Baseball

Series Preview – Cubs vs. Phillies: Blow Up The Chicken Man

By Sam Fels 1152 0

vs.

RECORDS: Cubs 64-54   Phillies 60-58

GAMETIMES: Tuesday-Thursday 6:05

TV: NBCSN Tuesday and Wednesday, WGN Thursday

AND HIS HOUSE TOO: The Good Phight

PREVIEW POSTS

Depth Charts & Pitching Staffs

Phillies Spotlight

After escaping Cincinnati with a split that you’re more glad to get against a sub-.500 team than would normally make sense, the Cubs will attempt to actually surge forward on the road in the Keystone State, including one game in the middle part of the state lovingly referred to as “Pennsyl-tucky.” It starts with a three-game set against the Phillies, who are doing a damn fine impression of the Mets these days.

It all started so well for the Phils, as they were 33-24 on June 1st and atop the East. They then watched the Braves go nuclear, the Nationals not far behind, and of late the Mets have become something of a farce, all the while piling up a 23-27 record in June and July. August hasn’t started much better at 4-7. losing series to the White Sox, Diamondbacks, and Giants. Yuck.

It’s not hard to figure out why. This team doesn’t really hit all that well, nor do they pitch all that well either out of the rotation or the pen. That’s a rough combination. The offense should be better, at least that’s what you’d think when you hear the names Bryce Harper, Rhys Hoskins, and J.T. Realmuto. The latter has been everything they wanted defensively, perhaps the best actual receiver in the league. But his offense has been exactly average, as additional Ks to what he did in Florida have kneecapped him. Harper has merely been ok-to-good, but not the star he has fooled a lot of people into thinking he is every year. He pops that for seasons here and there, but not every year. Hoskins has been everything they want.

But there were too many dead spots. Left field was one after Andrew McCutchen had knee-death, which they’re trying to fill with Corey Dickerson now after getting him from Pittsburgh. They still get nothing out of center. Second base is another black hole. Jean Segura has been ok at short but he’s never going to provide much more than average offense. You know you’re in trouble when you’re trying Jay Bruce at all.

We went over the rotation’s problems, and they’e throwing out Jason Vargas and Drew Smyly in this series, both midseason acquisitions. Arrieta is sounding like he’s not going to be able to put off the surgery on his elbow bone spurs until after the season as he’d hoped to do. So they’ll have to fill that spot, and internally now thanks to the passing of the one deadline to rule them all.

The pen has been extremely beat up, as all of Seranthony Dominguez, Adam Morgan, Victor Arano, Tommy Hunter, and supposed closer this year David Robertson are on the shelf. And all save Robertson were key contributors last year. That’s part of the reason Eflin and Pivetta are in the pen now, but when you’re closing games with Hector Neris, you’ve broken the glass.

For the Cubs, they’ll hope to get both Brandon Kinztler and Craig Kimbrel back from the DL this series, though likely the former much more than the latter. They somehow have survived their reliever-ocalypse this past week, at least so far. Kyle Ryan is coming off the Bereavement List today as well, so that will help.

Other than that, the Cubs merely have to keep the momentum of Sunday’s win, which did feel important, rolling. This Phillies team is looking for a reason to roll over, and the Pirates are a roll over right now. A first successful road trip since the beginning of time, or so it feels, is just beckoning. Yes, weird things can happen at Citizen’s Bank considering it’s a launchpad, but this is a team that just gave up 25 runs to the Giants over four games, and the Giants have a couple of sock puppets and broom handles in the lineup right now.

Feast.

 

Baseball

Phillies Spotlight: The Cy Young Machine In Philly Is Very Philly

By Sam Fels 1141 0

Fourth place is not where the Phitin’s thought they’d be at this point in the season. Behind the Mets isn’t where anyone plans to be, though trying to plan for what the Mets might be is like trying to chart a Dali painting. Yes, they’re only two games out of a wildcard spot, with only two teams to leap, and two very limited teams in Milwaukee and the Cardinals at that. But they must have thought before the season, after getting Bryce Harper to defect intradivisionally (we get to make up words now), that they were the favorite in the NL East, or at least poised to run with the Braves. They’re nine games back of that outfit, so it clearly hasn’t worked.

It’s a variety of factors. Harper has been merely good, not uplifting to an entire team. The pen has been pretty much a mess all season. The lineup hasn’t hit too many other places, though the acquisition of Corey Dickerson is meant to address that. Still, it’s hard not to look at what the rotation was supposed to be, what it actually is, and wonder if something is amiss.

Sure, betting on young pitchers is always a huge gamble. They get hurt, they lose control, they try things that don’t make sense, the learning curve is rock-wall steep. And they’re still getting good work out of Aaron Nola, though he’s fallen off from his second-tier in the league status of last year.

Still, when they drew it up in Florida in March, the Phillies were probably thinking Nola, Zach Eflin, Nick Pivetta, a returning Vince Velasquez, along with Jake Arrieta would make for a pretty stiff rotation. Well, Arrieta’s elbow is currently a barroom brawl of various, floating entities and might put him on the shelf for the rest of the season. Pivetta couldn’t even make the team out of spring training, even though last year he had one of the best strikeout-rates in the National League. He came up in the middle of this season, couldn’t get anyone out, and is now being tried as a late-inning weapon in the pen, while also making way for human tub of cottage cheese Jason Vargas, whom the Phils picked off the Mets scrapheap. Clearly the Mets miss him.

Pivetta’s problem is he throws basically only two pitches, a fastball and a curve. And while he throws the fastball hard, nearly averaging 95 MPH, it gets hit a ton. Hitters are waffling it to a tune of a .732 slugging percentage. And his curve doesn’t generate that many whiffs, though it does get a ton of grounders. Pivetta would do well to throw it more often, seeing as how his fastball is consistently becoming something the FAA is aware of.

It’s been a similar story for Eflin. Until July 1st, Eflin was actually pretty effective, with a 3.34 ERA. Though he had a 4.44 FIP which suggested he rode his luck a bit, it didn’t suggest he would spend all of July decomposing into a puddle of sadness. Eflin’s ERA in July was 11.88, he walked nearly five hitters per nine innings, and he was giving up 2.70 homers per nine innings. Again, Eflin really only threw two pitches, though he had a two-seam and four-seam fastball. Whatever it was, along with a slider hitters tuned him up in July for a slugging percentage over .700 on all pitches. He’s now in the pen too for science experiment Drew Smyly.

Velasquez is now in his second season removed from a major injury, and the strikeout and walk numbers look pretty good. He’s been undone by some bad sequencing, with his left-on-base percentage criminally low for a second-straight season. But he’s still got an ERA over 4.00 and a FIP over 5.00, and mostly it’s because he’s getting hit hard when he gets hit (46.1% hard-contact rate). Again, V-squared only used two pitches mostly, a fastball and a slider. He spots in a curve here and there, but only about 7% of the time. Of late, like the other two, his fastball is getting mutated into some sort of element. He only throws his slider 20% of the time, but he might consider upping it.

That’s three young pitchers the Phillies were hinging on, as well as an aging Arrieta who everyone knew was a declining value bet, and it’s left them barely .500. Something has to change a bit.

Baseball

Series Preview – Sox Vs Astros: Hooo Boy

By Andy Jonathan 1637 0

  VS       

RECORDS: Sox 52-64  Astros 77-41

GAMETIMES: Mon/Tues 7:10, Wednesday 1:10

TV: Mon/Tues NBCSN, Wednesday WGN

Houston, We Are A Problem: The Crawfish Boxes

 

PROBABLE PITCHING MATCHUPS

Game 1:  Dylan Cease vs. Zack Greinke

Game 2:  Chevy Nova vs. Gerrit Cole

Game 3:  Ross Detwiler vs. Wade Miley

 

PROBABLE SOX LINEUP

Jon Jay – RF

Tim Anderson – SS

Jose Abreu – 1B

James McCann – C

Eloy Jimenez – LF

Wellington Castillo – DH

Yolmer Sanchez – 2B

Ryan Goins – 3B

Adam Engel – CF

 

PROBABLE ASTROS LINEUP

George Springer – CF

Jose Altuve – 2B

Michael Brantley – LF

Alex Bregman – 3B

Yordan Alvarez – DH

Carlos Correa – SS

Yuli Gurriel – 1B

Ronny Chirinos – C

Josh Reddick – RF

 

This one could be ugly. The Astros come to town having just dropped 33 runs on the hapless Orioles this past weekend. Granted, 23 of those runs came in the Saturday matinee where they pounded out 25 hits against the O’s but still. That’s like 43,000% more runs than the Sox scored against the A’s this past weekend (Math is not my strong suit). Yet despite those gaudy offensive numbers, the Orioles still managed to escape with a win on Sunday 8-7 after closer (and noted shitbag) Roberto Osuna threw up all over himself in the 9th inning. You hate to see it.

The Astros are currently the best hitting team in the majors, topping a majority of the offensive categories created by man. Just behind them are (unsurprisingly) the Dodgers and then (BARF) the Twins. Just looking at the lineup the Astros are throwing out against the Sox this week should be enough to give Ross Detwiler night terrors. Honestly, the worst person in that lineup is hitting 9th, and he would be the 3rd best hitter were he on the Sox roster right now. They don’t strike out very much, they have the best walk rate in the majors, and they hit the living shit out of the ball. If they had been healthy through June instead of missing monsters like George Springer, Carlos Correa and Jose Altuve their numbers would be even more bonkers. Alas, for the rest of the league they ARE healthy now and have been pummeling opposing pitchers into the fetal position.

Making things even worse is they managed to get better at the trade deadline, adding Zack Grienke to an already pretty impressive starting rotation. Grienke brings his 12th best pitching stats to a rotation that already included the 5th best (Gerrit Cole) and the 8th (Verlander). Greinke doesn’t have the pure K stuff he had in his days with the Royals and Dodgers, but has learned to rely on his fastball less and refined his change, which he’s almost doubled in usage since he moved to the bandbox that was Chase Field in AZ. The Sox get both him AND Cole, then get the respite of Wade Miley, except Miley has reinvented himself this year using Astros Pitching Voodoo Magic. He’s posted career best numbers in K’s and cut his walk rate considerably, making him if not as difficult as the other two, still overkill for what the Sox have been bringing to the plate.

Speaking of which, after scoring a whopping 3 runs against the A’s this past weekend the Sox have seemingly shaken the roster up by doing…absolutely nothing. As of writing this it looks like the same lineup Renteria trotted out yesterday. While the Sox 1-5 hitters on paper look pretty solid, their production (Outside of Tim Anderson) has been sorely lacking the last 10 games. If they’re going to have a prayer of winning anything against the ‘Stros, Jose Abreu and James McCann need to stop looking like they’re double parked in Wrigleyville and work the counts a little more in their favor. Moncada is still a few days away from returning, so we get more of Ryan Goins and his Interpretive Dance Defense at the hot corner. Sox pitching has it’s work cut out for it, and I’m interested to see how Dylan Cease handles this unholy terror of a lineup. His control needs to be precise, and the walks need to be nil, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he ups his game. The bullpen has been pitching well, which is good because they’re gonna be needed on Wednesday with Detwiler scheduled to start.

Let’s Go Sox

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Baseball

Houston Astros Spotlight: Weapon Of Choice

By Andy Jonathan 1233 0

The Houston Astros and the LA Dodgers are the league model from building their teams from within, there’s just no way around it. Even when they have players going down with week to week or month to month injuries there’s a seemingly endless pile of high end prospects clamoring over each other to get playing time at the big league level. The most recent of these for the Astros is Yordan Alvarez, who has been nothing short of astounding for them since they called him up in mid-May of this season. Through 170 at bats so far this season, he’s slashing a gaudy .355/.431/1.164(!!!) with 17 dingers and 41 RBI.

Alvarez was traded to the Astros at the 2016 deadline from (SURPRISE!) the Dodgers for Josh Fields. The Dodgers had signed Alvarez to a $2 million signing bonus when he defected from Cuba, but had yet to play a single game for LA at any level. At the time, the Dodgers were looking to shore up their bullpen for an extended postseason run, and Fields fit the bill. Alvarez was an unknown quantity at the time, and the need was immediate. Now, Fields is a journeyman AAA pitcher, and Alvarez seems destined for Rookie of the Year honors.

So far, Alvarez has scored rookie of the month honors in June and July with these nutty numbers. The question everyone who didn’t pick him up off the waiver wire in their fantasy leagues wants to know is: are they sustainable? Looking at the advanced stats as they sit now Alvarez has has an ISO of .378, BABIP of .407, wRC+ of 204, and a wOBA of .469. Just at a very quick glance, every single one of those seem completely unsustainable were it not for the small sample size. His wRC alone would be one of the best in the history of the stat. So we can assume that some regression is due for young Mr. Alvarez, the question being just how much?

Taking a peek at some of the other stats available to us that might give a hint at how much regression is due shows that Alvarez has an excellent eye for the strike zone. His current 11% walk rate is above average, and his K rate is what you would expect from a rookie (24.4%) seeing MLB pitching for the first time. Looking at his whiff rate, it’s about what you would expect from a rookie as well, vulnerable to low and away and the high and outside pitches:

Nothing too crazy here. What about his slugging percentage vs the whiffs?

Oh my. Well what about just his batting average?

Yeesh. So apparently Yordan has the ability to cover the entire plate with pretty impressive power. He has to have a weakness somewhere, every Death Star has an exhaust port. Well his 33% fly ball to HR ratio isn’t gonna last. His .400 BABIP is pretty unsustainable, though even if he regresses .050 that still would probably project out to a 40 HR/100 RBI season in that juggernaut of a lineup. The kid has a good feel for the zone, and can get to pitches out of the zone with power and frequency. All this says to the Sox pitching for this series is they need to tread very lightly when Alvarez is up. Nova and Cease in particular need to work the top of their zone with the hard stuff, away if able. If they aren’t going to be precise with that stuff and leave some over the plate, Alvarez is going to hurt them. Though to be fair, that goes for pretty much the entire Astros lineup.

 

 

Baseball

Jon Lester Is Fine, You’re Fine, I’m Fine, Everything’s Fine. Just Maybe Not Dandy, Too

By Sam Fels 1108 0

(30 for 30 voice)

What if I told you that Jon Lester is actually better than last year? You probably wouldn’t believe it, right? That tends to happen when you have as ugly a start as Lester did on Tuesday against Oakland. Or when you’re as happy to beat yourself up as Lester is, because he never sugarcoats anything for you. If he thinks he sucks, he’ll tell you. Maybe in comparison to the rest of the starters of late, especially Darvish and Hendricks, he can look worse than he might actually be. But it’s true, and it’s probably even better depending on where you slot Lester realistically on the staff. That’s the thing about the Cubs staff, they don’t really have “an ace.” They don’t have a #5 either. It’s kind of shapeless. Which can be good. Sometimes bad.

I will always use any excuse to get this into a post.

Still, every peripheral on Lester is actually better than last year, and not by tiny margins either. He’s striking out more hitters, he’s walking less, he’s getting more ground-balls. In fact, his K and BB numbers look pretty much exactly like his first two years here, when he put up a 2.92 FIP in ’15 and a 2.44 ERA in ’16. That’s a good starting point.

But he’s not putting up that end-product, and it’s easy to point out why. Lester is giving up basically twice as many homers as he did then. In 2015 he gave up 16 all season. The next year it was 21. Hell, last year it was 24. This year he’s already given up 21. But Lester’s HR/FB rate (15.7%) isn’t even the highest of his career. That came in 2017, just a tenth of a point higher. So is that because he’s old and slowing down? Or because of bad luck and a baseball hopped up on goofballs? The strikeouts and walks suggest it’s more the latter than the former.

The bad luck theme continues for Lester. His BABIP is .340, a full 50 POINTS higher than last season, and 41 points higher than his career-mark. Yes, Lester is giving up way more hard-contact than ever before, at 39% which is eight percentage points higher than last year and a full 12 over his career-mark. You know who else is giving up more hard-contact? FUCKING EVERYONE ELSE. If you go by the StatCast method, his 88.3 average exit velocity is decidedly middle of the pack. He shouldn’t really be dealing with this much damage.

Lester has also been unlucky in his left-on-base percentage, which speaks to sequencing of hits. After all, you can have five hits in one inning and give up three, or give up five in three innings and surrender none. He’s benefitted from some big-time luck in the past on that, with percentages over 80% two of his seasons in Chicago (average is about 75%). This season it’s just 70%, which is on the low-side and around his ’17 mark where he also couldn’t get much to break his way.

That doesn’t mean Lester hasn’t changed his approach, and we went over some of this last season. Lester has gone to a cutter more and more this season, as his four-seam fastball has lost a full three MPH from his career norm and barely breaks 90 MPH. He only uses the four-seam 30% of the time, the lowest mark of his career by a distance. And his cutter usage is up to 34%, the highest mark also by some distance in his career.

It used to be that Lester would only use his cutter to get in on the fists of righties, like so:

This season, he’s trying to find both sides of the plate with it:

And it might just be that Lester has to do that, because the cutter doesn’t have enough juice to consistently get inside on righties, who have the ability to turn on it.

Even off the plate inside, if not low, is getting pumping bomber’d. Whereas he’s been much more controlled outside, as long as it’s not thigh-to-waist. Which basically means Lester is trying to morph into Tom Glavine. It’s a transition, to be sure. In addition. Lester has always lived at the bottom of the zone, if not lower. But as we know these days, hitters are focusing on lifting that pitch, and pitchers are trying to be up in the zone more. Lester is as well, but he did spend over 10 years doing something else. So to expect him to instantly be able to pick his spots high in the zone would be a touch unreasonable.

That doesn’t mean I’d expect Lester to mow everyone down for the last six weeks of the season, and as you saw yesterday finding the outside corner with his cutter for him is still tricky. But it really isn’t as bad as Lester himself would like you to think it’s been. If he gets any sort of market correction in the season’s last month and a half, he’ll look something like you remember.

 

 

Baseball

Series Recap: Sox Lose 2 of 3 To A’s – Offensively Offensive

By Andy Jonathan 1109 0

BOX SCORES

Game 1: A’s 7 – Sox 0

Game 2: A’s 2 – Sox 3

Game 3: A’s 2 – Sox 0

 

There’s not much you can say when a team gets shut out in 2 of the 3 games over the weekend. The Sox just aren’t scoring runs right now, as any team that starts a combination of Matt Skole, Yolmer Sanchez, Adam Engel and Ryan Goins isn’t going to threaten much at the dish. It doesn’t help that Jose Abreu and James McCann continue their southward slide towards offensive oblivion. Timmy and Eloy can only do so much, and even with Moncada’s imminent return this lineup isn’t super scary at the moment. What can you do but go to the bullets?

 

NUMBERS DON’T LIE

-Let’s start with a few positives: Reynaldo Lopez and Lucas Giolito look like they’re gonna be OK. We can all exhale because the #3 and #5 starters of the Sox Rotation Of The Future seem to have their shit back in order. Lopez looked very good on Saturday, and that’s even with him admitting he didn’t have his changeup working like it normally does. He only struck out 3 batters, but he kept the sneakily powerful A’s lineup grounded, inducing 11 ground balls during his start. This isn’t normal for him, but I think it speaks to his ability to adjust on the fly when he realizes certain pitches aren’t working.

-Giolito on the other hand mowed down A’s like it was going out of style. He struck out 13 in 6 innings, and really only made one mistake to Fatty Olson when he left a 1-0 fastball belt high to him which ended up in the Goose Island of Sadness. That oopsie aside, Giolito had his slider and fastball cooking in the first few innings. After that the A’s made adjustments and sat on his heat and he went to the change to get the punchouts. All in all I’m very happy with what I saw out of those two this weekend.

-Ross Detweiler is not the answer to any questions the front office should be asking.

-3 runs in a 3 game series speaks for itself.  The A’s pitching staff is very underrated, but it’s not like Cy Young pitched all 3 games either. The Sox only managed 4 hits against Mike Fiers, who makes Tim Wakefield look like Nolan Ryan. Seems like they need to hit their way outta this one, just sad news for my retinas while they do it.

-Alex Colome escapes with his ass intact after some…creative D by Ryan Goins. Error aside, Colome seems to be skating by hitters with more than the usual amount of luck. The end of his run may be near, and it’s gonna be ugly when it implodes. Hahn May regret not selling high.

-Life doesn’t get any easier next series, as the unholy terror of the Astros visit the south side. It’s a different look for their offense, as the team the Sox beat in May has added Carlos Correa, Jose Altuve and Yordan Alvarez to their now fully armed and operational battle station. This could be ugly…

 

 

 

Baseball

Series Recap – Cubs Split With Reds: Fine, Whatever, Good, Let’s Get Outta Here

By Sam Fels 1368 0

Game 1 Box Score: Cubs 12, Reds 5

Game 2 Box Score: Reds 5, Cubs 2

Game 3 Box Score: Reds 10, Cubs 1

Game 4 Boxscore: Cubs 6, Reds 3

Considering all that’s happened against the Reds this year, how annoying they’ve been, how every hitter turns into Barry McGwire Mays against the Cubs, I’m taking this split of four games and sprinting for the airport. Series wins against the Phillies and Pirates would mean a 6-4 roadtrip and yes I’ll have some of that. Sure, it’s still a below-.500 team and you’d like to think the Cubs will find the form to beat teams like that more routinely. But hey, when you get a boil off your ass you don’t really worry about how elegantly you did it.

The thing is it was so close to being better. There was a lot of people trying to remove their own tongues through their neck on Friday night, but if Javy Baez’s hard-hit grounder is two feet to either side of where it was it scores two and it’s 5-4 with no outs and two on. Shit happens sometimes. Sometimes Hendricks or any starter doesn’t have it on that day. You live with it, it’s just that there have been so many other boneheaded losses it gets harder to do.

Most of all, after I complained and moaned after St. Louis that the Cubs didn’t fight or scratch or claw their way back into ABs and games on the road, today they did. Hell, you could argue they did on Thursday too when Hamels gave up a big lead and they just poured it on some more. But today especially, against Luis Castillo-whom they weren’t really close to in the game’s first five innings–they took advantage of some lackadaisical location and selection and found a way back. Helps the Reds pen hasn’t been any good since the break, but you take it.

Oh, and they made Thom Brennaman cry. Good day all around.

Let’s…

-I thought Jon Lester had fucked it today, but that wasn’t totally fair. The 3-0 pitch to Eugenio Suarez wasn’t as bad as a I thought:

That’s more good hitting than bad pitching. He even tried to stay away from Apollo/Aries/Yahweh Aquino, and he still went outside the zone and got it. He kept it close enough, which after that outing on Tuesday is good enough for now.

The real upset was that the pen was flawless, with only one hit and one walk in four innings or work. They may have lucked into Rowan Wick, but he was the main star, going two innings and going through the meat of the Reds lineup to give Strop the easier part. He even figured out to give Aquino nothing below his nose or above his ankles.

-I kind of had it wrong all weekend on Aquino, too. He had a decent 7.9% BB-rate in the minors this year, so he’s not the hack-a-thon I thought/hoped he was. Still, when he’s raining fire down upon you, the Cubs could have figured out to not be over the plate as much if only to avoid damage. Then again, when you’re already down eight…

-Very weird start for Darvish, who gave up four runners all night and all of them scored. He didn’t get away with one mistake, which almost seems unfair. Have that start again and he might go eight shutout next time.

-I want to believe that this IL stint is the rest Cishek needs that Maddon would never give him, instead of the abusive use shredding the hip he’s already had surgery on before. That’s what I want to believe.

-I was just thinking to myself that with the ball being a Titleist, 22 homers for Bryant seemed a touch on the low-side. I’ll take the 23rd and shut up now. The Cubs are seriously just one Bryant binge away from hiding from the Brewers and Cardinals.

-And good on Joe for letting Mills take the last four innings in a blowout to not have to use anyone who will matter. That left Phelps, Wick, and Strop fresh for today. I still want to believe Maples will matter one day, but I’m probably the only one now.

-Y’know, if Ian Happ keeps hitting, it doesn’t really matter if Ben Zobrist makes it back or not.

-My one quarrel with Friday is that with two outs and Amir Garrett on the mound, one of the tougher lefties in the division, Schwarber shouldn’t be given that AB. I know that Bote or Almora is hardly a step up, but presumably Bote is still here because he might actually hit a lefty sometime. Fairly sure Schwarber won’t, especially in a clutch situation. Oh well.

Onwards…

Baseball

Series Preview – A’s vs. White Sox: Now Back To The Lecture At Hand

By Sam Fels 996 0

vs.

RECORDS: A’s 65-50   White Sox 51-62

GAMETIMES: Friday 2:10, Saturday 6:10, Sunday 1:10

TV: WGN Friday and Sunday, NBCSN Saturday

THE RIGHT GREEN AND GOLD: Athletics Nation

PREVIEW POSTS

Depth Charts & Pitching Staffs

A’s Spotlight

The A’s continue their rare week-long stay in Chicago as after an off-day they will decamp to the Southside for the weekend, after a perfectly even series at Wrigley that basically coin-flipped to the Cubs. Each had a blowout, and Monday’s tilt came down to a gust of wind/loud fart from the bleachers to keep Marcus Semien‘s game-winning homer in the park. The Sox meanwhile go from beating up on the remedial class in Detroit to playing a team with real stakes again, a transition that could cause whiplash in some.

Not much could have changed for the A’s in four days, obviously. They still have issues in the rotation, though Tanner Roark and his strike-heavy ways will try and change that again on Saturday. The Sox will see Mike Fiers, whom I will never believe is good but keeps putting up good numbers, including leading the league in batting average against when trailing in the count somehow. Is he the worst pitcher to have two no-hitters to his name? The A’s have two of the names in the discussion, with Homer Bailey still nursing the contusions and lacerations the Cubs put on him on Wednesday.

The pen took a couple bumps too, as Blake Treinen continued his season-long wander through the forest on Wednesday as well. Lou Trivino hasn’t seen last year’s heights either, and it’s mostly on what Yusmeiro Petit, Joakim Soria, and especially Liam Hendriks can do. The A’s sit only a half-game behind the Rays for the second wildcard spot, and it feels like if they’re going to make up that game hinges on whether they can find another arm or two out of the pen to be a blackout, or if they can get some more help from the rotation than just five innings of not setting any fires (no pun intended nor welcomed). Again, they’re still hoping that A.J. Puk and/or Jesus Luzardo, two kids that will be in their rotation next year, can recover from injuries and provide help from somewhere in the season’s dying embers. When you’re Oakland, this is the kind of thing you do.

The lineup remains fine, though barely. Matt Chapman is in something of a swoon, with a wRC+ of 0 the past couple weeks. Semien is picking up the slack of late, and Mark Canha has chipped in, but this is not a bash-and-crash outfit. They score just enough, they catch just enough, and the pen generally holds the lid down even if it’s popping up and pulsating. They get through by the skin of their teeth.

For the Sox, it’s basically about maintaining a couple rolls. Reynaldo Lopez has an ERA under 3.00 since the break, and everyone is hoping this is his coming out party. He shut out the A’s over six innings last time he saw them, and while walks have been an issue his past two starts he’s been able to dodge the alarms. Still, the Sox would like to see him complete the sixth instead of just get there as he has the past couple outings. Giolito has found his dominating best in the last two starts as well after getting brained by the Twins. The Mets and Tigers aren’t exactly dynamic offenses, but at the moment neither are the A’s.

Tim Anderson and James McCann had great series in Detroit, and McCann especially needed it. An odd Friday matinee kicks it off, and starts a stretch where the Sox will see a lot of playoff contenders. The Astros are in after this, and they’ll see the Twins twice and Braves once before August is out. Fine test if nothing else.