Baseball

Cubs Make Strange Yet Kind Of Nothing Trade

By Sam Fels 1726 0

I remember Joe Sheehan (who had an interesting and misguided angle on last night’s trade) writing about this the night after THE NIGHT in Cubs history. It was about how random it was for Mike Montgomery to be on the mound to get the last out. How he had been traded three times, never really flourished, seemed a surplus-acquisition at the time, ended up being pretty useful in a couple of roles, and here he was throwing the biggest pitch in Cubs history. Baseball can be strange that way.

And it can also be strange in that not even three years later, you’re now surplus to requirements and headed to the basement, standings-wise, in Kansas City. Baseball can be fickle, too.

So it proved with Montgomery, who kind of pitched himself out of a role this season. It’s rare that a pitcher can hang onto the “tweener” role for a lot of years. If you’re not good enough to start and pretty much not good enough to take a prominent relief role, eventually you’re just plain not going to be good enough. Something happened to Monty’s fastball/sinker this year and he’d been straight gasoline. The future wasn’t bright either, as if even two spots were to open in the rotation next year (one is more likely if any), then Adbert Alzolay is going to take it.

Montgomery made it clear he wanted to start, and that’s his prerogative. His stuff does lean toward starter, I just don’t think his stuff is good enough to negotiate a lineup two or three times. Not our problem now. He requested out, he got his request, and we thank him for his services. He wasn’t going to be the long man here with Chatwood around (though Joe Maddon doesn’t want to seem to use him in that role either), he’s never been a LOOGY and definitely should be aiming for higher than that, and doesn’t have the stuff to be a shutdown guy. No use trying to jam it into the puzzle here.

So to Martin Maldonado, who was available for just money in the winter. The Cubs demurred, preferring to let Victor Caratini assume the backup role, which he’s done with aplomb. It seems really odd that the Cubs would trade an actual something for a catcher merely to fill in one or two days while Willson Contreras is hurt. So what’s really going on here? And what changed between the winter and now?

The obvious answer, and one nearest the conspiracy theorist’s heart, is that Caratini is about to be part of a package to bring another reliever or bat to the Northside. You’d have to think there’s some market for a young, switch-hitting catcher who can hit and has decent enough framing numbers. He also walks. There is some puff to Caratini’s numbers, but his contact numbers suggest it isn’t much puff. Considering the rest he’s been able to provide Contreras over the past few weeks, you could see where the Cubs would be comfortable riding Willy hard (phrasing?) in the season’s last two months. That is if he were healthy, which he’s not, and while the Cubs are saying it won’t be more than the 10 days for his arch problem, the fact that it could have been made worse playing on it doesn’t exactly instill you with confidence about the rest of the season.

Maldonado definitely can’t hit, but he can catch and frame and all that, and is pretty much the definition of a backup catcher for hire these days. If he’s just third on the depth-chart, it would seem weird that the Cubs want to carry three catchers. Maddon hated doing it in the past when Contreras came up in 2016, but there was little choice given David Ross‘s and Miguel Montero‘s statuses.

If Caratini is traded, it would first obviously depend on the return, and second would put the Cubs in the exact same situation next winter that Caratini bailed them out of this time around. No backup for Contreras, signing some plug and perhaps overworking Willson. I guess that’s a minor problem in the grand scheme of things, though.

Some of the more mischievous around would opine that it actually means more of Contreras in right field, letting Caratini catch to boost the offense. Given how highly the Cubs rate defense (it’s why Russell and Almora still get starts, people), and that would give the Cubs possibly the worst defensive outfield in baseball (Heyward isn’t that good in center despite what you might think), I find that hard to believe. It would be creative, I’m just not sure if it wouldn’t be creatively destructive. Especially as so far this year, only Cole Hamels has kept things on the ground at more than an average or below-average rate.

For right now, the Cubs lost a nothing to gain really a nothing, and that’s all it may be if Maldonado is moved to Iowa when Contreras is healthy and is basically here to save us from the Taylor Davis Experience ever again. It’s what comes next that’s interesting.

Hockey

Selling Low

By Sam Fels 2392 0

Man, I really enjoyed that week where I didn’t write about the Hawks. But as that obnoxious bar on the Southside wrote on November 3rd, 2016, “All good things must come to an end.”

There seems to be two schools of thought on the Henri Jokiharju trade, probably the last big move of the summer aside from all the “Boy this kid looked good in drills at Prospects Camp!” articles. One is it’s a sign of the true incompetence of the Hawks, giving up on a player before his second professional season merely because he was confident and thought he belonged in the lineup over Brent Seabrook, which he did, and getting essentially nothing in return. The other is that Jokiharju only impressed in the Hawks defense last season because it was that bad, really never flashed a plus-skill, and seemed very much a floor-guy instead of a ceiling guy.

I happen to think both of these things are true, but I’m going to use it to frame a larger picture.

The prevailing theory around here has been that the Hawks pro scouting sucks ass (and it does), while their European and amateur scouting has been pretty good. The former still remains true, though that will hinge on what Kubalik and Wedin provide this season. It’s the latter that we really have to start to question.

Over the last seven drafts, here are the players taken to make any impact for the Hawks: Teravainen, Hinostroza, Hartman, Schmaltz, DeBrincat. You can add a couple names that have played but really didn’t do much: Dahlstrom, Hayden, Sikura, Jokiharju. On that list, only Dahlstrom is even on the roster.

Just looking around, that’s not a terrible number. For example, the Lightning have taken six players (arguably) over the last seven years to make a serious impact for them: Joseph, Cirelli, Vasilevskiy, Pacquette, Point, Drouin (who got them Sergachev, and we’ll come back to this). The Predators have only had five: Arvidsson, Fiala, Seth Jones, Saros, and Sissons, though Kamenev and Girard did land them Kyle Turris (whatever that means for you). The Bruins, a team that’s been competitive for as long if not longer than the Hawks, have seven: Grzelcyk, Heinen, Pastrnak, Carlo, DeBrusk, McAvoy, and arguably Donato who helped get them Coyle.

The Penguins have only taken five players to make an impact in the league in the past seven years: Guentzel, Murray, Simon, Kapanen, and Maatta, with Kapanen used to get Phil Kessel in part.

So I guess the Hawks are something like average or so. What’s galling is that because none of the players who actually had an impact are on the team anymore, the only thing the Hawks have to show for all of them is Dylan Strome, with the jury very much out on (at least in my mind, the Hawks seem desperate to hand him $7M after the season. Though they were for Schmaltz, too). Teravainen and Hinostroza were lost simply to get rid of bad contracts. Hartman for a pick and EggShell, who will now never play another game for the Hawks. You’ve got the one prime player in Top Cat, and maybe a useful piece in Sikura (very questionable) and whatever Strome turns out to be.

Which makes it feel like when the Hawks move a player they’ve taken, they’re always selling low. Having a logjam of defensive prospects isn’t a bad thing. Even if you were down on Jokiharju, this is still a player who is 20, who was the top pairing d-man on a World Junior championship team, and a former first round pick. Would it have been a crime to let him tear up the AHL for another half-season or so to entice someone into actually giving you something for him? It’s not like there was a clock on this.

Or perhaps the whole league had seen Jokiharju for what he might be, but that doesn’t exactly give you confidence in the Hawks’ scouting and development either. This smacked of getting rid of to get rid of, which isn’t exactly how you build a consistent winner. And this is the NHL, there’s a sucker in a GM chair tons of places. Just throw a rock and you’ll hit one.

We could do a whole other full post, and probably will, about how Jokiharju was moved really in service of their terror of Seabrook turning on them, which is yet another discouraging sign of how the Hawks operate. But for now, it’s kind of alarming how many picks just turn into nothing for the Hawks. The record over seven classes is one star, and one traded for what might be a lateral move in Strome.

Curiouser and curiouser…

Baseball

Series Preview – Reds vs. Cubs: Bogey Bogey Bogey, Can’t You See?

By Sam Fels 1233 0

vs.

RECORDS: Reds 42-48   Cubs 50-43

GAMETIMES: Monday and Tuesday 7:05, Wednesday 1:20

TV: NBCSN Monday and Wednesday, WGN Tuesday

CHRIS SABO APPRECIATION SOCIETY: Blog Red Machine

PITCHING MATCHUPS

Luis Castillo vs. Kyle Hendricks

Anthony DeSclafani vs. Alec Mills

Sonny Gray vs. Yu Darvish

PROBABLE REDS LINEUP

Nick Senzel – CF

Joey Votto – 1B

Eugenio Suarez – 3B

Yasiel Puig – RF

Jesse Winker – LF

Jose Iglesias – SS

Jose Peraza – 2B

Curt Casali – C

PROBABLE CUBS LINEUP

Kyle Schwarber – LF

Javier Baez – SS

Kris Bryant -3B

Anthony Rizzo – 1B

Willson Contreras – C

Jason Heyward – RF

Robel Garcia – 2B

Albert Almora – CF

 

After taking care of one of the teams that made the last road trip hell with a three-game sweep of the Pirates, the Cubs will try and right previous wrongs against this year’s definite bogey team, the Reds. The Cubs have lost all three series to these assholes, who are something of an analytic darling with their subpar record but glittering run-differential. They seem intent on proving why that’s the case against the Cubs this year, which has been infuriating.

The Reds come in after getting knocked all around Coors Field for three days, giving up 19 runs in the last two games (though they won one of those as they scored 17 one night). That won’t help the Cubs much, as they’ll get the Reds three best starters in Gray, DeSclafani, and Castillo tonight. Gray and DeSclafani have been on particular rolls the past month, calming down the walks which had been a problem earlier. It’s been the reverse for Castillo, who has walked nearly six hitters per nine innings over the past 30 days. That said, his last two starts against the Cubs and Brewers have seen him throw 14.2 innings while giving up a run, so he’s probably found it again. Goodie. Just what we need.

The Cubs simply couldn’t get Joey Votto out last time, and then it was a rotating cast of miscreants that came up with big hits, notably Phillip Ervin. He went 5-for-10 with a homer in the last set, and seemingly all of them came at the biggest moments. It’s been that way in every game against the Reds this year seemingly, with the Cubs nominating a new doofus in red the hero of the day when they can least afford to.

The Cubs scored more than enough runs to sweep the Reds last time, but were unlucky to lose Cole Hamels before the second inning ever started, which forced whatever is parading around in Mike Montgomery‘s skin these days to come in and offer up sacrifices to the gods. Their bullpen weaved some magic in the finale of that one, and we can only hope that won’t happen this time around. Carl Edwards is likely to return at some point during the series, which would be a boost of some kind, assuming his head his screwed on tight.

If there’s been a soft spot on the Reds of late it’s in the pen, with only Michael Lorenzen and his Farnsworth-tight pants being consistent the past month. The Cubs got to Raisel Iglesias the last time they saw him, but he’s put up four scoreless outings since. David Hernandez and Amir Garrett have walked the park lately, so if the Cubs need to catch-up or add-on in the late innings for the next three days, they’ll have to display the same patience they discovered against the Pirates this weekend.

The Cubs have opened up just slightly with the sweep, having a 2.5-game lead now on Milwaukee and three on the Scum. With the Brewers having to deal with the Braves this week, this feels like an opportunity to open that up even more, especially as it’s the Pirates and Giants after this and neither are exactly inspiring (though the Giants have played better of late). We’ve been asking for months now but it’s time to turn it on, all the way up.

 

Baseball

Reds Spotlight: Stamp Your Form, Sonny

By Sam Fels 1175 0

Yankees fans have always had players they irrationally disliked. Any acquisition is supposed to be THE ONE that returns the Yanks to their rightful place atop the MLB forever, or so they would have you believe. And if they don’t become that, they are forever discarded as trash, with “Yeah well he didn’t do it in the Bronx so it doesn’t count.”

Gray had a rough September upon his arrival in New York in 2017, with a 4.58 ERA and even worse peripherals as he came to terms with the far different environs of Yankee Stadium than from the Coliseum in Oakland. In the East Bay you can actually give up a fly ball without it sending off sirens, but as we know that’s not the case in New York.

Gray wasn’t much better last year in pinstripes, as he was definitely spooked by the previous experience, as his walks tickled four per nine innings, by far the highest of his career. He still wasn’t that bad, worth 1.6 fWAR last year for a playoff team with a 4.17 FIP. But that wasn’t good enough for the Yanks front office, which was eyeing upgrades in the rotation to run with Sale, Eovaldi, and Price in Boston (which has worked out, you’d have to say). So Gray was moved to Cincinnati, which isn’t exactly a more forgiving park for pitchers.

Hasn’t mattered to Gray this year, who was an All-Star, has lowered his ERA by a run and a half, his FIP by a full run, and upped his strikeouts by nearly two per nine innings/seven percent. Gray has only given up nine homers, including only four at his home park where hitters can generally sneeze and get one over the fence (or is that just Cubs pitchers?). So how has he done it?

Gray has eschewed a sinker/cutter he was using in New York, and has opted for more four-seam fastballs. He has not approached the levels of fastballs he threw in his prime years in Oakland yet, but he’s back over 50%. He has rediscovered some velocity though, throwing it harder than he ever has at 93.9 MPH.

And like a lot of other pitchers, Gray has tried to live higher in the zone than before, trying to get past hitters and their new and fancy uppercut swings. Visual evidence you require? We got it:

That has seen a slight uptick in whiffs on his fastball, and gotten more pop-ups and fly balls, at least of the weak variety in the latter.

But still, giving up fly balls in Cincy can be a death wish, so Gray had to find a way to get more grounders for what’s a pretty good infield defense, especially now that Scooter Gennett is back. Gray is getting a career-high ground-ball rate this year, up five percent from last year as a Yankee.

Gray has gotten that through his curve and slider, which are just two versions of the same pitch depending on how much he takes off and puts on it. Both have seen a 10% increase or so in grounders, playing off the focus on being high in the zone or above it with the fastball.

After his travails in New York, eyebrows were moving upward when the Reds signed Gray to a three-year extension immediately upon getting him. However, now the $10M per season he’ll be earning after this one seems a bargain, taking him until he’s 32. With Gray and Castillo locked in for the next few years, the Reds might actually have the base for a good rotation for the next little while. When have we ever said that?

Baseball

Series Wrap – Cubs Sweep Pirates: I’ll Have More Of That, Please

By Sam Fels 1485 0

Game 1 Box Score: Cubs 4, Pirates 3

Game 2 Box Score: Cubs 10, Pirates 4

Game 3 Box Score: Cubs 8, Pirates 3

That’s about as perfect of a start out of the All-Star Break as you could have asked for, aside from one Pedro Strop two-seamer that still hasn’t landed. And even that didn’t end up mattering. Three quality starts. A lot of offense, from a lot of places. Kris Bryant binge. Other than Strop, clean enough work from the pen. No dumbass mistakes. And suddenly, just like that the Cubs have some breathing space atop the NL Central. Nice how that works, eh? Let’s run it through.

The Two Obs

-Let’s start with the only bad aspect, and that’s Strop. At least he didn’t give up a wall-scraper. Strop’s velocity on his four-seam is down this year, significantly. FanGraphs has it nearly two MPH, BrooksBaseball has it at about one MPH and a half slower. Which has led to Strop trying to use a cutter or two-seam, and a splitter more. You see the results. Everything but the slider is getting tagged right now, and the way the two-seamer to Marte leaked up and in just like it did to Eloy is concerning. Strop can’t throw all slider, though maybe he should think about just doing it mostly. In ’15 and ’16 he threw it nearly half the time. What do we have to lose here?

In a perfect world, Carl Edwards would just come back from his rehab, you’d stick him in that slot and let Strop work things out in lower leverage spots for a while. But this is Carl Edwards we’re talking about here. He’s always looking for an excuse to fold in on himself like a flan in a cupboard. Still need answers out there.

-To their credit, you would have been forgiven if you thought Strop’s chum to Marte would signal another one that would get away. Instead, the Cubs locked down for once, just got another run immediately and closed it out. And they did it with timely baserunning and hitting, with Bryant knowing exactly where the outfielders were and getting a great jump on Heyward’s single. That’s a team a little more locked in, though Bryant was never really at the center of those problems.

-Look, Yu Darvish’s splitter was back, thrown about 10 times on Friday and got whiffs on 75 percent of them. He used his slider more, though I think his slider and cutter are probably the same pitch and it’s just how he accentuates it. The 36 sliders he threw were the most since that start against the Marlins where he couldn’t find the 5th. Hopefully he’s unlocked something here.

-Contreras’s homer in Saturday’s 1st inning is almost certainly the result of the ball. He didn’t get full extension on it, seemed to even get under it a touch, and sliced it into the third row. But hey, who’s complaining?

-Jason Heyward with six hits, two game-winners on the weekend, and an .833 OPS. Thanks much.

-I don’t know if Robel Garcia is any good. I know it’s worth finding out. And I’m not sure Nick Castellanos is that much of an answer, though he should at least be cheap.

-Just enough change-ups from Quintana today to keep the Pirates off balance. He got a bit Fiendish Kung Fu Treachery’d in the third, but settled down the rest of it. Again, quality starts is all this team really should require.

-It worked out, but I’m still furious about Joe actually thinking a Rosario-Bell matchup on Friday was a good idea, because the fury helps to plug the hole within me.

-Given what Caratini has provided and there’s been no need to burn Contreras, I would expect Willy to have a huge August and September.

Onwards…

Baseball

Series Preview – Pirates vs. Cubs: No Time For Silliness, Dr. Jones

By Sam Fels 1162 0

vs.

RECORDS: Pirates 44-45   Cubs 47-43

GAMETIMES: Friday-Sunday 1:20

TV: NBCSN Friday, WGN Saturday, ABC 7 Sunday

CANDELARIA’S CADRE: Bucs Dugout

PITCHING MATCHUPS

Chris Archer vs. Yu Darvish

Jordan Lyles vs. Jon Lester

Trevor Williams vs. Jose Quintana

PROBABLE PIRATES LINEUP

Adam Frazier – 2B

Bryan Reynolds – LF

Starling Marte – CF

Josh Bell – 1B

Melky Cabrera – RF

Colin Moran – 3B

Kevin Newman – SS

Jacob Stallings – C

PROBABLE CUBS LINEUP

Kyle Schwarber – LF

Javier Baez – SS

Kris Bryant – 3B

Anthony Rizzo – 1B

Victor Caratini – C

Jason Heyward – RF

Robel Garcia – 2B

Albert Almora Jr. – CF

 

The Cubs begin the post-break schedule, hoping the rest and now shorter half of the slate will rouse them from their season-long slumber/malaise/absence of give-a-fuck. Perhaps the sight of the team their manager is trying to drum up a rivalry with out of nothing will act as the greenie they need.

And that will be the main story for the weekend, whether the Pirates and Cubs get into more mishegas about pitches inside and whether or not they are throwing at each other. Maddon was clearly trying to get some jump from his team with his theatrics over the July 4th holiday, but his team certainly needed it. There’s no question that Clin Turtle is something of a red-ass, and the Pirates do seem to find themselves in the middle of these more often than other teams. They’ve already been in it with the Cubs and Reds this year, and other teams had something to say.

You’d like to think the Cubs have bigger fish to fry. They’ve dicked around all season and yet find themselves in first, but they can’t expect the Brewers and even Cardinals to keep their head inserted in their rectum for the rest of the year either. It would seem over the top to try and get your manager fired by missing out on the playoffs by open lengths, and if the Cubs were going to make that move anyway they would have done it this week. So Maddon and his team are stuck together, if indeed that’s what it is, so they might as well get on with it.

To the more important stuff. There was a moment there when Yu Darvish looked like he might be turning a corner, probably around when he struck out 10 Dodgers. But he hasn’t put in a quality start in the three since then, though he hasn’t gotten shelled in that badly in any of them either. The Cubs need him to start putting up quality starts again. From there it’ll be Lester and Quintana, and you know the story with them.

But really, it’ll be about whether or not the Cubs get hits when they need them, and can they find any reliever who can keep them in the game when they’re behind. A couple more hits and they at least split with the Pirates last week and take both of the games from the Sox. When they can line up Kintzler-Strop-Kimbrel you feel pretty good. But when trailing by a run and they have to roll out whatever’s left of Cishek and doofus-du-jour, they have problems. And they’ll have to solve them.

Thanks to a more than functional staff and Josh Bell, the Pirates are still in this (along with the Cubs and Brewers’ incompetence). With Reynolds and Newman joining the lineup, they’ve become uber-annoying for pitchers to navigate. But it’s enough of that, the Cubs just have to start beating whoever is front of them now, no excuses. Even if that starts with they highly tedious Pirates and Reds on this homestand.

Leave the bean-ball nonsense behind. The real work is at hand. Onwards…

Baseball

Pirates Spotlight: Josh Bell Got The Ill Communication

By Sam Fels 1284 0

As Josh Bell turns the National League into ash and dust, it’s important to remember that he was always projected for this. Of all the prospects the Bucs have debuted over the years–Marte, Polanco, Meadows, one or two others–Bell was the one with the most hype when he arrived. He never really showed this kind of power, but this kind of average was the thought.

A year before his call-up, Bell tore AAA apart in 35 games at just 22-years-old. He hit .347 and slugged .501 in that brief stint, and then backed that up when he started the ’16 season in AAA with .295/.382/.468 in 114 games. That earned him a call-up for the end of the season in Pittsburgh, as they tried to salvage whatever they could from the wreckage that Jake Arrieta and Kyle Schwarber had wrought the previous October.

Bell’s first full season in the majors wasn’t bad. He popped 26 homers, while maintaining plus-walk and strikeout rates. But other than walking a bunch and those homers, he didn’t do much else, hitting only .255 which kept his on-base down. And that was basically the story last season, though Bell only managed 12 homers.

Clearly, things have changed this year. And it probably has to do with Bell’s new “GRIP IT AND RIP IT” attitude at the plate.

Bell is swinging at 5% more pitches outside the zone, a whopping 13% more pitches inside the zone, and overall has increased his swing-rate 7% more to nearly 50%. It’s led to more swinging strikes than at any point in his four seasons at The Confluence, but no one seems to care as long as it comes with the very loud noises he produces. You can accept strikeouts when you’re providing souvenirs a good portion of the time.

To go along with that, Bell is pulling the ball more than ever. Last year he only pulled about a third of his contact. This year’s it’s 43%, more than his rookie year when he had those 26 homers, and now he’s got 27 with 73 games to go. That’s also seen his hard-contact rate at nearly 50%, and that’s from either side of the plate.

The selling out to yank anything into the river at PNC has made a difference in where pitchers can go. You used to be able to go inside and high in the zone to Bell. No more:

You would think being this swing-happy and pull-happy (so happy!) would leave Bell vulnerable to breaking pitches. But the big improvement in his game is his work on curves and sliders. For his career he hits .233 and .216 on them respectively. This year it’s .400 and .308. It used to be that you could get Bell on breaking pitches in the zone, but that’s not the case anymore. He’s not missing them, and you see the destruction he has wrought so far.

Physically, Bell has calmed down some ticks and triggers in his swing, which he always seems to be changing his first couple dances in the majors. Ben Clemens in May at Fangraphs had a pretty good breakdown of it, but the nutshell is that Bell is keeping his feet straight instead of an open stance and just being calm before the pitch.

All of it has made Bell one of the more feared sluggers in the NL, and he certainly looks the part looming over the plate with his 6-4 frame. So basically Bell can look forward to being the next Pirates star to be shipped out for peanuts before Bob Nutting has to actually spend any money. Good times.

Everything Else

Screw It, Let’s Go Whole Hog: Do You Want To Write About The Bears And NFL For Us?

By Sam Fels 1616 0

Well, we’ve already taken the first step, so why not just keep going? In an effort to expand our output and make you, dear subscriber, feel like we’re giving you everything you might want (or definitely don’t want, because we’re assholes), let’s see if we can’t find someone to man a possible football wing.

What we’re looking for: Someone who can write about the Bears and football the way we write about hockey and now baseball. While you have to be knowledgeable, expert even, we don’t want someone who can’t display that in an entertaining fashion. You have to have a voice along with knowledge. That doesn’t mean all Simpsons and Replacements references (though it can’t hurt), but your own style for sure.

You also have to be creative, and open to ways we can present game coverage and analysis and throughout the week. Anyone can do straight coverage. Not everyone can do it in the way we do things around these parts.

So is this you? Can you come up with unique expletives for Kirk Cousins? Can you fashion haikus about Khalil Mack? Will you write sonnets about Tarik Cohen? Or something to that effect? If you think you’re even close to this kind of thing, please email me at CommittedIndian@gmail.com, with “Bears Writer” in the subject line.

Let’s get nuts.

Baseball

Series Wrap – Cubs And Sox Split: Everybody Go Away

By Sam Fels 1435 0

Game 1 Box Score: Cubs 6, Sox 3

Game 2 Box Score: White Sox 3, Cubs 1

I could use this to ram home the constant narratives about the Cubs, though that would seem excessive after they had scored 17 runs in the previous two games. This afternoon’s loss was frustrating, and had a mini bus-is-running feel to it, but the themes are constant for them.

For the Sox, it was basically the series at Wrigley over again, with Giolito rediscovering his control problems to get paddled around, but this time Ivan Nova’s blanking of the Cubs came after and still with an Eloy home run. Nothing we didn’t know, really.

Let’s do the bullets and get out of here.

The Two Obs

-Hendricks was missing his spots by a large margin today, which cost him against Jimenez. He wanted to go inside, he didn’t get it there, and you saw the result. It was probably to be expected, as he had only thrown three innings since his injury, which makes his next start over a week away feel a little antsy too.

-On the flip side, Lester was effective enough, though one thing Maddon might want to change is still considering Lester his ace and not the 3-5th starter he really is now. 99 pitches after six innings, he should have been pulled last night. Maddon sends him back out there, two runners on, and they score. Lester isn’t giving you complete games anymore, and if you get six innings out of him with one run that’s the max you can hope for.

-Giolito just couldn’t locate on Saturday night, and for once the Cubs were happy to not try and overdo things. He’s hit something of an oil patch of late, failing to get a quality start in three of his last four. It’s not always going to be easy, of course, and that’s what the rest of this season is about.

-I’m sure the homers against the Cubs by Eloy are extra enjoyable for the black-clad, but the OBP under .300 needs to be noted.

-Most frustrating for the Cubs today was Anthony Rizzo. During one of the two innings the Cubs led off with a double, Rizzo struck out on a pitch that nearly hit him in the dick. After Bryant walked on four pitches in the 8th, Rizzo swung at the first pitch that was on his knuckles. That’s just a shit approach.

This isn’t to  pin everything on Rizzo, but the team is built on the idea he’ll be great, which he usually is. Since July 1st, he’s been below average. He won’t stay there, but it’s a problem now. I would be utterly shocked if Rizzo was just going through the motions and is one of any players who have chucked it on Maddon. So the Occam’s Razor is that he’s pressing, which those ABs would certainly prove. But he’s the bellwether on this team. If he takes the patient ABs in big spots the Cubs are crying out for, they keep saying it’ll be contagious. I have no problem with him or Contreras opting to try and do more than just move a runner over. They’re paid to drive in runs, after all. But there has to be a better approach to do that.

-And that’s the biggest disconnect for the Cubs right now, and probably why Theo has been so vocal and threatening of late. We keep hearing Maddon say the Cubs have gotten away from their successful approach and they need to get back to patience, opposite field, that sort of thing with runners on. Fine, but you’re the manager, so you’re supposed to be the one saying it. Either Maddon isn’t, or they’re not listening, and that’s the disconnect. And what has to change, but I tend to put this on the players more than Joe.

-Despite the homer to Robel, Bummer might have the best stuff out of the Sox pen and might fetch more than a lottery ticket by the end of the month. They can come from nowhere.

Note: I’m gonna take the All-star break as well. So it might be a bit sparse around here for the next couple days. The minions will handle any Hawks news or whatever else tickles their fancy, and I’ll be back on Friday. Just feel like I could use it. Hope you don’t mind, and we’ll talk soon. 

Baseball

Series Preview – Cubs vs. White Sox: Senioritis

By Sam Fels 1393 0

vs.

RECORDS: Cubs 46-42   White Sox 41-43

GAMETIMES: 6:15 Saturday, 1:10 Sunday

TV: Fox Saturday, WGN and NBCSN Sunday

HEY WAIT, ALL THE BASEBALL WRITING YOU NEED IS RIGHT HERE!

PITCHING MATCHUPS

Jon Lester  vs. Lucas Giolito

Kyle Hendricks vs. Ivan Nova

PROBABLE CUBS LINEUP

Kyle Schwarber – LF

Kris Bryant – 3B

Anthony Rizzo – 1B

Javier Baez – SS

Jason Heyward – RF

Willson Contreras – C

Robel Garcia – DH

Albert Almora – CF

Addison Russell – 2B

PROBABLE WHITE SOX LINEUP

Leury Garcia – SS

Yoan Moncada – 3B

Jose Abreu – 1B

James McCann – C

Eloy Jimenez – LF

Jon Jay – RF

Yolmer Sanchez – 2B

Ryan Cordell – CF

Zack Collins – DH

 

After what can only be described as an obscene scheduling choice to have both teams off on a Friday, the Cubs and Sox will head into the All-Star Break by finishing up their interleague duel, this time on the Southside. Needless to say both teams couldn’t be feeling much different before they get away from each other for four days.

The Cubs are something of a mess, even with their Independence Day thumping of the Pirates. Everyone seems just about miserable, they may have decided to chuck it on their manager who might be trying to his last throes to keep his job. Everyone is being threatened by the front office. And yet despite all that they’re in first place, and are really only a Kris Bryant or Anthony Rizzo binge from opening up some space in the Central.

The Sox on the other hand, though still under .500, have something of a bounce in their step after series wins over the Twins and Tigers, and the call-up of Dylan Cease, and the team starting to resemble what it very well might look like when the games matter more than this in a year or two. You can feel it starting to bubble at The Rate/Cell/Comiskey. Taking two from the Cubs and confirm or heighten their death spiral will certainly feel like the dawn of something on 35th.

They’ll send out their best in Giolito, whom strangely the Cubs paddled at Wrigley last month, and then Ivan Nova, who throttled the Cubs strangely before that. Nova has had decent career numbers against the Cubs going back to his Pirates days. At least for the Cubs, they’ll send out their best which is Hendricks, and can hope Lester can muscle through another start. And of course even if that happens, any appearance by Craig Kimbrel is going to raise the pulses on all sides after his entrance and then last Wednesday’s hiccup. Maybe Aaron Bummer can impress the Cubs’ brass enough this weekend too to avoid paying Alex Colome prices.

Going into Sunday, Hendricks has had particular problems with Abreu and Yolmer, bothin hitting over .400 against him. And Abreu just happens to be having his best season.

So all set then. Figures to be one of the livelier occasions between these two in a while, added to by Eloy’s heroics last time we did all this. There actually feels something at stake on this one, more than bullshit bragging rights between two teams in different leagues. The Cubs have a season to save, the Sox have steps to take. All laid out before us.