Every morning we cut right to the heart of last night’s action.
St. Louis eliminates San Jose: Fuck my life.
I think we can all agree that Tim Anderson’s emergence goes just a little bit beyond the field, and it goes into areas that I’m probably not qualified to talk about. Not only could the White Sox seriously use this season from Anderson being real and repeated, so could all of baseball. It’s been a ride so far, that’s for sure.
Strictly as a player, and as a batter more to the point. Anderson is the type of player that used to piss me off. Not for his brashness, because I’ve always loved that as someone who has no swagger to him at all, but his undisciplined ways. As basically a zealot of Moneyball, I looked through glares and furrowed brows at any player who didn’t walk or even take a pitch, Anderson would have been one I would have been waving garlic at or something. Of course, if he were a vampire that would only make him cooler but that’s a much sillier discussion to have. Anyway, given Jim Hendry’s ways you can see why I was probably the most miserable Cubs fan on Earth, and that’s saying something.
Over the past couple years, I’ve grown to appreciate players like Anderson who look at our narrow vision of what an approach at the plate should be (or did), stick one finger up at it, and then go about it the opposite way. There was probably a time I would have looked at Javy Baez crossly as well, but he’s another who decided he was going to swing at even more pitches, and simply get to more of them and that’s how he would increase his numbers. As both Anderson and Baez are having their best seasons, certainly what’s become clear is that there are a few ways to skin a cat. If you’re a sick fucko, that is, because who else would come up with that phrase? Seriously.
Anyway, Anderson. He did raise his walk-rate last year to 5%, which is just about something you’d notice. But that’s clearly not for him this year, as he’s swinging at more pitches out of the zone, inside the zone, so yes, overall. And he’s making more contact on pitches outside and inside the zone than he ever has. So it’s not a huge surprise that he’s seeing less and less pitches inside the zone than he ever has, or getting less first-pitch strikes than before. It’s how these things go. Hasn’t mattered all that much, or it didn’t in April. But the theme of the day seems to be parsing out players struggling in the month of May, so here we are.
Clearly, Anderson’s May is not as good as his April. Whereas he had a .425 wOBA in the opening month, that’s cratered to .294 in May. Yes, he’s not getting nearly the rub of the green in May, but a .302 BABIP isn’t unholy. Let’s see if we can get to the bottom of this other than luck. Because Anderson never hit the ball hard enough to get that much luck, and probably needs to live with this kind of fortune.
One oddity of Anderson’s season is that he hasn’t hit the fastball well at any time. In the season’s opening throes, he hit .296 on fastballs, which is barely ok, but slugged the same exact number, which is hardly so. Anderson made up for that by hitting everything else into oblivion. .467 average and a .733 slugging on sinkers, .400 on changes, and the big improvement from previous seasons was inhaling and spitting back out sliders to the tune of a .435 average and a .738 slugging. Those last two numbers were far more than he’s ever done before.
Well, Anderson is still seeing the same percentage of fastballs, but it’s getting worse. He’s hitting .158 on them in May, while maintaining good-to-great averages on pretty much everything else. Again, like we did earlier today, has the location where he’s getting those fastballs changed? Sure looks like it:
Pitchers are going away from Anderson more, and to his credit he’s gone the opposite way more as well in May (21% in April, 35% in May). The problem for Anderson is when going the other way he just doesn’t have much pop, at least not this year. He’s got a 20% line-drive rate when going to right field, which is down significantly from last year but in line with his first years on the Southside. He’s got a decent enough 25% line-drive rate when going the other way, which is what he’s had in every season in the majors. But he’s slugged .371, with an ISO of .086 when going to right so far this year, and until that improves, that’s where pitchers are going to go at him. But it’s in him, because he’s slugged over .550 in the previous two seasons when doing that.
Anderson has seen big gains when pulling the ball this year, along with getting it in the air more. But it didn’t take pitchers long to see that came at the cost of what he used to do well. Now we see if he can combine the two.
While the Cubs have trucked along pretty much in May, some of the things that were going well in April have not gone so well in May. Specifically, there are players who helped carry the offense while Kris Bryant and maybe one or two others were still trying to get the spark plugs to fire that are no definitely making weird noises and spitting up oil and smoke. So let’s go through and see what’s going on with a couple of them.
The first that pops up is Jason Heyward. There can’t be much of a stark contrast between April and May for a player than what Heyward has gone through. Here’s April slash lines: .309/.426/.509, and you can see why everyone was so excited and felt like they’d just come upon an undiscovered warehouse of peanut butter cups. Here’s May: .169/.234/.238. And that is fucking gross. Like, going to pick up your dog’s shit and realizing there’s a hole in the bag and you’re blocks from home gross (and yes, I know those of you with kids have had this feeling every day, but I didn’t make you have kids).
I think it’s important to remember than when you combine the two, currently Heyward has a 100 wRC+, .158 ISO, and a .401 slugging, all marks that are actually the best he’s had here in Chicago (sad, I know). The reason that Heyward has only been worth 0.1 fWAR is that his defense hasn’t been the usual stellar kind, at least metrically, as it usually is. However, an exactly average offensive season and return to his usual defensive prowess for the rest of the season still makes him a valuable player. But let’s get deeper than that because we’ve got nothing else.
For one, luck is playing a huge part. In April, Heyward’s BABIP was .313, which is a touch above average. In May it’s .208, which is beyond the sewers and getting to the Earth’s core. Whatever kind of contact Heyward is making, .208 is ridiculous. That’s not going to continue.
The thing is, the contact between the two months isn’t really all that different. In April, Heyward had 17.4% line-drives, 46.4% grounders, 36.2 fly balls. May it’s been 18.5%/42.6%/38.9%. Almost exactly the same. Considering the lack of line drives and hard contact, maybe Heyward was really lucky to get what he did in April with that mere .313 BABIP.
One big difference is that the hard-contact has dropped off. Heyward had 30.5% hard contact rate in April, which isn’t even that good, but that’s dropped to 25% in May. And if you go by Statcast, Heyward is right where he should be overall. His expected batting average is .252, he’s hitting .243. His expected weighted-on base is .323. His actual is .322. This is probably what he is, and I think it’s probably fine? And if he improves from this May, not even close to what he was in April but then improves, you’ll have a decent season.
Going deeper, in the season’s opening month Heyward was crushing fastballs and curves. He’s still hitting curves well, but he can’t get anything done on fastballs. Has there been a difference where he’s getting them? A touch. Here’s where he was getting fastballs in April and then May:
It’s not a huge difference, but he’s seeing more fastballs up and in than he did, and if you remember him driving outside fastballs to left you can see why that might be a problem. And J-Hey has always had a problem with high and tight fastballs. It’s just something he’s going to have to get to.
Another is Daniel Descalso. Now, counting on Descalso for much was always folly, because it’s just not what he’s been. He has one above-average offensive season to his name, and that was the last one. Now is he .216 bad? No, he isn’t, but outside of Colorado he’s always been around a .240 hitter. What we are missing is the walks. Descalso’s BB% is down 6% from last year, which is part of the problem. And he was walking in April, around 12%. But that’s sunk to 5% in May. And the Ks are up. It ain’t pretty.
The big problem is that in April, Descalso hit a ton of shit hard, to 41.8%. In May it’s 20%, so even if that .171 BABIP feels like it’s the work of a demon, you’re not going very far when only a fifth of your contact is loud.
Descalso’s success in April was basically only what he did on fastballs. He hit .440 on them, slugged .680, and his numbers on sinkers were just about the same. So he’s not seeing them nearly as often this year. He saw 171 fastballs or sinkers in April, and only 57 of them so far in May. People catch on. And he’s getting difference in location too:
What’s weird is that Descalso hasn’t been all that good high in the zone in his career, but they’re certainly more careful about pumping shit right down the middle on him. And Descalso is helpless on anything that breaks. And until that changes, this might be what you get.
I guess at this point of the offseason, all we can really do is take the stuff Mark Lazerus and Scott Powers write, and others, and comment. We’re still three weeks away from anything interesting happening, and a month away from the draft when we’ll get some real answers. So here’s Lazerus’s piece from yesterday at The Athletic that’s essentially an interview with Marc Kelley, the Hawks director of amateur scouting. I sort of wonder if Kelley won’t be allowed to talk ever again.
The main debate we’ve had here about the Hawks #3 pick is whether or not they can add another d-man at that spot, and specifically Bowen Byram. He’s the only d-man mentioned in the discussions. Every other player around there is a forward. And the Hawks have sort of projected this idea that they already have too many d-men in the system and they’re all so precious and they just can’t figure out what to do. Which leads one to worry the Hawks will reach for a forward that won’t be worth that third pick, that won’t be here soon anyway, and whatever the Hawks do to improve for next year is going to have to be through trades and free agency. Or worse yet, they’re not all that concerned with improving next year.
Kelley seems to go against the grain on all that. First, there’s a comparison to Paul Coffey about Byram from Kelley, which isn’t a name you just toss around (though if Paul Coffey were a player today and was a Hawks, a large section of Hawks fans would hate him including the two in the booth. This is my fear/excitement about Karlsson. BUT THAT’S NOT WHY YOU CALLED). But here’s a money quote for you:
“If you feel that a defenseman is going to project out to be that No. 1, then you go that route,” said Kelley, who was careful not to reveal his cards and say Byram was necessarily that guy. “With all these defensemen we’ve drafted, it’s not our plan that they’re all going to play for the Blackhawks. The defensemen we’ve taken have all held their value, or increased their value. That’s what you’re looking for.”
So there’s a couple things there. One, he’s basically saying that if the Hawks think that Byram is going to be a true foundational piece, then they’ll take him. Kelley recognizes you don’t get a shot at this very often, and if one comes around you don’t miss. They’re obviously not going to say what they’re going to do, just in case they scare some team behind them that HAS to have a guy into trading two top-liners for the Hawks pick or something ridiculous like that. I don’t know if Byram is that guy. A lot of scouting reports seem to suggest he is. You’ll never know for sure until he gets here, obviously.
Second, Kelley for the first time makes it clear that the Hawks know they’ll never get all of their prospects on the blue line onto the UC ice, and even seems to relish how adding Byram opens them up to trade possibly one or two more of them. If that’s the route they go. We can debate all day which d-man should go (Jokiharju), but while they’ve hinted at it before around the edges, this is clear that something will happen. And very well may happen this summer.
Which is fine. Jokiharju’s or Boqvist’s value are probably still high as they can be. Maybe the latter has to prove he won’t drown at the professional level, but we’ll get there. Still, I was encouraged by something someone in the front office said. When was the last time that happened? This is why he’ll be silenced forever I’m sure.
Well this one’s easy. It’s rare that a player gets any sort of Hart Trophy buzz for a team that doesn’t even get all that close to a playoff spot. This year two of them did, and that’s Connor McDavid and Patrick Kane. Which tells you the strata Kane inhabits, and he’s doing it at over 30. 30 isn’t the cut off it used to be, of course, especially not for the truly elite in the league. Crosby, Bergeron, Marchand are all over 30 with Kane, Stamkos is 29 and you wouldn’t expect much of a drop-off there. Still, it’s clear all of them have more help than Kane did. Let’s go through it, though you pretty much know it all by now.
Stats
81 GP – 44 G – 66 A – 110P
48.6 CF% (-0.91 Rel) 43.6 xGF% (-2.18 Rel)
It Comes With A Free Frogurt!
All of it? Kane’s 66 assists, 110 points, 35 even-strength goals, 45 even-strength assists, and 80 even-strength points were all career-highs. His 341 shots were a career-high by a mile, and is probably the biggest transformation in his game. Because his 12.9 shooting-percentage is really only about career-average for him, and not the spiked 16% he put up in the year he did win the Hart. So yeah, stats-wise it was ridiculous. And if you watched this team every or most games, you know there was a period there where Kane was the only reason they were scraping to even just overtime a lot of nights, or getting the full two. And he did it with a variety of linemates, not just permanently out there with a running buddy like Panarin in 2015-2016. Six different forwards racked up at least 200 minutes with Kane at even-strength. That’s two lines’ worth getting between 15-20 games or so with Kane. And while their metrics were all over the board with and without Kane, only DeBrincat saw his goals-for percentage rise be better without Kane than with him (giving you some idea the special player Top Cat is). It was simply the most dominant season Kane has put together, and it came past when most players are supposed to have peaked. Yes, it was an offensive league this year and a lot of players saw a spike, but not like this.
The Frogurt Is Also Cursed
You really have to stretch to find things for Kane’s season. Kane has never been an exceptional possession player, but he’s never had to be. He’ll always out-shoot what his expected goals are because he’s that talented a scorer and playmaker and basically you have to be a true buffoon to screw up the chances he’s going to provide for you. Still, Kane’s metrics were the worst of his career, and if that trend were to continue and he were to have some kind of cold streak it would get kind of ugly in a hurry. Some of that can be attributed to playing with defensively inept players like Strome or DeBrincat to an extent, or to Toews not really being the two-way dynamo he once was, but Kane’s usage is probably going to have to get more and more sheltered as he gets older. There were some nights where you could tell he clearly couldn’t be bothered in his own end, or all over the ice at some points. But given the mess this team was it was hard to blame him all the time. And he would still put up two or three points.
Kane flagged a bit as the year went on, mostly due to the insane workload he was being asked. Kane averaged more than two minutes per game more this year than last, but that doesn’t tell the whole story. He would get double-shifted on nights when the Hawks were trailing, which was most nights, so not only was he playing more but he was playing more while chasing the game against bunkered in defenses specifically set out to stop him. It was only natural he wouldn’t keep up the pace, and there are a lot of players who would love to close a season with 16 points in 18 games. It just wasn’t the standard he’d set.
I guess the one question to ask is that the two best individual seasons Kane has had, the Hawks haven’t really done shit. When he won the Hart, they were bounced in the first round. He was arguably better this year, and they only waved at a playoff spot as it drove by. That’s not really on him, and speaks more to the limited influence a winger can have. We can point to Ovechkin, but he can only do so much and if Backstrom and Kuznetsov aren’t there, the Caps probably aren’t a playoff team either. Again, this is more on what’s around Kane than him.
Can I Go Now?
No matter how you slice it up, Kane was on the ice for 84 even-strength goals and 67 against, which is 55%. That latter number doesn’t rank all that highly, but that goals-for is best in the league. And there were only four ES goals he was on the ice for that he didn’t either score or assist, which is…well, insane. You feel like Kane could do that offensively again, and if there was an actual defense behind him it could bring the goals-against down and then you’d see some real shit.
You get the feeling that Kane would prefer to just have set linemates for most of the year, but I don’t know if that’s possible. The Hawks need to add a top-six forward, but it’s hard to see who they could add to set everything in stone. They’ve always been hesitant to pair up Daydream Nation for anything longer than a spurt. Kane and Strome together gets far too domed defensively. Toews isn’t the force he was at that end, so putting them together doesn’t solve everything. They would still need a two-way left-winger. Which you would think could be Saad… but there are “issues” there, let’s say. And that would leave what for Top Cat and Strome? Again, none of this is Kane’s fault.
It is unlikely that Kane will put up 110 points again. But it wasn’t likely he’d do it in the first place. If the Hawks get that top-six winger, and improve the defense so that they actually have the puck more often, and with Kane’s now heavy-shooting ways, 100 points is hardly a big ask.
vs. 
RECORDS: Phillies 27-19 Cubs 27-17
GAMETIMES: Monday and Wednesday 7:05, Tuesday 6:05, Thursday 1:20
TV: NBCSN Monday and Wednesday, WGN and ESPN Tuesday, ABC Thursday
BLEW UP THE CHICKEN MAN’S HOUSE: The Good Phight (sky point Crashburn Alley)
PROBABLE PITCHERS
Zach Efflin vs. Jose Quintana
PROBABLE PHILLIES LINEUP
Andrew McCutchen – LF
Jean Segura – SS
Bryce Harper – RF
Rhys Hoskins – 1B
J.T. Realmuto – C
Cesar Hernandez – 2B
Odubel Herrera – CF
Maikel Franco – 3B
PROBABLE CUBS LINEUP
Kyle Schwarber – LF
Kris Bryant – 3B
Anthony Rizzo – 1B
Victor Caratini – C
Jason Heyward – RF
Albert Almora Jr. – CF
Daniel Descalso – 2B
Addison Russell – SS
It’s a bit silly to talk about playoff previews, but given the way the Mets and Nationals are intent on sucking their own toes right now, it’s not hard to envision the Phillies being around in October. And with the Cubs at the top of their division as well, this is certainly a series that will draw interest from outside their locales.
Ah, but the headline isn’t so much a series between two of the NL’s four best teams, which it is, but the actual return of Jake Arrieta and his date with Yu Darvish tonight. Arrieta didn’t pitch against the Cubs last year, so this feels like the actual homecoming. Sadly, there will be fans and writers who will use this as some sort of barometer or definitive statement on the Cubs decision to move on from Arrieta to Darvish, which will probably ignore that Arrieta has basically been mediocre since leaving and is still heading the wrong way. Jake doesn’t strike out as many hitters as he used to, he’s walking more, and feels like a #3 starter these days. Lucky for the Phils, that’s all he has to be.
Aaron Nola is around to carry the ace-responsibility, though he’s had issues this year with control and being eaten alive by the BABIP Dragon. He is giving up harder contact than he did last year, but he shouldn’t be surrendering a .364 BABIP. Zach Efflin has been the breakout star this year–perhaps the one Nick Pivetta was supposed to be before imploding. He’s cut his walks in half and gives up a startlingly low amount of hard contact. Cole Irvin was a top prospect who is now up, so it’s a pretty effective rotation that can live with an ok-to-good Arrieta instead of a dominant one.
The other narrative that will be barfed up repeatedly until esophaguses are worn away is Bryce Harper coming to where he “should” have been, and whether or not that’s worked out for either. As the Cubs have one of the best offenses in baseball, it seems to have been fine for them. Harps hasn’t set the world on fire which has him on every Philly fan’s enemies list already, and he has struck out a ton, but he’s also gotten on base a ton. He’s hitting for more than decent power, and his defense has actually been good considering that right field in Citizens’ Bank Park is like 15 square feet. His presence on on-base tendencies have certainly helped Hoskins behind him, who has MVP numbers. Jean Segura is having a luck-infused renaissance, and Cesar Hernandez is also having a boom start. J.T. Realmuto hasn’t really got going yet, and third base continues to be a black hole for the Phillies, but it’s a decent lineup
The pen has been an issue. Only Adam Morgan and Hector Neris have been accountable, with everyone else either having control or homer problems or both. David Robertson being hurt hasn’t helped, and same goes for Victor Arano. This is where you get the Fightins most easily.
God help us if Darvish doesn’t have a good start tonight and Arrieta does. There’s a Cole Derby on Wednesday, and that Nola-Lester matchup on getaway day is actually the best one of the series. The Cubs don’t need a litmus test, we know their good, but it’s always fun to see how they do against their fellow glitterati. They took two of three from the Dodgers and have split with the Brewers. This is the cream of the crop of the East, so should be enjoyable.
I’m not here to tell you it’s going to be ok. This post is not meant to make you feel better, because that’s not possible at the moment. If you need that, there’s a variety of narcotics out there for your perusal. Other than that, I can’t help you.
No, it’s dark right now, and I’m just here to provide any flash of light you would have any hope of clinging to. Ok, I mean I know you can’t really “grab” light, but at this point in our journey together things are fucked up and we’re just going to have to go with mixed metaphors because I can’t do any better right now, all right? If you thought the Hawks missing the playoffs for a second straight year was bad, you didn’t know how the world can always find a rug to pull out from under you even when you were sure you were standing on concrete.
So yes, because all the Sharks are either broken or stupid, and their coach is both, we face the possibility of either another Boston championship, David Backes getting a ring, Don Cherry being happy, or…well, I’m not even going to mention it by name. I refuse to give it that power until I absolutely have to.
So here we are, and what’s to be done? Well, here’s one thing: Focus on Patrice Bergeron. For he is good and holy, and deserving of all that’s coming to him.
During the height of Hawks fandom’s downright psychotic push of, “Toews is better than Crosby!,” I liked to needle some by suggesting that Toews wasn’t even Patrice Bergeron. Bergeron has two extra seasons on Toews (he’s played in three more but missed almost all of one through injury), but they’re essentially equal on goals and Bergeron has one season’s worth of points more than Toews. Bergeron has had something of the same renaissance as Toews just did. Bergeron was mostly the do-it-all foil for David Krejci’s offensive game. But after a 53-point season at age 31, Bergeron responded with two of his best offensive seasons afterwards, including this year’s career season by a mile at 33. Toews did the same at 30, and if he can do the same as Bergeron into his 30s, life will be sweet indeed. And both took more grief from their home fans when they weren’t scoring than was ever sane.
Bergeron has been the game’s smartest player for a while now, and he could probably make an argument that his four Selke Trophies aren’t as many as he deserves. Over the past 10 years, if you’re metrically inclined, there has been no better forward than Bergeron. He leads everyone in expected-goals percentage and Corsi percentage over the past decade. And if you think that’s due to playing on a pretty good team for that time, he’s also top in relative-Corsi and fifth in relative xGF%. That’s over a full 10 seasons. Quite simply, no one has pushed the puck in the right direction and into the right places more often than Patrice Bergeron.
While a lot of checking centers get their rep like Backes and Kesler and others for being overly physical and yappy, Bergeron has never needed that. He’s just in the right place, has incredibly quick hands, takes the puck, goes the other way, no muss, no fuss. While Bergeron is hardly a shrinking violet, he just doesn’t need to be all that physical. He’s where he’s supposed to be before you are or even realize where that is, and then you’re behind him.
Bergeron has never made an ass out of himself in the press or on the ice, like his running buddy Marchand (who has to be said is his own wonderful player overall, though). The long-running debate is how good would Marchand be without Bergeron, because they’ve hardly spent a minute away from each other. But go down any list of his teammates over given years and watch their metrics fall off a cliff when not out there with #37. Quite simply, he is the Bruins’ best forward ever, and if they want to argue about it they know where to find me. You can shove John Bucyk and Cam Neely straight up your Dunkies coffee-soaked ass.
Bergeron very well might be going for his third ring right now to match contemporaries Toews and Crosby if all his organs hadn’t fallen into his legs in the 2013 Final (you forget the Bs were a Chara post away from probably sweeping that series). Toews and Bergeron battled each other to a standstill that round until basically neither one of them could walk. A second one is not even close to what he probably deserves.
So in this morass of misery, where it feels like the whole summer might be ruined, cling to this. It’s something. Run for the stronghold of Patrice. It’s the best I can do right now.
vs. 
RECORDS: White Sox 21-24 Astros 31-16
GAMETIMES: Monday-Thursday at 7:10
TV: NBCSN Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, WGN Wednesday
SONS OF MIKE SCOTT: Crawfish Boxes
PROBABLE PITCHERS
TBD vs. Brad Peacock
Dylan Covey vs. Justin Verlander
Ivan Nova vs. Gerrit Cole
Lucas Giolito vs. Corbin Martin
PROBABLE WHITE SOX LINEUP
Leury Garcia – CF
Yoan Moncada – 3B
Jose Abreu – 1B
Yonder Alonso – DH
James McCann – C
Eloy Jimenez – LF
Tim Anderson – SS
Yolmer Sanchez – 2B
Charlie Tilson – RF
PROBABLE ASTROS LINEUP
George Springer – CF
Alex Bregman – 3B
Michael Brantley – DH
Carlos Correa – SS
Josh Reddick – RF
Yuri Gurriel – 2B
Tyler White – 1B
Jake Marisnick – LF
Well I’m sure it was nice for the White Sox to play at their own level for a while with the Blue Jays for seven games over the past 10 days, but it’s straight into the deep end now. The Sox travel to Houston to face that throng of frost giants who like to smash things but good, and then cross the country length-wise to face the division-leading Twins who are something of a diet version of the Astros. Good time to have a bunch of injuries on your pitching staff, huh?
To be fair to the Sox, there just might not be a pitching staff that can deal with the artillery the Astros throw at you every night. They’re second in runs in the majors, behind those previously mentioned Twins. They have the best OBP in the majors by eight points. They have the best slugging percentage. They have the best wOBA as well. Of their eight regulars, only Yuri Gurriel isn’t carrying a wRC+ well over 100, and he’s at 99. Even part-timers Aledmys Diaz and Jake Marisnick are turning baseballs into paste when they’re in the lineup. There’s no break here. Michael Brantley, who I still can’t believe the Indians just let walk out the door considering their outfield options, has an OPS of .933. That’s fourth-best on the team. There is no non-monster in this lineup right now, with the Crawford Boxes beckoning the whole night. It’s a goddamn nightmare for anyone.
But that’s ok, because they have a really strong rotation, too. You’ll know all about Verlander, who will carry a sub-3.00 ERA until he’s 52 for no reason. Gerrit Cole carries the highest K/9 in all of baseball. Wade Miley has been able to parlay the Astros’ superb defense into success (oh right, the Astros catch everything too). Brad Peacock has been just above “meh,” and Collin McHugh actually bad. But hey, no biggie, because two of their top four prospects just happen to be starters, and Corbin Martin has already arrived (though Forrest Whitley has had a rough go so far in AAA so he might not be the sure bet for this year he was before it started). So there’s no break here.
Well, maybe you can get to them in the late innings, right? Fuck you, buddy. Ryan Pressly and Roberto Osuna (aka ASSHOLE), are both carrying ERAs under 1.00. Will Harris is at 1.15. Hector Rondon at 2.30. McHugh and Peacock have both rotated out there in the past and this year with success. Joshua James and Chris Devenski have had their issues, but they’re on the margins, especially when they get the innings they do out of the starters and the creative use of A.J. Hinch. They might not strike out the world as some pens do, but their top four in Pressly, Osuna, Harris, and Rondon barely walk anyone and other than Osuna the other three get a ton of grounders on the contact they do give up. There’s nowhere to go here.
So the Sox having to have a bullpen day to kick this off tonight is less than ideal. Especially when it’s not a fully healthy pen. Giolito will get his biggest test of his new approach and stuff, as will everyone else. Eloy Jimenez looks poised to return as Nicky Delmonico was shipped out yesterday along with his hair care products. Good thing too, because the Sox are going to need a lot of runs to hang in there in Texas this week.
Every morning we cut right to the heart of the previous night’s action.
St. Louis takes 3-2 lead over San Jose: Fuckin’ fuck.
Game 1 Box Score: Cubs 14, Nationals 6
Game 2 Box Score: Nationals 5, Cubs 2
Game 3 Box Score: Cubs 6, Nationals 5
When it was laid out, and you saw Luis Castillo, Max Scherzer, and Stephen Strasburg lined up against the Cubs, a .500 road trip seemed pretty tasty. And that’s what the Cubs got thanks to getting past Scherzer and then hanging on tonight for a series win in DC. They feasted on the soft underbelly of the Nats on Friday, their bullpen, and then didn’t get the chance on Saturday. Tonight, they got to see what the Nats look like without an ace or ace-adjacent starter on the mound, and it’s not good. Keep the line moving.
The Two Obs
-Kris Bryant…good.
-I feel like Cubs fans are just going to have to live with this kind of Jon Lester start every once in a while. As we’ve chronicled, Lester for the past year and this season has lived on the margins, getting away with giving up a fair amount of hard contact. He didn’t even give up that much hard contact last night, though more than enough, but everything found a hole. It’s the opposite side of the BABIP Dragon. He just didn’t have much, and you wonder if the 116 pitches he threw in his last start had an effect. He won’t get an extra day before his next start either, so hopefully just a one off. He has about the same margin for error as Hendricks does these days. You see what happens when he misses.
-I’m telling you now, I have about as much use for Xavier Cedeno as I do Kyle Ryan, and that’s a whole lot of not much .
-Baez’s injury is a little worrying, though a heel bruise probably doesn’t keep him out long. One of the worries this season is that Javy has played every game, and while having your own personal Cal Ripken who can do what Baez does certainly appeals, we know that rest is something of a weapon. Yes, it means more Addison Russell and no one wants that, but this is where we are. A couple games off probably is for the best.
-Almora had five hits in two games started. Is this the awakening? Eh…over the past two weeks the OBP is still under .300, but he’s slugging .565, and still half the contact is on the ground. Let’s reserve judgement for a a little longer.
-We can definitely say Daniel Descalso is certainly in heavy seas at the moment. Which makes La Stella’s nuclear streak in Anaheim a little harder to deal with.
-Did I mention Kris Bryant is good?
-Letting Cishek get the final seven outs is the kind use the pen is just going to have to get right now. This is why we’re big on letting Chatwood and Montgomery take multiple innings whenever possible, because it frees up Kintzler and Cishek and Edwards to do more when used. And when those are the most trustworthy relievers you have…well, you understand the problem.
Onwards…
