Note: With expanded rosters, space is limited, so we did our best to include only the non-bozos. With these two teams, that’s a hard choice.
Cubs
Brewers
Game 1 Box Score: Cubs 5, Mariners 1
Game 2 Box Score: Cubs 6, Mariners 1
And here we go again, it’s never gonna end… The Cubs went from a sweep of a mediocre team in the Mets, to pretty much shitting their drawers against the Brewers, to doing exactly what they should have against a Mariners team that’s made of silly putty. Monday’s win felt like drunk sex, and tonight’s win just felt like what should have been. At least it got there in the end.
Let’s…
-This season has gotten to the point where I’m being threatened with basically a defenestration (though off a roof is not technically that) simply so someone can feel again. How else do you sum it up?
-A team actually intentionally walked Albert Almora. Anything is possible kids, as long as you believe hard enough.
-Schwarber got the big hit off a lefty pitcher, which only makes some earlier lineup choices even more infuriating. That doesn’t mean I think The War Bear is automatic against lefties, but at this point there’s just enough balance between he’s earned the chance of late and there being no one else that he needs to start every day until the season is over.
-Good god the Mariners are terrible. Is there anyone you think about seeing in the future?
-Against any representative team, Lester probably gets shelled tonight. Luckily, the schedule says he didn’t have to.
-Unluckily, it also says the Cardinals didn’t have to either.
-For a long time I’ve hoped that Ben Zobrist would be some kind of answer for this team, but recently I’ve come to the conclusion he won’t be any more of one than Robel Garcia or Ian Happ. Prove me wrong kids, prove me wrong.
-The fact that Bryant took a seat again tonight in recent memory almost certainly means he’s not healthy, be it knee or shoulder. The Cubs are three back with three to go. Unless you absolutely can’t, you’d be starting your best players every game. You rest them earlier for that exact reason.
-Hey does anyone remember the last time Heyward was on base?
-Is it weird that Kimbrel didn’t get an inning either yesterday or today? Especially with an off day next? Because the last time he came out of the pen throwing 95 and nothing on his curve, as he did Sunday, he was on the IL for two weeks the day after. Is he healthy? Is anyone sure?
-It’s good to see Schwarber higher up in the lineup, but he should be hitting leadoff and no one should give him any shit about the kind of hitter he is there. Because there’s not anyone else to do it, unless you want to see the Joy Division song in baseball form that Heyward is there.
Onwards…
After watching the Braves bludgeon the White Sox over the weekend, I kind of sat mystified as to how the Braves offense is significantly better than the Cubs. This could come into major relief should the two meet in the first round of the playoffs, as they would do if the Cubs flag down the Cardinals in the season’s last three weeks. Because both offenses are basically top-heavy. The Braves sport Ronald Acuna Jr., Josh Donaldson, Freddie Freeman, and Ozzie Albies at the top of the lineup. Which really shouldn’t be out-producing Kris Bryant, Anthony Rizzo, Willson Contreras, and Javier Baez. And really, in terms of wRC+ and other measures, it’s not.
As a team, the Cubs and Braves walk and strikeout at almost exactly the same rate. They’ve hit just about the same amount of homers (the Braves lead in this category 218 to 213), and the Braves have hit 16 more doubles, which probably doesn’t have as great of an effect as you might think at first.
It would be easy to point to the batting average, as as a team the Braves hit nine points higher (.260 to .251). And maybe it’s just that difference that’s led to the Braves having 97 more hits as a team, but when you think about it that’s just one per game. And yes, casting your mind over the season, you can find more than a handful of games where one hit instead of one out would have made a huge difference. Maybe it is that simple, and the Cubs just need that one hit more often over the last three weeks (cue Al Pacino speech about fighting for that inch).
As you were probably about to suggest, the numbers slant even more when there are runners in scoring position. The Braves hit 16 points higher in that spot, have gotten 58 more hits, and in turn 50 more runs in that spot than the Cubs. Which means the Cubs have to do more of the splashing from downtown as it were, solo homers or homers with guys on first.
And yes, perhaps it could be that simple. But as I just pointed out at the top of this, the tops of these lineups are almost carbon copies of each other. And the supporting casts really haven’t been that much different, as Matt Joyce’s late boom has been basically the same as Nicholas Castellanos’s. The Braves haven’t had the massive black holes in spots like center and second that the Cubs have had, but they’ve mitigated that somewhat by shifting guys around. It can’t explain it all.
But looking this over more, and somewhat off of our Kris Bryant post from a couple weeks ago, the Cubs as a whole just don’t hit the ball very hard.
In the majors, the Cubs rank 26th in hard-contact rate. They rank second to last in line-drive rate. Considering the hitters in this lineup, how can that be? For a clearer illustration, the Braves have eight guys who have a 40+% hard-contact rate. The Cubs have one, and that’s the dude who came 2/3rds of the way through the season in Castellanos. The Braves have five guys with a 25+% line-drive rate. The Cubs don’t have one. Line-drives don’t have to be necessarily the name of the game, but you’d like to think you could better than this.
And again, we can’t stress this enough, this is in a season where the baseball has been designed specifically so you can hit it ludicrously hard. Everyone is. Except the Cubs. The type of contact they make has nothing to do with their strikeouts and walk tendencies. This is just about when they get the bat on the ball. This was an issue last year too, where only Schwarber had a hard-contact rate over 40%.
It would be hard for the Cubs to raise their batting average in the season’s final throes, though anything is possible in a short stint in baseball, without raising the volume of their contact. And that’s probably the case heading into the future as well. Sure, they almost certainly don’t make enough contact, though that’s not quite as big of a problem as it’s been made out to be, thanks to some very memorable situations where the Cubs haven’t gotten the bat on the ball when they had to. But what might be just as big of a problem is the Cubs don’t make the right contact when they do.
Chili Davis couldn’t fix it. Anthony Iapoce hasn’t been able to fix it. Which leads you to believe it’s the players. But considering the lineup, this really shouldn’t be a problem. Why is it? We know they make less contact than anyone, but again, that doesn’t have any effect on how hard they hit the ball when they do hit the ball. The first instinct is to say that they make contact on the wrong pitches, but they have the lowest amount of contact outside the zone in the NL.
Whatever it is, the Cubs just don’t hit the ball very hard, and they don’t seem inclined to do anything about it. And that’s if they even know it’s a problem.
VS 
RECORDS: White Sox 60-76 / Indians 79-58
START TIMES: Monday-Wednesday 6:10, Thursday 12:10
TV: Mon/Wed/Thurs NBCSN, Tuesday WGN
Too High? What Do You Mean Too High?: Let’s Go Tribe
So this is kind of a big series for the Tribe. If they have any deigns on the postseason, they’re going to have to start now. Cleveland (much like in real life) is currently hanging onto the final wild card spot by the last millimeters of their fingernails, only .5 games ahead of Oakland. Unless something wacky happens in Boston, it’s a 3 horse race for the 2 wild card spots, and Cleveland has not fared well against the other two remaining teams. Last Friday they had a decent lead heading into their series against Tampa Bay, but that floated away on the wind after the Rays took 3 straight. The Tribe muddled their way through August, going one game over .500 in the month (which is not what you’d want out of a team with playoff aspirations).
For a bit there, things were looking up for them as it seemed Cory Kluber was ready to come back and Jose Ramirez had finally broken out of his year long slump. Then Klubot strained his oblique during a rehab start and hasn’t pitched since, and Ramirez broke his hand while swinging a bat a week ago. Whoops. One cool thing, however, is the return yesterday of Carlos Carrasco who pitched in relief for the first time since being diagnosed a few months ago with leukemia. It’s an awesome story, and I’m glad he’s doing well.
With Kluber going down and Carrasco having to take time off, the starting rotation has had some big holes to fill. Luckily for the Tribe some rookies have stepped up to fill in the gap. Monday’s starter Zach Plesac (nephew of journeyman and most famous person to escape Gary, IN Dan Plesac) has acquitted himself nicely in the number 4 starter slot. He’s gone 7-5 since being called up with a 3.61 ERA, and 1.21 WHIP. He’s primarily a fastball/changeup kinda guy, with a decent slider and a solid curveball rounding out his arsenal. Plesac has had quite a bit of batted ball luck so far this season, with a .244 BABIP and an over 80% strand rate, so at some point the regression monster is going to come for the guy. It hasn’t yet, and the Sox are going to have to contend with his luck tonight. Shane Bieber continues his ascent towards the top of the Tribe’s rotation with another excellent year so far, posting a 3.27 ERA and a crazily low 1.01 WHIP thus far. His 30% K rate against his 5% walk rate is something to behold, and with a .285 BABIP there’s not much room for regression. Between those two and adding in Mike Clevinger and Carlos Carrasco the Tribe’s rotation is gonna be set for a long while.
Offensively this team still has it’s table set by superstar shortstop Francisco Lindor. He’s having another atypical season for himself, slashing .296/.347/.878 with 26 HR. The more impressive thing about that is he missed almost the entire month of April after messing up his ankle preparing for spring training. Carlos Santana has been able to dial back the clock to his early days in Cleveland by hitting a very solid .290/.411/.954 so far, well on his way to a 40 HR, 100 RBI campaign. He’s a switch hitter that absolutely murders right handed pitching, so the Sox rotation is going to need to tread lightly around him (and maybe Moncada can take some notes). Yasiel Puig is also here, the main piece of the deal that sent starting pitcher and Professional Twitter Edgelord Trevor Bauer to Cincinnati. The Tribe filled their need of OF help by dealing from a position of strength as they also got HR machine Franmil Reyes from the Padres as part of the deal.
For our White Sox, the story remains the same. The starters need to go 5-6 innings a piece to give a badly taxed bullpen some relief. The return of Carson Fulmer and Manny Banuelos should help, but it would be nice to see the rotation carry it’s weight after getting scorched by the Braves this past weekend. Eloy Jimenez seems to be getting the timing of his swing back after his 23rd stint on the IL this season, but needs to hit for power as it’s been 11 games now since he’s had an extra base hit. Whatever other September call ups are not here yet, as Charlotte is trying to get into the postseason down in AAA, so it’ll be a bit before Zack Collins heads North. With Jon Jay fucking back off to the IL with hip surgery you can plan on seeing more of Adam Engel and Ryan Cordell wandering around the outfield grass and flailing around the batters box like a used car inflatable air dancer.
It would be nice for the Sox to play spoiler this series and help Cleveland screw themselves out of a postseason appearance, since they can’t do the same to the Twins. That way the depression in Cleveland can roll right into the NFL season when the Browns inevitably crush everyone’s hopes when Baker Mayfield turns back into a pumpkin.
Lets Go Sox
Mike Clevinger isn’t what you see when you think of the top starters in baseball. They’re usually of the Johnny Unitas type, a haircut you can set your watch to. But here is Clevinger, looking like he fell off the Allman Brothers bus, and since he returned from injury in late June, there hasn’t been a better pitcher.
The numbers pop right out at you. Since July 1st, Clevinger has the best WAR of any pitcher, the fourth best ERA, the best FIP, sixth-best K/9, and they third-best ERA-. He’s a huge reason, along with Shane Bieber, that the Tribe have been able to surge to the top of the wildcard standings and still keep some hot breath on the neck of the Twins atop the Central. And they’ll need all their pitchers to be on top of their game with the resurgence of Jose Ramirez now over thanks to a broken hand.
How did Clevinger get here? A couple of different answers. One, he has one of the best sliders in the game. According to FanGraphs, his slider ranks behind only Max Scherzer’s and Patrick Corbin’s as far as value. That’s always a nice place to be. Clevinger’s slider doesn’t have a huge amount of tilt but it does have a hue amount of sweep, moving nearly 10 inches across the zone and out of it. Which is a big reason that hitters from the right side whiff at over half the ones at which they swing.
Another reason is that hitters can’t do much with his fastball, either. He throws pretty hard, averaging 96 MPH on it, which is top-1o in the game. Clevinger gets a fair amount of run on his four-seam, which moves it on the hands of righties and away from lefties. And it’s the fastball that’s been the big difference from last year, gaining nearly two MPH of average velocity and going from a good pitch to a great one. Clevinger credited better mechanics coming into this season, getting away from using only his arm to produce it.
But it’s in the past two years that the slider became the main weapon, especially this year when he was able to really increase the tilt it got and the sweep. Raising his arm slot appears to have been a key, as you can see here:
So with the greater velocity, and the already-damaging slider, hitters don’t have much of cushion to diagnose either, and you get what you have so far this season.
Clevinger’s return to health and entrance into dominance, as well as Shane Bieber’s, made Cleveland comfortable dealing All-World Tool Trevor Bauer across the state, and probably will make it easier for them to lose Cory Kluber in the winter (they almost did this past one). Carlos Carrasco returning is also a boon to that. Kluber has two years of club options at a pretty reasonable rate left, so his value probably won’t be much higher than this for the always cost-conscious Indians.
But both Clevinger and Bieber are going to be around a while, and the base for the next great Tribe team (if that has Lindor, of course). As for this year, they’ve got six game left with the Twins that will probably decide the Central. And they have the one thing, thanks to Clevinger in part, that the Twins don’t. And that’s dominating starting pitching.
Note: We didn’t have enough space for the expanded rosters, so bullpens is by top usage.
White Sox
Indians
vs. 
RECORDS: Mariners 58-80 Cubs 73-63
GAMETIMES: Monday 1:20, Tuesday 7:05
TV: WGN Monday, NBCSN Tuesday
FRANCES FARMER: Lookout Landing
PREVIEW POSTS
Depth Charts & Pitching Staffs
If the Cubs actually plan on recovering from their weekend-long attack of the hiccups against the Brewers, you couldn’t ask for better fodder than two games with the Seattle Mariners. There is no such thing as the free spot on the bingo card in baseball, but this is just about as close as it gets.
The Mariners gave their soaked and jaded fans a cheap thrill to start the season, when they started 13-2 behind an avalanche of home runs. As you can see, they’e 45-78 since. And this was always the way it was supposed to be, as the Mariners had long ago signaled their intention to rebuild by punting Edwin Diaz and Robinson Cano to Queens. Other trades like Jean Segura to Philadelphia, James Paxton to the Bronx before the season, and Edwin Encarnacion as well to the Yankees midseason were just more of an indication what the plan was in Seattle. And now they’re at the bottom part of the cycle, which is the ugly part of the plan but the plan nonetheless.
Offensively, this is still a team that can jump up and bite you if you’re not paying attention. And you have the flu. And you’re blindfolded. And someone cut a beer fart right in front of you. Kyle Seager has been good when healthy, which has only been about half the time. Dan Vogelbach, who will be force-fit into first base for at least one of these games so get your Benny Hill theme ready, can put one onto Sheffield. Though he has cooled off from his hot start considerably, and hit .130 in August when we can only assume had pink-eye in both. The only players currently on the roster who might, might matter when the Mariners matter again are J.P. Crawford and Jake Fraley, and that’s giving Crawford the best of it. Otherwise, these are all just place-holders and people who go lost that the Ms handed a bat.
The rotation is where the real adventure is, and you know it is because the Mariners have gone with an “opener” 47 times this season. Justus Sheffield is up, and he’s someone they’ll hope can catch the torch when Felix Hernandez passes it down (or more accurately, hangs it and watches it belted into the gap). Sheffield had serious walk-problems in AAA though and that hasn’t stopped in his two MLB starts. Felix will get the second game, as he’s recently back from injury to take one last lap around the track before he’s sent to the farm upstate for aging pitchers with no velocity anymore.
As you might guess with any bad team, the Mariners have had a parade of the bewildered out of their pen, with Cory Gearrin moved along after showing competence. 17 guys have thrown at least 10 innings out of the pen for them, and if you can pick any of them out of a lineup then we weep for you and your family. It’s a Make-A-Wish out there. However, they have discovered some whosits that have found some success of late, possibly because hitters are trying to figure out who they are and if they’re that dude who did that thing to their lawn and ran off a while ago.
The Cubs are behind the eight-ball now, but this is also the time for them to put up a big streak/number if they’re ever going to .(they’re not). The Ms, followed by a second chance to do to the Brewers what they should have done the first time, and then four with the Padres before a homestand against the Pirates and Reds before shit gets real. The Cubs should be harvest organs in the next two weeks. More likely they’ll just continue to let theirs melt and slowly leak out their pores. But if it’s ever going to happen, it’s now.
It’s not like Felix Hernandez has a storied history with the Cubs. He’s made all of three starts against them in his career, and Tuesday will be his fourth. Still, any fan of baseball might want to make an extra effort to see King Felix at Wrigley, as you might not see him anywhere after this season.
Hernandez will always be the Sabermetricians Saint, winning a Cy Young in 2010 with just a 13-12 record, as his numbers that matter were simply too good to ignore for the stodgiest of fogies. Perhaps Jacob deGrom‘s last year wouldn’t have happened if the dam hadn’t been broken by Felix before. Certainly it was a landmark when we finally got beyond the win as a stat for evaluating pitchers and got to what matters.
Felix might not get the farewell treatment of others in his position simply because he’s spent his career stashed away in the corner of the country no one seems to notice, playing games that didn’t matter. Felix Hernandez won’t get to make a playoff start. He barely got any pennant chasing games to partake in, with last year being about the only time the Mariners were in hailing distance of a playoff spot. And he was pretty much toast by then.
Hernandez was also the rare pitcher, though you can see Kershaw doing it now, who was able to reinvent himself when his stuff changed. King came up throwing gas and more of it, averaging 95 MPH with his fastball when he arrived. And at that time, that was godlike weaponry, instead of par for the course as it is now. But that went away over the years, and yet Hernandez not only got by with guile and craft but still continued to dominate with it, using his change in ways that hadn’t been seen before. In 2014, he threw his change a third of the time, still kind of unheard of, and rode it to a 2.14 ERA and a 0.91 WHIP, both the best marks of his career.
And that’s where the wave seemed to have broke for King Felix. His fastball continued to lose verve, and no amount of feel or touch or genius could see Hernandez continue to dance around hitters. His ERA has climbed every year since, concluding with an unsightly 5.55 last season that should be stricken from the records when he retires so as better to highlight his greatness. It’s over 6.00 this year, and Hernandez has missed most of the season with injury problems.
Felix’s contract is up after this season, and though he’ll go down as the second-best Mariners pitcher ever behind Randy Johnson (and as Mariners it would actually be a debate who was better), it’s hard to see where Seattle could find a role for him. His stuff doesn’t suggest he can be anymore effective out of the bullpen, unless he was able to fashion more of a slider or breaking ball and live almost exclusively on that or a change as something of a gimmick/change-of-look reliever. He’s only 33, which doesn’t sound old, but he’s been around for 14 years. Arms have only so many bullets.
One part of Felix’s legacy, as Joe Sheehan pointed out in his newsletter, is he’s probably one of the last teenagers we’ll ever see take a major league mound. Since Hernandez’s debut, only Julio Arias has thrown more than 50 innings in a season before reaching 20. The way Hernandez’s stuff deteriorated certainly would scare most any GM.
Still, Hernandez was a treasure, and his personality would have played much bigger in the game were he anywhere else but Seattle. He was Jose Fernandez before Jose Fernandez. Home starts of his were local holidays in Seattle, and perhaps no player in a couple decades was as loved as he was there. It’s a shame it’ll end like this, though most pitching careers do. It would have been apt if he’d gotten to pitch any game that truly mattered, but that’s not on him.
Maybe he can find somewhere next year, with a pitching coach/scouting staff that has an idea on how he can be effective out of a pen. Just to have some innings here and there that remind, or in the case of a lot of people, show for the first time what he was. There are few who remain the league’s best first with power and then with brains, but he was one of them.
Maybe this is it, and King Felix will remain a cult classic. Maybe that’s more apt for a Seattle product. That’s how they like it.
Note: With expanded rosters, space precluded us from including everyone. So it’s the main players. Or something.
Mariners
Cubs
BOX SCORES
Game 1: Sox 7 – Braves 10
Game 2: Sox 5 – Braves 11
Game 3: Sox 3 – Braves 5
The pitching woes continue for the Sox, who faced their 3rd legitimate offensive juggernaut in a row this weekend, with predictable results. Giolito fared the best, though he was completely done in by 2 home runs, both coming from Young Christian Slater lookalike Freddie Freeman. Nova couldn’t go more than 4 innings, and Lopez backslid by not making it out of the 3rd. In a microcosm, none of this means anything really. Nova isn’t gonna be here next year, Lopez had one bad start after a string of solid ones and Lucas Giolito still went 6 while striking out 7. The offense wasn’t as putrid this series so that’s an improvement I guess. None of that makes it any easier to watch, however.
This last month of the season is going to be some 6 pack viewing for Sox fans, as in it’s gonna take a 6 pack of at least Bass Ale to get you through some of these games. Expect to see a lot more Carson Fulmer and Manny Banuelos, both of whom made their triumphant returns today. Jon Jay has gone back on the MIA list with season ending surgery on his hip, likely ending his tenure with the White Sox and ensuring his lasting contribution to the team being convincing Manny Machado that, yes, San Diego is nicer in the winter than Chicago. With Rick Hahn‘s steadfast refusal to call up Luis Robert from AAA, other than watching Moncada, Anderson and Giolito string out the remainder of their time there isn’t much here to lure people out to The Down Arrow in September. I’m sure Zack Collins will be here, but Renteria wouldn’t give him playing time over AJ Fucking Reed back in July so forgive me if my excitement is somewhat tempered. There’s a lot to be excited about this team, but right now it’s hard to see the forest for the trees.
Bullets, please.
BURN IT DOWN
–Lucas Giolito looked pretty good except for the 2 shitty changeups he threw to Freddie Freeman. He even made up for the first ones by knocking in his first career RBIs by smoking a single in the gap off Julio Teheran in the 2nd inning. Probably would’ve been a double for pretty much anyone else on the team but Lucas was blessed with the same type of speed that I was, namely “none.” Which is completely fine, because if you’re expecting your AL-based starting pitcher to challenge the arm of Future Legend Ronald Acuna Jr then you were fucked before word go. Giolito pitched 173 innings last year, and after today he will be sitting on 162. Should be no reason he couldn’t hit 200 this year, leaving him completely stretched out for next season’s hopeful contention.
-Eloy had some hits this weekend, which is a good sign for his timing (which has been shit since his last IL stint). What isn’t the best sign is that they were all singles. Eloy has now gone 10 games without an extra base hit, which is definitely cause for a second look. James Fegan had an excellent article the other day questioning whether or not he might need to adjust his batting stance in the off-season, basically implying that his crouched stance might be affecting his ability to catch up to fastballs up in the zone. Hitting coach Todd Steverson has had luck with Moncada and Anderson in the past few springs and I feel there’s no reason Eloy can’t have the same success. He just has to stay healthy, so as to not have to start from scratch every few weeks.
-The Sox bullpen wasn’t any better than the starters this weekend, with Aaron Bummer and Big Boss Ross being particularly putrid. Bummer has already thrown 20 more innings than ever before in his career and that might be getting to him as more and more walks have started to creep into his stat line. Fortunately Manny Banuelos and Carson Fulmer are here to lighten the load. I haven’t totally given up on Fulmer, and think that he could still be a valuable piece going forward. If that’s the case, now would be the optimal time to show it.
-I’m not a huge fan of Renteria’s management style to begin with, and watching him do it in a National League park is even worse. When I run for president next year on a “Designated Hitters For All” platform next year, don’t be surprised if I win in a landslide.
-Next up is the Indians, who desperately need to take this series from the Sox. I’m sincerely hoping they can play spoiler and ruin September for Cleveland before the Browns take over in October. “Keep Cleveland Depressed” is also one of my many main campaign platforms.
-In other news, AEW’s All Out PPV was Saturday night. I was there at the Sears Center and had a blast, even with Dad Bod Chris Jericho winning the title. Should give AEW some nice momentum heading into their television debut in a few weeks, unless one of the Young Bucks died last night, which is highly possible.
