’t a ton, but it’s also not a pittance. Really, as I went over in the Strop piece yesterday, one killing rally was started by Pablo Sandoval ripping a ball off his shoelaces, and another was ended by him doing the same. What do you do about that? You can rant and rave about more runs, and especially last night the Cubs probably should have found one more, but sometimes you’re dealing with forces beyond your capability. At least that’s what I’m hoping.

The Two Obs

-I’m going to motherfuck Alex Mills into a major league career. That change-up certainly plays at a major league level, but he’ll have to locate his fastball a little better because it’s not hard enough to not get killed when he misses with it (there’s a lot of negatives for you). Still, let’s all hope that’s his last start of the season.

-Am I living in a world where I have to accept Kyle Ryan is effective? His ground-ball rate since June 1 is in the high 60s, which is pretty obscene. These days with the pen, maybe it’s best to not ask too many questions because generally you’re not going to want the answers.

-Perhaps the main headline out of the series is that the Cubs finally punted Addison Russell’s ass back to the corn. Russell himself left them with no choice, or made his position untenable, not only through his play but also by admitting to being careless and rock stupid. I’m not sure the front office cares what the fans think, but I’m sure there were some curious looks from teammates when they read or heard the quotes about Russell not knowing or not following the signs. I’m going to guess they all know them.

All of it is an endorsement for Robel Garcia, who runs the risk of getting found out but can at least hit the ball damn hard. The defense is always going to be questionable, but for a third of the season you might be able to mitigate a good chunk of that through positioning. Hell, it’s what the Brewers did last year.

-I’m going to guess Bryant’s knee-knack isn’t that serious given the way he was paddling the ball all over the field this series.

-Almora had a homer today, and it would be nearly impossible for him to see Russell’s demotion and think he’s immune. He is hitting worse after all. I don’t know if Albert can save himself, and I don’t know that he will even be a Cub this time next week. It feels like he’s gotten pull-happy, but he doesn’t have the opposite field power of some, so I don’t know that being content dumping singles over the second baseman’s head is going to be sufficient.

-It’s just a touch infuriating to watch Chatwood gas the Giants with 97 MPH for four innings and wonder why he can’t ever get in a game. Yes, we know about how the control can go, but that’s not going to get better with use twice a month. Again, at least once a week Chatwood should be carrying multiple innings to save everyone else from exposure. I don’t know what’s so hard about this, but it clearly has never crossed Joe’s mind.

So the first part didn’t go as planned, but basically by coin flip. The Cubs still suck on the road, but now there’s no choice but to turn it up. The Brewers are vulnerable at the moment, and it’s time to stomp some goddamn authority or stop pretending you’re the class of the division. Let’s fucking go. Chimi-fucking-changas.

Onwards…