Baseball

Series Preview – White Sox vs. Mets: Take A Bite

By Andy Jonathan 1502 0

vs.

 

RECORDS: White Sox 46-57   Mets 50-55

GAMETIMES: Tuesday/Wednesday 7:10 Thursday 1:20

TV: Tuesday WGN, Wednesday/Thursday NBCSN

And that’s when the CHUDs came at me: Mets Blog

 

PITCHING MATCHUPS

Reynaldo Lopez vs. Noah Syndergaard

 Lucas Giolito vs. Jacob deGrom 

Dylan Cease vs. Zack Wheeler

 

PROBABLE METS LINEUP

Jeff McNeil – LF

Pete Alonso – 1B

Robinson Cano – 2B

Michael Conforto – RF

Wilson Ramos – C

Todd Frazier – 3B

Amed Rosario – SS

Juan Lagares – CF

 

PROBABLE WHITE SOX LINEUP

Leury Garcia – CF

Yoan Moncada – 3B

Jose Abreu – 1B

James McCann – C/DH

Eloy Jimenez – LF

Jon Jay – RF

Tim Anderson – SS

Wellington Castillo – DH/C

Yolmer Sanchez – 2B

 

This has the makings of an interesting series. The pitching matchups are about as marquee as the Sox could hope for. Tim Anderson and Eloy Jimenez are both going to be back in the lineup, which hopefully means less Adam Engel and AJ Fieri on my TV set. Also, the MLB trade deadline is tomorrow which could add some intrigue to the games, as both the Mets and Sox have pieces to move.  Some of which have been linked to the other team. While I’m not holding my breath that the Sox will trade for Syndergaard or Wheeler, it would be pretty hilarious to watch one of those guys amble out of the Mets dugout and walk across the field to head right into the Sox one.

The Mets come into the series on somewhat of a roll, having won four in a row and five out of their last six games. Overall, they’re 10-5 since coming out of the All Star break having scored 94 runs in that 15-game span.  Their pitching has been pretty lights out, having only given up 48 runs in that time. Syndergaard in particular has looked more like his old self after having a rocky first half of the season (just in time for the trade deadline!). In his last seven starts he’s gone 3-1 with a 3.43 ERA and 45 Ks compared to 15 BBs. This is a far cry from the 5.00+ ERA he sported at the end of May. He’s still vulnerable to the long ball, which works in the Sox favor playing at home and having Eloy and Tim back.

On the offensive side, the Mets still have their table set for them by super utility man Jeff McNeil and Amed Rosario.  Both of them get on base at a prodigious clip and allow rookie (and noted Paul Konerko Fan) Pete Alonso to knock them in. Alonso has slashed himself to a .258/.363/.596 line with 34 HR and 77 RBI so far in the season. The scary thing about that line is his BABIP currently sits at .269, which shows despite the gaudy stats he’s actually had pretty bad batted ball luck.  If he were to rise to the mean…man. Dude is a pretty special hitter, and I’m super glad to have him on my fantasy team.

On the other side of the field the Sox have been the polar opposite of the Mets.  Having gone 4-13 after the All Star break and scoring a meager 51 runs in that span while giving up 92, the Sox are hoping the return of Eloy and Tim to the lineup and the ejection of Dylan Covey to the Negative Zone will help those splits. They’ll have a decent chance with Lopez, Giolito and Cease taking the bump against the Mets. Lopez has been above average post ASB with a 1-1 record and a 1.90 ERA over his last three starts. Lopez’ has found the control on his fastball, being able to dot it at the top of the zone with added movement. In addition his off-speed offerings have been in the lower part of the zone, keeping hitters off balance. Most importantly he’s lasted longer in games, as he’s gone 21 innings in those three starts.

Offensively the Sox have been…offensive. Anyone not named Yoan Moncada has been scuffling, especially Jose Abreu. Hopefully with some protection in the lineup for him now Abreu will settle back down and his OBP will rise back up to it’s usual .390 area. Anderson hit pretty well during his rehab stint in Charlotte and had no issues in the field so the hope is that he can hit the ground running.

Trade deadline implications aside, the Sox have a decent shot at winning this series if all breaks their way. I’d prefer to not think about the other side of the coin. Here’s hoping that not only they win the series, but score a starter from the Mets in the process to fill that void in the rotation.

Let’s go Sox!

 

Baseball

Mets Spotlight: Brodie Man

By Andy Jonathan 1761 0

With the trade deadline looming, and the Mets already active in it with their acquisition of my personal Man-Crush Marcus Stroman last night, I thought it would be fun to take a look at the man behind the madness, Brodie Van Wagenen. Plus I find the inner workings of professional sports teams fascinating, and this gives me the perfect excuse to delve even further down that rabbit hole.

Van Wagenen was hired this past off-season after previous GM Sandy Alderson decided to take an extended leave of absence to spend more time with his remaining brain cells. Van Wagenen previously had been a player agent, having represented some of the Mets top talent (and Tim Tebow) like Jacob deGrom, Robinson Cano and the remaining ligaments of Yoenis Cespedes. While you might think that hiring a former agent to be the GM of a baseball team that has previously negotiated with said agent might be a conflict of interest, it’s not without precedent. Former A’s and Blue Jays ace Dave Stewart went from being a player, to an agent, and then eventually to GM of the Arizona Diamondbacks.

The issue that a lot of people in baseball had with this move is that as the agent of some of these players, Van Wagenen was privy to the medical information of his clients which he could then in theory use against them in salary negotiations.  Granted, the likelihood of that is slim as it would immediately result in a grievance being filed against the Mets by the player’s union but it’s not a concern without merit.  This didn’t deter the Mets, however, as they signed Van Wagenen to a five-year contract last October.

Van Wagenen didn’t waste much time making moves, as he sent their top rated OF prospect Jared Kelenic and Jay Bruce to the Mariners for the 2018 saves leader Edwin Diaz and the corpse of Robinson Cano and it’s $100 million dollar price tag.  Also in the deal was the Mets top pitching prospect Justin Dunn who also sits in the top 100 ranked ML players as of last week.  He also signed free agent catcher Wilson Ramos and added infield utility man Jed Lowrie to one year deals.

The only one of those moves that has panned out thus far is Wilson Ramos, and then only just barely as he’s been worth 0.2 WAR thus far this season slashing .259/.335/.387 with 10 dingers and 45 RBI. The guy he replaced behind the dish was Travis D’Arnaud, who ended up with Tampa Bay and has produced 1.2 WAR for them with a .249/.316/.482 line. Whoops. Robinson Cano has predictably continued the downward spiral on the back half of his career.  He’s been worth -0.2 WAR thus far and played below average D at 2B.  He’s also logged a decent amount of time on the IL with various maladies.  Edwin Diaz has been a shadow of his former self at the back end of the Mets bullpen.  His ERA currently sits at an ugly 4.95, and he’s blown five saves thus far and has been worth 0.4 WAR.

Even if that brutal off-season wasn’t enough, Van Wagenen seems to be a might bit…unstable.  Earlier in the month it was reported that during a post game meeting with staffers Van Wagenen lost his shit and ended up throwing a chair around the room. He’s also been known to manage games from the comfort of his home by calling Mets staffers to relay instructions to manager Mickey Callaway regarding the pulling of deGrom from the game. This new style of management certainly brings back memories of George Steinbrenner doing the kind of shit that made him such a great Seinfeld character.

All this brings us to the trade deadline, which in typical fashion Van Wagenen has jumped by trading top pitching prospects Anthony Kay and Simeon Woods Richardson to Toronto to bring in Marcus Stroman.  On the surface, the move doesn’t seem to make much sense. The Mets currently sit 11.5 games back in the division and six games in the wild card race.  Stroman was largely regarded as the best pitcher available on the market other than Noah Syndergaard at the deadline, and was actively being pursued by the Braves and Yankees.  Granted Stroman has another year of team control before hitting the market, but it seems the Mets need more than just him to compete next year as Zack Wheeler and Syndergaard himself are not long for the team.

Which might be why he traded for Stroman, as a potential replacement for Syndergaard if he’s dealt at the deadline.  If that’s truly the case, it will be very interesting to see the return the Mets get for him. In addition to that, I would sincerely hope that Rick Hahn would be calling and asking about the price for Thor as he’s an immediate upgrade over anyone not named Lucas Giolito.  The main question at this point would be asking price.  Syndergaard has two more year of team control left, then hits the free agent market in a year pretty devoid of starting pitching.  If the Mets were to ask for Michael Kopech, would Hahn be open to making that deal? I think I would, though it would be a tough pill to swallow. I’m hoping Hahn isn’t the one to break Van Wagenen’s streak of terrible deals by getting fleeced by him. Though I’m not expecting much out of this deadline for the Sox, Thor would be a nice surprise as long as the price is right.

Should be an interesting few days.

Baseball

Series Preview – Cubs vs. Cardinals: Here Comes The Salt

By Sam Fels 1453 0

vs.

RECORDS: Cubs 56-49   Cardinals 56-49

GAMETIMES: Tuesday and Wednesday 7:15, Thursday 6:15

TV: NBCSN Tuesday and Thursday, WGN Wednesday

BARF: Viva El Birdos

PITHCING MATCHUPS

Yu Darvish vs. Adam Wainwright

Kyle Hendricks vs. Miles Mikolas

Jon Lester vs. Jack Flaherty

PROBABLE CUBS LINEUP

Kyle Schwarber – LF

Willson Contreras – C

Kris Bryant – 3B

Anthony Rizzo – 1B

Javier Baez – SS

Jason Heyward – RF

Robel Garcia – 2B

Ian Happ – CF

PROBABLE CARDINALS LINEUP

Tommy Edman – 3B

Dexter Fowler – CF

Jose Martinez – RF

Paul Goldschmidt – 1B

Paul DeJong – SS

Tyler O’Neill – LF

Kolten Wong – 2B

Matt Wieters  – C

 

So I would love to tell you that this is where the Cubs can make things right. Even just a series win would leave them with a 4-5 road trip, which isn’t exactly acceptable but could be explained away by the anal horseshoe the Giants are toting around. It wouldn’t be total disaster, let’s say. If we want to get ambitious, a sweep would leave the Cubs with 5-4, and even with all the problems and concerns and ulcers provided over the weekend, in the end you’d have to be satisfied with that. As long as you continue to clean up at home, that is. You’d put three games between you and the Red Menace, with an August schedule that isn’t that demanding.

But if you were betting people, and drawing on the life lessons you’ve learned, would you lean toward the Cardinals making things all right or pouring more salt in the wound? I thought so.

What’s insulting is the Cubs shouldn’t be anywhere near this team. Its offense is not good. Its rotation is not good. Only its pen has been able to keep them from sinking into the locker, and the Cubs have hung and hung just long enough for one hot-streak to put St. Louis right in the middle of this. For shame.

While Godlschmidt’s binge the past month has propelled them, over the year as a whole only Ozuna has been a plus-hitter for them, and he’s on the shelf. DeJong continues to deflate from April, Fowler has been hot of late but overall barely average. And worse yet, this team is beat up. Carpenter and Ozuna are either unlikely to feature this series (Carpenter) or out (Ozuna). Molina is still out, though whisper this around that part of the country but Wieters has been better offensively than Yadier would have managed because if they hear you they’ll definitely whip their arm fat at you. But of course, they lose their “soul” without Yadi, or some such horseshit.

The rotation has been the very definition of “meh.” Not one carries an ERA below 3.80 nor above 4.20, which can’t be called anything other than fine. Jack Flaherty has been really good the past month, but Waino, Ponce de Leon (get a new name, jackass), and Hudson have been straight gasoline. Mikolas has evened out a bit with three quality starts in a row and four out of his last five, and of course is just the special kind of fuckwit who will allow the Cubs two hits over seven while striking out like, one guy. Can’t wait.

It’s the pen where lies the Cards’ strength. They strike out the second-most hitters in the NL, have the second-best ERA and FIP. Over the past month they’ve been the best in the league in pretty much every category. Giovanny Gallegos, John Brebbia, Andrew Miller have all been lights-out. And now converted starters Michael Wacha and Carlos Martinez are coming out of there, with the latter acting as a de facto closer at times. Though you still wouldn’t trust him to not go to the zoo for an inning, he’s just less likely to do that when he’s only pitching for one inning. It would be a good idea to not enter the back half of games trailing. Not that it really matters with the Cubs’ pen, because they’ll soon be trailing anyway. The dark arts would swallow the Cubs in the late innings when they had a good pen in that haven of asshoolery, so why would now be any different?

For the Cubs, one of the bigger stories will be off the field in the next two days, as in what they do before the One Deadline To Rule Them All, assuming the Ricketts Family keeps the billions somehow concealed from view to the point where even they can’t see it. Truly a wondrous trick. The Cubs need at least one more arm in the pen, and probably another bat, but probably can’t get both. Hail Marys on Zobrist and Happ will probably the orders of the day.

I would say the Cubs need dominant outings from their starters, but they got that in the first two in Milwaukee and lost both. What they need is the offense to actually assert itself for three games, which it hasn’t done on the road in who the fuck knows. Score a goddamn touchdown every day and worry about the rest later.

This is now the business end of the season. Keep in mind that starting 8/27, the Cubs will have two days off the rest of the season. They don’t want to hit that stretch looking up at anyone, which means they need head-from-rectum removal right fucking now. But it feels like we keep saying that.

Baseball

Cardinals Spotlight: Paul DeJong And Fiendish BABIP Kung Fu Treachery

By Sam Fels 1157 0

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Baseball

Is There Anything Wrong With Lucas Giolito?

By Sam Fels 1205 0

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Baseball

Series Recap: Sox Lose 3 of 4 To Twins – Whammy

By Andy Jonathan 1217 0

Game 1: Sox 3 – Twins 10

Game 2: Sox 2 – Twins 6

Game 3: Sox 5 – Twins 1

Game 4: Sox 1 – Twins 11

 

This is exactly how I feared this weekend would go. The Sox aren’t hitting very well lately, the starters (minus Ivan Nova, what a world) aren’t pitching very well, and Renteria isn’t coaching very well. Oh, and I guess Rick Hahn hasn’t GM’ed very well so far either. All of that adds up to a very miserable weekend of baseball on the South Side, and (based on the groan I heard from Wrigley last night) in Chicago overall. Time to sift through the rubble and talk about what went wrong (lots), and what went right (not lots). To the bullets.

 

Numbers Don’t Lie

-Let’s just get this out of the way: Dylan Covey is just plain awful. He’s not a major league starter right now, and I’d put the odds at 1,000 to 1 that he never will be. Thankfully he was banished back to Charlotte after the game, which on a personal level has to suck something fierce.  Honestly, I wouldn’t be surprised if Renteria told him there was an Uber waiting for him at the curb when he walked to the mound in the first inning.  I have no idea what or who the fifth starter is going to be, but the spot won’t come up until after the trade deadline so maybe Rick Hahn will pull something fun in the next few days that will help with that (Narrator: He didn’t).

-Lucas Giolito has had three shitty starts now out of his last five and is winless in the month of July. I know he talks a lot about knowing what’s wrong with his fastball and change, but knowing what’s wrong and doing something about it are two totally different things. Regression was inevitable for this Sox team, I just didn’t think it would all happen at once. Giolito will get one more chance to score a July win on Wednesday, but no guarantees there as it will be against Jake deGrom.  Here’s hoping.

-Whoops, Nelson Cruz just hit another fucking home run. Good thing the Sox were never considering him as he wasn’t on Manny Machado’s iphone Favorite Contacts list.

-AJ Reed pitched a scoreless inning Sunday, which is the best thing he managed for this team all weekend. On the other side of the ball he went 0-10 with a walk, an RBI, and six left stranded on base. Best case scenario the Sox got him and Covey an Uber Pool ride to MDW and they’re never seen from again.

-Yoan Moncada is a badass.

-I’m kinda starting to like Ryan Goins, and if the Sox happen to move on from Yolmer or Leury Garcia at the deadline Wednesday I’d be OK with him getting more reps in the infield.

-Ivan Nova is having a mini-resurgance, as that’s two solid starts in a row now. He’s gone 15 innings in those two games, giving up one ER with six hits and one BB.  He’s not striking anyone out, but for a 5th starter (which, in a perfect world he would be the Sox 5th starter instead of their 2nd) you can do a whole lot worse. Keep it up.

-Dylan Cease had yet another terrible inning in the middle of a pretty solid start. These are the growing pains you have to deal with when young pitchers come up, and I’m WAY more willing to watch that than a Covey/Despaigne/Homeless Guy From Outside Al’s Beef start.

-Eloy is back, and that’s the best thing that happened Sunday. Odds are Timmy is back Tuesday for the Mets, so that would bring the total dead spots in the Sox lineup down to two. Huzzah!

-Next up is the Mets, who have an even bigger tire fire in their front office than the Sox do.  Unfortunately for us, Syndergaard and deGrom are the 2 potential starters unless Thor is traded (from what I’m reading on the tweets, however, is that the Mets asking price for him involves the Hope Diamond so I think we might be outta luck). Sure would be nice to have a few quality starts from Lopez and Giolito to erase the shit show the post-All Star break start has been.

Baseball

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

By Sam Fels 1439 0

Game 1 Box Score: Brewers 3, Cubs 2

Game 2 Box Score: Brewers 5, Cubs 3

Game 3 Box Score: Cubs 11, Brewers 4

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

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

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

The Two Obs

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

Usually.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Baseball

Series Preview – Cubs vs. Brewers: Please Stand Up

By Sam Fels 1154 0

vs.

RECORDS: Cubs 55-47   Brewers 54-50

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

TV: NBCSN Friday, ABC 7 Saturday and Sunday

YA HEY DERE: Brew Crew Ball

PITCHING MATCHUPS

Kyle Hendricks vs. Gio Gonzalez

Jon Lester vs. Chase Anderson

Jose Quintana vs. Zach Davies

PROBABLE CUBS LINEUP

Kyle Schwarber – LF

Javier Baez – SS

Kris Bryant – RF

Anthony Rizzo – 1B

Willson Contreras – C

Robel Garcia – 2B

David Bote – 3B

Ian Happ – CF

PROBABLE BREWERS LINEUP

Lorenzo Cain – CF

Christian Yelich – RF

Yasmani Grandal – C

Mike Moustakas – 3B

Ryan Braun – LF’

Eric Thames – 1B

Keston Hiura – 2B

Orlando Arcia – SS

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Baseball

Brewers Spotlight: In The Midnight Hour

By Sam Fels 1200 0

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Baseball

Series Preview – White Sox vs. Twins: Monkey Knife Fight

By Andy Jonathan 2182 0

vs.

Records: Twins 61-40   White Sox 45-54

Gametimes: Thursday & Friday 7:10/Saturday 6:10/Sunday 1:10

TV: Thursday/Friday/Sunday NBCSN – Saturday WGN

Ozzie Guillen’s Kryptonite: Puckett’s Pond

Pitching Matchups:

Jose Berrios vs. Lucas Giolito

Michael Pineda vs. Dylan Cease

Martin Perez vs. Chevy Nova

Kyle Gibson vs. Dylan Fucking Covey Again

PROBABLE TWINS LINEUP

  1. Max Kepler – CF
  2. Jorge Polanco – SS
  3. Nelson Cruz – DH
  4. Mitch Garver – C
  5. Marwin Gonzalez – RF
  6. Eddie Rosario – LF
  7. Jonathan Schoop – 2B
  8. Luis Arraez– 3B
  9. Miguel Sano – 1B

 

PROBABLE WHITE SOX LINEUP

  1. Leury Garcia – RF
  2. Yoan Moncada – 3B
  3. Jose Abreu – 1B
  4. James McCann – C
  5. Ryan Goins – SS
  6. Jon Jay – LF
  7. AJ Reed – DH/Appetizers
  8. Yolmer Sanchez – 2B
  9. Adam Engel – CF

 

Here we go again with these guys. Since the last meeting between the two rivals, the Sox and Twins haven’t exactly covered themselves in glory. The Twins have gone 9-10 whilst the Sox shit all over themselves post-ASB to the tune of 6-10. The Twins come into the series having given up approximately 3,000 runs to the Yankees while scoring 2,900 in a series where the Bronx took two of the three. The Sox did the opposite, giving up hardly anything to the Marlins but not hitting anything after the first night win.The Twins could really use a series win to turn their fortunes around, and the Sox could use a few wins to build momentum of their own after gagging out two losses against one of the league’s worst teams.

The Twins come into the series as one of the hotter hitting teams in the AL. Unfortunately for them, the Regression Monster has come home to roost for their starting rotation, which has been giving up as many runs as the Twins have been blasting out. Jake Odorizzi, Martin Perez, and Michael Pineda have all seen their ERA rise dramatically in the past few weeks. Even staff ace Jose Berrios has had a few rough outings of his own, though not to the extent of the other three. Kyle Gibson is the trend breaker, as he was never that good to begin with so he didn’t have that far to fall.

Like I mentioned above, the offense for the Twinkies has been carrying them to most of their wins. Polanco, Cruz, Rosario, and Kepler have been banging out hits at an alarming rate, and Miguel Sano has cut his strikeouts and gotten his OBP up to more respectable levels to go along with his considerable power. The Twins are still missing wunderkind Byron Buxton, who’s been banished to the dark room with a case of brown brain after making yet another highlight reel diving catch in center field. CJ Cron, who had been having a pretty solid year as well, goes back on the IL with more thumb issues, forcing Sano into the field and a call up for prospect Luis Arraez. Arraez has acquitted himself pretty will to the MLB level so far, sitting with a .379 average and over .900 OPS. Granted its a small sample size with less than 150 at bats under his belt, but still not too shabby.

The Sox on the other hand are having trouble putting the bat on the ball, despite the nine-run outburst Monday night against the Fish. They’ve struck out 32 times as a team in the last three games, and that’s with facing only one real quality pitcher in Caleb Smith. The starting rotation has improved, with the exception of Dylan Covey, who is unable to make it through an opposing lineup more than 1.5 times per night. This could be helped with an opener, but alas this is a bridge too far for Renteria who just wants you off his lawn. Yoan Moncada is the only player hitting consistently right now, as Abreu is scuffling and regression seems to have come for McCann. Eloy and Anderson can’t get back here fast enough to provide some protection for these guys. Lucas Giolito and Berrios go head-to-head Thursday night in a marquee pitching matchup for Guys Who Are Really Good But ESPN Doesn’t Know Who They Are. Dylan Cease gets his first stiff test of a lineup that can put any of your mistakes into orbit, so control of his fastball his going to be key. Nova is Nova, so lets just hope everybody hits for him again.

Taking the series or even splitting with Minnesota would go a long way to washing the taste of dirt out of the Sox collective mouths after the Miami series. If it’s gonna happen, Giolito is gonna have to be on his game tonight and set the tone. Lets go Sox, get me some more beers.