Baseball

Series Preview – Marlins vs. Cubs: Funtime Rolls

By Sam Fels 1465 0

vs.

RECORDS: Marlins 9-24   Cubs 19-12

GAMETIMES: Monday-Wednesday at 7:05

TV: NBCSN Monday and Tuesday, WGN Wednesday

VICE CITY: Fish Stripes

PROBABLE PITCHERS

Sandy Alcantara – Cole Hamels

Caleb Smith vs. Jon Lester

Jose Urena vs. Kyle Hendricks

PROBABLE MARLINS LINEUP

Curtis Granderson – LF

Martin Prado – 3B

Brian Anderson – RF

Neil Walker – 1B

Starlin Castro – 2B

Jorge Alfaro – C

Miguel Rojas – SS

PROBABLE CUBS LINEUP

Daniel Descalso – 2B

Kris Bryant – 3B

Anthony Rizzo – 1B

Javier Baez – SS

Kyle Schwarber – LF

Willson Contreras – C

Jason Heyward – RF

Albert Almora – CF

 

Now that the Cubs have ascended through the Central Division to the top like Beatrix Kiddo swimming through the dirt to emerge from the grave, they seek to keep the ball rolling. And there’s no better way to do that than having a series with the Miami Marlins, pretty much everything that’s wrong with sports today.

The Cubs will send Lester and Hendricks out to build on their dominant outings last out, while Cole Hamels will attempt to clean up a little after his slight wobble against the Mariners that saw him not survive the sixth, though he didn’t get much help from his defense that night. Luckily for all these guys, they’ll be facing a lineup that’s essentially that cartoon holding an umbrella while the anvil descends.

I don’t know why anyone thought Derek Jeter and the money he didn’t have were going to save the Marlins. Maybe it’s because he simply wasn’t Jeffrey Loria, who would have been kicked out/barred from any sport with an actual commissioner armed a passing interest in protecting anything resembling integrity. Jeter learned his cues from Michael Jordan, who continually has proven the only interest he has in owning a team is having access to an owner’s suite where he can smoke cigars. That’s pretty much Jeter. Jeter has only ever been interested in himself, and this should have been abundantly clear when he wouldn’t move off of short for Alex Rodriguez, a categorically better player than he was in every way.

The Marlins are at least four-and-a-half games behind anyone else in the NL, having won only nine games when everyone else has at least won 14. They have yet to score 100 runs, are second-to-last in OBP as a team (ahead of only the Giants, which, woof) and are 35 points behind the next closest team in wOBA. If you wanted to demonstrate how you tank an offense, this would be it. There isn’t a hitter worth mentioning here, aside from maybe Neil Walker and only because there was a time when he was a real thorn in the ass of the Cubs. He’s also one of two regulars in the lineup who are having anything resembling an average season in terms of wRC+, with the other being Jorge Alfaro. Alfaro is the only player in the lineup who might matter one day down the road when the Fish aren’t an embarrassment, but he’s 25 already so even that’s a touch of a stretch. The only help in the system that might arrive in the next year is Monte Harrison, but everything else is years away.

Somehow, the rotation hasn’t been that bad, ranking in the middle of most categories in the NL. It’s been remarkably healthy, which helps. The Marlins have been able to run out the same five guys through April. Pablo Lopez and Caleb Smith have been highly effective, and the Cubs will miss Lopez. Jose Urena has the stuff to be a top-half rotation starter, but just can’t seem to put it together. And he’s 27, so it could just be this is what he is.

Of course, that doesn’t matter much when your rotation is trying to hold up one or two runs from your offense, if that many, and your bullpen comes out armed with a variety of blow torches and Molotov cocktails. There’s nothing the starters can do that the offense and pen can’t ruin.

Remember, this is how the Marlins wanted it, despite their protestations this isn’t what they expected. They simple exist to siphon off tax dollars from Miami for their stadium no one wanted and everyone got (stuck with the bill). They are now Jeter’s plaything, are years from being memorable, and before then they’ll probably blow it up anyway because no one wants anything to do with them and MLB makes it exceedingly easy and rewarding to not try. But hey, that owner’s suite for Jeter…

Baseball

Series Wrap – Sox Lose 3 of 4 to Red Sox: When Fun Turns Into Not Fun

By Andy Jonathan 1596 0

At least the first night was fun, right?  If you didn’t watch another game in this series after Little Nicky Delmonico walked off Ryan Brasier in the 9th inning Thursday night you’d have been so much better off for it. Just when things were kind of sort of looking up, the water went right back to it’s own level. Everything flew off the rails in pretty spectacular fashion, and now somehow the Sox pitching rotation is even worse off than it was before they put Ervin Santana back in the discount aisle where they found him.  There’s a LOT of questions to be answered about this team, and I’m starting to wonder if Ricky Renteria is the guy I want on that wall answering them.

BULLETS

 

-Let’s get the worst thing out of the way: Carlos Rodon is most likely done for the season and headed to meet Dr James Andrews in the Don Cooper Ward at Our Lady Of The Shredded Elbow Hospital.  He left his start on Wednesday after 3.2 innings not looking right at all.  Turns out he wasn’t, as an MRI later revealed he had bleeding in the muscle tissue in his forearm which is usually an indication of a torn UCL.  It’s really getting kind of ridiculous how badly the health of the young Sox pitching talent has gotten.  If Rodon truly does go under the knife for a Tommy John surgery, that would make him the 5th one under the age of 27 to do so in the last 3 years.  Most of it is probably bad luck, but I can’t help but wonder if something was wrong with Rodon Wednesday, why the hell Renteria threw him back out there in the 4th inning?  I know he’s a bulldog and doesn’t wanna come out of games but Ricky’s job here is to protect these players from themselves.  At any rate, this makes an already grim situation worse as it probably means Dylan “Soft Toss” Covey riding in to take his rotation spot.

 

-After this series the Sox added onto their league lead for worst ERA by a starting rotation, all the way up to 6.82.  That is hilariously bad.  I can’t remember in my time as a Sox fan watching a rotation this inept at getting people out.  Even the great starts from these guys don’t make it out of the 6th inning, as we saw with Reynaldo Lopez against the Tigers.  Giolito and Lopez have a tendency to nibble at the strike zone instead of attacking it, and Nova couldn’t find it with a fucking GPS.  The bullpen, while not any great shakes to begin with, is horribly overtaxed and results in the type of outings seen today, where a 2-2 tie turns into a 9-2 loss in the span of an inning.  I’m pretty well done with the whole “Coop’ll fix em” mentality, as he hasn’t been able to bring a young starter along since Sale, and he was basically like “fuck you, I’ll do it myself”.  Knowing Jerry Reinsdorf’s mostly misguided loyalty to his guys, Don Cooper isn’t going anywhere soon but maybe he should be.

 

-Manny Banuelos is going to need some serious therapy after the 3rd inning on Saturday night.  The poor bastard gave up a whopping 9 earned runs on 10 hits in the 3rd as Ricky left him out there to watch the Red Sox lace his offerings off, under and over each outfield fence.  He didn’t even make it out of the inning, and out came former 1st round draft pick Arson Fulmer to hack up another 5 earned in 1/3 of an inning pitched.  What a nice reward to the 30,000+ people in attendance to see such quality major league level pitching.  At least they got an R2-D2 bobblehead to take home with them, so when they look at it they can be reminded of the soothing sound of a baseball traveling at 100+ MPH splashing down in the shitty water feature at the Goose Island Beer Garden.

 

-Moncada has traded places with Jose Abreu now, as he’s gone from taking what the pitcher gives him to trying to pull everything again.  It’s resulted in a lot of weak contact and K’s, and it might be time to give the kid a day off to clear his head.  Abreu meanwhile has been smoking the ball to all corners of the field, and has found his power stroke.  If there’s one positive to take away from the last 3 games this is probably it.  Yonder Alonso sucks.

 

-Tim Anderson’s average is down to .333 and everything is terrible.  Look on the bright side, however!  Friend of Manny and OF professional Jon Jay is on an extended spring training so help is on the way!  At the very least it means I won’t have to watch Adam Engel and his wacky Used Car Blowup Man act in the batter’s box much longer.

-Next up is the Tribe, who just took 2 of 3 from Seattle despite getting Banuelos’ed today 10-0.  They haven’t been hitting all that well, but as the BoSox proved today the White Sox rotation is the perfect medicine for that particular illness.

Baseball

Series Preview – Cardinals vs. Cubs: Oh That’s What That Smell Is

By Sam Fels 1452 0

vs.

RECORDS: Cardinals 20-11   Cubs 16-12

GAMETIMES: Friday 1:20, Saturday 3:05, Sunday 6:05

TV: NBCSN Friday, WGN Saturday, ESPN Sunday (Oh boy)

GROSS: Viva El Birdos

PROBABLE PITCHERS

Jack Flaherty vs. Kyle Hendricks

Michael Wacha vs. Yu Darvish

Adam Wainwright vs. Jose Quintana

PROBABLE CARDINALS LINEUP

Matt Carpenter – 3B

Paul Goldschmidt – 1B

Paul DeJong – SS

Marcel Ozuna – LF

Jose Martinez – RF

Yadier Molina – C

Kolten Wong – 2B

Harrison Bader – CF

PROBABLE CUBS LINEUP

Daniel Descalso – 2B

Kris Bryant – 3B

Anthony Rizzo – 1B

Javier Baez – SS

Willson Contreras – C

Ben Zobrist – RF

Kyle Schwarber – LF

Jason Heyward – CF

 

And now to it. The first invasion of the unwashed and illiterate from West East St. Louis, as the Cubs and Cardinals test out each other for the first time at the top of the Central Division. The Cardinals loaded up with Paul Goldschmidt this winter, and while the Brewers may crow about last season, it was the Cubs the Cardinals had in mind for what they had to overhaul. And even with the horrific start, the season’s first month has borne that out.

The Cardinals are baseball’s hottest team at the moment, winning eight of their last 10. Goldy has been the juice to the offense the Cards hoped, as they’re second in runs, third in OBP, and fourth in wOBA. But he’s not doing it alone. Paul DeJong is slugging nearly .600 and playing excellently in the field which is the real upset. Marcell Ozuna has been the player the Cards thought they were trading for last year. Even Dexter Fowler has returned from the dead, or being a sleeper spy, and his managing a 133 wRC+. Goldschmidt is Goldschmidt, and he’ll be in the top-10 of the MVP picture because that’s just a thing that he does.

How much of this is real? Fowler’s .407 BABIP would suggest that’s mirage. DeJong is getting serious rub of the green as well so far. But Wong, Goldy, Ozuna, and even Harrison Bader are probably doing this most if not all the season. The wooden spoon in the lineup so far is former stalwart Matt Carpenter, who has made starting slowly something of a signature move at this point. Then he’ll hit 25 homers June-August before going back into the toilet (really anywhere in STL) for the season’s last month. Also he’s a performance art piece at third.

The rotation though might be as big of a problem as the offense is a force. Flaherty is striking out over 10 hitters per nine, but he can’t seem to keep the ball in the park and he doesn’t get a ton of grounders. His HR/FB rate won’t stay at near 25% all season but seeing as how half the contact he’s giving up has been of the hard variety, this could be a problem all season. Especially if everything is in the air. Adam Wainwright is a million years old and is having some of the same control problems he did last year as he can’t miss bats the way he used to. Michael Wacha is also in need of a GPS, and seems destined to always break your heart (or entertain you endlessly, if you hate the Cardinals like most of the world). Last year’s hero Miles Mikolas can’t get anyone out and is giving up twice the homers he did last year, at least at that pace. Sometimes when you don’t miss bats this is what happens. There’s some asshole named Dakota taking starts. This will be an issue for the Cards all season, even if Mikolas straightens out.

The pen has been able to bail them out. Jordan Hicks is finally more than just a ridiculous fastball that people still hit anyway. John Gant has a 0.90 ERA. Something named John Brebbia has also been a weapon. There are two other guys averaging more than 10Ks per nine innings, and neither of them is Andrew Miller. Miller has been better of late but has spent most of the year spraying deliveries around like an Uzi. Perhaps it was a good idea to not hand him a multi-year deal after he showed decline and injury problems last year.

For the Cubs, they’ll need Hendricks to find it again and Darvish to build on the last four innings of his last outing, otherwise the Cards can sprint out in games in a hurry. Hendricks’s first inning problems against Goldschmidt today isn’t exactly settling the stomach. But the Cubs should also get some runs off this outfit.

A sweep puts the Cubs in first. Just sayin’…

Baseball

Lester, Lester…The Bounce-Back We’ve Been After?

By Sam Fels 1300 0

It does sound a little weird to say Jon Lester was in need, or even close to needing, a bounce-back season. After all, a 3.32 ERA last year and an 18-6 record would suggest that things went pretty ok (and if you’re Phil Rogers, you would say they definitely did, before pining for Curtis Granderson again). But as I wrote extensively during the 2018 season, Lester did an awful lot of dancing through and over the flames, and can thank whatever shaman he employed for getting him through the campaign with those numbers and not whiplash from turning around frequently.

Lester’s strikeout-rate was a career-low last year, and his walk-rate the highest in seven seasons. He gave up a ton of hard contact, and when you combined his walk-rate with his hard-contact rate–essentially the two things a pitcher can control–he was in the bottom third of the league. Basically, the Cubs superior defense pulled his ass out of a sling a good portion of the time, and when they didn’t Lady Luck was the one reaching over the cliff and grabbing his wrist.

So when PECOTA and other projection systems had the Cubs belching up noxious gases this season, you could certainly see why, once you were done choking on your fan-rage, particularly when it came to Lester. Surely luck wouldn’t be so friendly without exacting a bounty soon after.

And yet Lester has burst out of the gate this year, with a 1.73 ERA, 0.96 WHIP, and a 3.35 FIP which is much more in line with his 2016 season that saw him in the top-three for Cy Young voting. Granted, it’s only five starts, with two abridged due to either injury or a return from same, but how did we get here?

Well, for one, Lester is still getting luck to be on his side, and violently so. Hitters have only managed a .231 BABIP against him, which is some 66 points below his career-average. And it’s not like Lester has found some elixir to softer contact that might produce a lower BABIP, like Hendricks does when he’s on song. In fact, Lester is giving up aggressively more hard contact than he did last year, 41% this term compared to 31.9% last year. So yeah…that’s going to be an issue. On hard-contact alone, batters against Lester have only managed a .280 BABIP, when the rest of his career for Lester that mark is usually .370 or higher. A reckoning could be coming.

Second, Lester has a 96% left-on-base percentage, which means whatever runners are getting on are getting stuck out there. League average on this is somewhere around 72-73%, and Lester’s career-mark is 75%. Sequencing has also been a friend to him (so many friends!). This won’t last, though twice in his Cubs career Lester has managed an 80+% LOB%, so it might not come down as aggressively as it would for others, or his BABIP.

But hey, let’s be fair. It’s good to be positive. Lester’s K/9 is up to levels not seen since 2010, and his BB/9 is down almost a full walk. That’s good, and not due to luck. That’s what a pitcher controls best, after all. So why should that be?

There is a slight change in approach, as Lester is throwing more cutters than he ever has. Lester used to keep his cutter-usage to around a quarter of the time, give or take. This year it’s been a third of his pitches, purely at the expense of his four-seam fastball. And he’s using it differently. Here’s where Lester has generally thrown his cutter over his career:

Almost exclusively in at the hands and ankles of righties. Now this year:

Both sides of the plate, as Lester basically morphs into late-career Tom Glavine. Now, it’s not as if Lester has had pure success out there, as this chart of slugging against him on that cutter shows (again, very limited sample):

But having to account for the outside corner has kept the inside a valuable place for Lester to go, and hitters can’t just key on there and get the hips open and such.

Another small change Lester has made is getting ahead of hitters. He’s lifted his first-strike percentage so far to 62%, the kind of numbers he hit in his first two years with the Cubs but had gotten away from the last two.

So there are some things to he encouraged by, and some things to be wary of. I would guess somewhere around here soon, Lester is going to get paddled around in a start. But he’s also smart enough to keep dancing through the flames. Now let’s all take a moment to picture Lester dancing. Ok, that’s enough.

Baseball

Series Preview – Red Sox vs. White Sox: The Champ Is Here…And It’s A Mess

By Sam Fels 1267 0

vs.

RECORDS: Red Sox 14-17   White Sox 13-15

GAMETIMES: Thursday and Friday at 7:10, Saturday 6:10, Sunday 1:10

TV: WGN Thursday, NBCSN Friday-Sunday

FRUSTRATED WOMEN: Over The Monster

PROBABLE PITCHERS

David Price vs. Lucas Giolito

Chris Sale vs. Reynaldo Lopez

Eduardo Rodriguez vs. Manny Banuelos

Rick Porcello vs. TBD (most likely Dylan Covey, or Dylan Arrieta to Fifth Feather)

PROBABLE RED SOX LINEUP

Andrew Benintendi – LF

Mookie Betts – RF

J.D. Martinez – DH

Xander Bogaerts – SS

Rafael Devers – 3B

Michael Chavis – 2B

Mitch Moreland – 1B

Christian Vasquez – C

Jackie Bradley Jr. – CF

PROBABLE WHITE SOX LINEUP

Leury Garcia – LF

Tim Anderson – SS

Jose Abreu – DH

James McCann – C

Yoan Moncada – 3B

Jose Rodon – 2B

Yonder Alonso – 1B

Ryan Cordell – RF

Adam Engel – CF

 

After digging through the muck of the Tigers and Orioles for a couple weeks, the White Sox get to…dive back into the much that the Red Sox have been for the season’s first month.

The Beantown Nine have pulled this act before. They won the World Series in ’13, and then were so bad the following season they ended up punting Jon Lester among others midseason. Apparently the party never stops in Boston when they win…except for the Patriots who aren’t allowed to party by Bill Belichek. It actually took the Red Sox two years to round back into form after the last championship, making the playoffs the last three years, and BoSox fans can only hope they’ll come around a touch quicker this time.

Maybe they already are. They come to the Southside after sweeping the equally struggling A’s at home the past three days. They put up 21 runs over those three games, so the hope would be that the offense is finally clicking into gear. Because really, there’s no way this lineup should be struggling to put together innings. And yet here the Carmines sit at 10th in runs in the AL, 9th in OBP, and 10th in wOBA.

Where the blame goes is probably the supporting cast. Mookie Betts and Xander Bogaerts are hitting, and Betts being a perennial MVP candidate you’d figure that. So’s J.D. Martinez. But Devers has shown very little power this year, as it’s never a good sign when your on-base is higher than your slugging. Second base has been something of a sinkhole, though Michael Chavis is putting in a strong claim at the moment. Benintendi isn’t really hitting yet and Moreland has only been ok.

The problems just don’t end there. The rotation has been a quasi-zoo. Chris Sale can’t decide if he wants to throw not hard enough or too hard to compensate, and has been getting paddled either way to the tune of a 6.30 ERA and a 5.22 FIP. Natha Eovaldi is hurt, because guys throwing max effort 97 MPH fastballs pretty much every pitch aren’t all that stable. Who knew? Rick Porcello himself has been gasoline, and one day may end up the weirdest goddamn Cy winner in history. The dude won it and hasn’t managed a sub-4.00 ERA since. How did that happen? Only David Price and Eduardo Rodriguez are holding this rotation together.

The pen has been middling, though hasn’t really missed being shorn of Craig Kimbrel or Joe Kelly (who sucks anyway). The Red Sox are big proponents of finding just any dude lingering around to fill out the pen. So far, Matt Barnes, Marcus Walden, and Brandon Workman have been excellent out of there, and the only people who recognize them are their mothers and even they’re not totally sure. Ryan Braser is the closer here, and he’s got six saves, but he allows more contact than most closers, only striking out a touch over seven hitters per nine. Heath Hembree and Tyler Thornburg are where you’d like to break through.

For the pale version of footwear, Lucas Giolito comes off the DL to start the opener, and hoping to be a touch better than his last three starts had him. Reynaldo Lopez looks to keep his momentum going, and everyone else just exhales in not having to watch Ervin Santana again. Weather could play a role again as tonight’s forecast is iffy, but the rest of the weekend looks better than it’s been. The Red Sox probably think this is their chance to really springboard into the rest of the season. The White Sox are probably just happy to not be super depressed by looking into the other dugout.

 

Baseball

Series Wrap – Sox Take Two of Three From Orioles – The Only Consistency is Inconcistency

By Adam Hess 1173 0

The Baltimore Orioles are quite possibly the worst collection of baseball talent among 25 men to ever be assembled at the Major League Level. I truly do not believe that is hyperbole. That team did not win even 50 games last year and will be lucky to get there this year. A guy on their team set the record for the longest hitless streak ever and still is playing in the MLB. Andrew Cashner was their Opening Day starter. None of it is good.

The Chicago White Sox are 3-3 against them this year and and needed a walk off to win the second game of the double header yesterday. I thought I knew embarrassment as a Sox fan, but now I know that I know embarrassment as a Sox fan. Let’s do this:

THE BULLETS

– If there has been any one thing to take away from this series, it’s that Manny Banuelos might really be a serviceable starter for this team, at least for the time being. That makes two straight starts in which he was solid, and he earned a quality start for his efforts this time. Of course, both of his solid starts came against this trash Orioles team, but considering that Carlos Rodon looked like shit against the same lineup yesterday, I will choose to be optimistic. It’s one of few opportunities to do so with this team anymore.

– Speaking of Rodon, can this guy please pick a fucking lane on what kind of pitcher he is? His game log for the year is among the most perplexing I’ve looked at. He flashes the ace-level stuff he had that made him a No. 3 pick in the draft one week, then the next week gets shelled by the Tigers and Orioles. It’s clear that whatever his ceiling once was will never be touched, and I am at the point where I think he might be better as trade bait than a part of this rotation in the future.

– Keeping with the recent theme, the Sox had a game postponed in this series. If they keep this up, they might run out of make up days, and since they won’t be in contention, MLB can just cancel those games and we might get saved from a few outings here.

– Ivan Nova is a crime against humanity. Straight up. I wouldn’t wish watching one of his starts upon my worst enemy. This guy could take 15 minutes to get a 1-2-3 inning. I think people have closed on houses quicker than one of his starts. It’s horrible. Fucking sick of it. Get rid of it.

– Let’s wrap this up with a few complaints about Rick Renteria, and specifically how Rick Renteria used Yoan Moncada in Game 2 of the double header yesterday. Starting with the fact that Moncada was leading off. Moncada fits the leadoff profile very well, but having him hit there sets him up for failure in his first at bat of the game because he has to change his mindset. Moncada worked on adjusting his approach to a more aggressive one all offseason, and has attacked pitches in the zone with more consistency this year, and it’s a huge part of why he became this team’s best hitter. Making him lead off forces him to take a few pitches, and he can’t be aggressive. Just leave him in the fucking 2-hole and don’t touch it.

– Secondly, why the fuck is Moncada bunting in the 9th inning? You’re down one in the game and you’re taking the bat out of his hand in favor of a fucking suicide squeeze attempt? Get the fucking fuck out of here. Let him swing the bat and be the hero. I’m pissed.

– The Sox had a terrible schedule in April and could’ve come out of this month with a winning record. Instead, they floundered and are 13-15 and their schedule only gets tougher from here. This could be a loooooong season.

Baseball

Series Wrap – Cubs Sweep Mariners: Stop Playing Pearl Jam

By Sam Fels 1952 0

Game 1 Box Score: Cubs 6, Mariners 5

Game 2 Box Score: Cubs 11, Mariners 0

The thing is I like Pearl Jam. It’s like this..

They’re fine. And I get that Eddie Vedder has nominated himself the #1 Cubs fan forever, even though he doesn’t know who Steely Dan is according to his own goddamn documentary (not that he should, but if you’re going to be music’s self-appointed ambassador, you’d better). But if you’re in Seattle and you’re going to make a big deal of your intro and outro music, try someone else. Off the top of my head I can name a dozen better Seattle bands:

Nirvana, Soundgarde, Dinosaur Jr. Screaming Trees. Green River, Mother Love Bone, Alice In Chains, Mad Season, Mudhoney, Sunny Day Real Estate, Heart, the Sonics. There, done. Try any of them. Honestly.

Oh right… the baseball…

The Two Obs

-Here’s something I like. With Jason Heyward and Willson Contreras cooling off just a bit, Kris Bryant and Anthony Rizzo have arrived. Bryant might not have enough to show for it, but last night he managed four balls with an exit velocity over 100 MPH, and Rizzo added two homers in two games, including a big one last night. And let’s not forget The War Bear, who has hit .381 the last week and won Tuesday’s game with a homer that turned the baseball oblong. If the thunder don’t get ya the lightning will.

-It’s been overshadowed by his injury absence, but the Cubs are getting serious work from Jon Lester. He’s got a WHIP of 0.96 on the year. So far this season he’s eschewed his four-seamer for more cutters and more change-ups, and if these are the results I’m here for it.

-You still can’t trust this pen as far as you could throw it collectively, but I’m hoping that just one day off after whatever that was on Sunday just wasn’t quite enough. But then I also think that Brad Brach just sucks, so here we are. I hold out some hope that Brandon Kintzler has some use, and he did get a seriously needed double-play last night. But he also served up one to Edwin Encarnacion that landed somewhere near Victoria.

-Cole Hamels had to get too many outs, and two earned over 5.2 innings should be enough normally. He wasn’t hit all that hard so we’ll just let it pass.

-Good lord are the Mariners helpless defensively. In my shitty high school league the first thing our coach told us was, “Get the ball in play. In this league, amazing things will happen.” That’s the same for the Mariners. We said it in the preview but Encarnacion and Santana should be DHs and Bruce probably should too. But because Dan Vogelbach would probably just eat his glove, they all have to play in the field. This could be a pretty good offense and if King Felix can at least be competent it’s not a hopeless rotation, but they’re going nowhere because they’re never going to catch the ball.

-I will take anything I can get when it comes to Dillon Maples, and striking out the side in the 9th in an 11-0 game is still that. Encarnacion was diving out of the way of strikes. So was everyone else. If he could ever just keep his fastball in the zip code, he’s the doomsday device out of the pen we’ve wanted. Seriously, he could be Josh Hader from last year, if his control wasn’t a Pollock painting.

-I guess that was Javy’s response to being asked if he wants to give up shortstop.

Onwards…

 

–

Baseball

Series Preview – Cubs vs. Mariners: Into The Grey

By Sam Fels 1300 0

vs.

RECORDS: Cubs 14-12   Mariners 18-13

GAMETIMES: 9:10 Tuesday, 5:40 Wednesday

TV: NBCSN Tuesday, WGN Wednesday

FRANCES FARMER WILL HAVE HER REVENGE: Lookout Landing

PROBABLE PITCHERS

Cole Hamels vs. Felix Hernandez

Jon Lester vs. Marco Gonzales

CUBS PROBABLE LINEUP

Daniel Descals0 – 2B

Kris Bryant – LF

Anthony Rizzo – 1B

Javier Baez – SS

Jason Heyward – RF

Willson Contreras – C

Albert Almora – CF

Kyle Schwarber – DH

David Bote – 3B

PROBABLE MARINERS LINEUP

Mitch Haniger – CF

Domingo Santana – LF

Dan Vogelbach – DH

Edwin Encarnacion – 1B

Jay Bruce – RF

Tim Beckham – SS

Omar Narvaez – C

Ryan Healy – 3B

Dee Gordon – 2B

 

When they designed inter-league play, this wasn’t a matchup they were thinking about. Still, the way it’s worked out it’s become kind of intriguing, and not just because the Cubs end up in Seattle twice a decade. The Mariners are the surprise team in the American League, if not the whole of MLB, and the Cubs are rounding into sharpness.

So what are the Mariners doing crashing the private party that the AL West was supposed to be for the Astros again so far? Well, they’re pretty weird. They’ve had an offensive bonanza, with basically every fly ball they hit landing out beyond various walls. Four players are currently seeing a quarter of their flies turn into homers, and six are seeing 20% or above. That’s almost unheard of, even in this era of baseball where they’re using swollen Titleists as baseballs. You’d think that has to come down at some point. Jay Bruce’s .192 average and yet .552 slugging is particularly goofy.

And yet, there is some validity to some of it. Bruce, large adult son Dan Vogelbach, and Brewers castoff Domingo Santana are all hitting the ball extremely hard and aren’t benefitting from a bloated BABIP or anything like it. Santana has done this before in Milwaukee, and then was squeezed out by the Yelich and Cain acquisitions, as well as Jesus Aguilar‘s emergence (how’s that look now?). Vogelbach always threatened this in the Cubs’ system, he just needed a DH spot to do it at the top level as putting a glove on him would cause various air-raid sirens to sound off.

Tim Beckham might see his bubble burst, but Omar Narvaez’s on-base skill aren’t on luck either. Edwin Encarnacion is apparently not dead. and Mitch Haniger has been a plus-plus as well.

The flip side to this is that the Mariners are one of the worst defensive teams in recent history, as they have three or four players who should be only a DH for their own safety but only one spot occupied by Vogelbach. So Encarnacion has to be in the field. So does Bruce. Dee Gordon has to be at second, and he played himself out of there once already in his career. You know what Tim Beckham at short looks like. They’ve given up an unearned run per game so far this year.

The staff that has to work around this includes yet another undead ballplayer in Felix Hernandez. There was a real fear of what watching Hernandez this season could be in spring training, such has been his decline since being maybe the best pitcher in the American League for a minute. But Felix has been able to be better than simply a seat-filler or place-holder so far by cutting his walks down to next to nothing and upping the grounders he gets. He’s using his curve more for both, and pounding the strike zone with the rest of his arsenal.

The other hurler the Cubs will see is Marco Gonzales, who’s been magnificent through not giving up homers at all. He doesn’t get a lot of grounders but a lot of harmless flies. Gonzales flashed this a bit last year with a 3.5-fWAR season no one noticed, and being let down by a dreadful defense. The last part is still there of course, but he’s doing even better by also throwing nothing but strikes.

The pen is something of a cast of thousands, with six different yahoos collecting at least save. Old friend Zac Rosscup is here but he can’t hit a bull in the ass with a snow-shovel at the moment, which has helped him collect Ks but a ton of walks. Roenis Elias and Brandon Brennan have been the best out of there. The rest have benefitted from fortune, and this is the unit probably headed for a collapse first.

The Mariners have been fun thanks to all the fireworks, but they’re likely to not out-homer their Python-esque defense or Felix’s age for too much longer. But until then, it’s a fun ride.

 

 

Baseball

Series Preview – Orioles vs. White Sox: Building In The Muck

By Sam Fels 1288 0

vs.

RECORDS: Orioles 10-19   White Sox 11-14

GAMETIMES: Monday-Wednesday 7:10

TV: NBCSN Monday and Wednesday, WGN Tuesday

GIARDELLO’S ARMY: Camden Chat

PROBABLE PITCHERS

John Means vs. Manny Banuelos

Andrew Cashner vs. Ivan Nova

TBD (maybe David Hess) vs. TBD (possibly Carlos Rodon, possibly Dylan Covey)

PROBABLY ORIOLES LINEUP

Jonathan Villar – 2B

Trey Mancini – RF

Dwight Smith Jr. – LF

Renato Nunez – DH

Rio Ruiz – 3B

Jesus Sucre – C

Joey Rickard – CF

Chris Davis – 1B

Richie Martin – SS

PROBABLE SOX LINEUP

Leury Garcia – LF

Tim Anderson – SS

Jose Abreu – 1B

James McCann – C

Yoan Moncada – 3B

Jose Rodon – 2B

Yonder Alonso – DH

Ryan Cordell – RF

Adam Engel – CF

 

If taking two games on offer against the Tigers is any kind of signal for a turnaround, it shouldn’t be too hard to keep that going against the Baltimore Orioles. That is if they get any of these games (Tuesday looking particularly dicey), and also that didn’t work out so well the last time they faced the Charm City Orange.

We’ll start with the Sox, who will begin life without Eloy Jimenez for a couple weeks at least. Eloy won’t even be reevaluated until then, so it could be longer. Tonight that sees Leury Garcia shift over to left with Adam Engel and his pool-noodle bat move into center. He can rob a home run for you, he just might not get any ball out of the infield when at the plate. Nicky Delmonico and his handsomeness could see more PAs in Eloy’s absence, which is something that should make you shrug at best, and roll your eyes hard enough to hurt in the worst.

Also in the news is that the Sox have called up Dylan Covey, or Dylan Arrieta as Fifth Feather calls him. He will most likely help out the pen in Nate Jones‘s absence, but they have stretched him out in Charlotte and could take a spot start somewhere along the line. That will depend on Lucas Giolito‘s recovery from a hamstring twang, which he can’t come back from until next week anyway.

So to the O’s, who spent the weekend picking up various pieces of their skull that the Twins bashed out of them. They lost the three games by a combined 19-4, and it’s the kind of stretch whatever Os fans that haven’t bleached their eyes will have to get used to. As we said last week, there just isn’t anything here resembling a major league team, and the Os are going to get their bones ground up pretty good all season.

Trey Mancini has been something of a bright spot offensively, though his .413 BABIP might have something to do with that. Renato Nunez hasn’t been terrible, but is something of a lottery ticket in the hopes that he could be a fifth infielder one day. This is the best the Orioles can do, as they might not even be at Year 1 of their rebuild yet.

Their rotation has been the expected tire fire, with tonight’s starter Means the only one to not turn into something you’d find on a Nickelodeon game show, and he’s mostly a reliever and spot-starter. Still, he held down the Sox last week with six Ks over five innings, and he’ll look to repeat the feat. Other than that, god help you.

The Os and Sox in the cold and rain on the Southside. Catch the fever. Literally.

Baseball

“Stubbing Your Toe” Will Now Be Known As “Being The Chicago Cubs”

By Sam Fels 1509 0

If you thought the Cubs, and perhaps you as a Cubs fan, would escape their self-created hell of an offseason just because baseball games were being played again, then the world is going to have some awfully violent market corrections in store for you. But I admire your optimism and hope in these times. It appears that the Cubs stepped in it again, or more to the point it became public knowledge that they’d stepped in it again, yesterday with reports that the Cubs were declining access or threatening writers who did not give positive coverage of Addison Russell. With his return to Wrigley now imminent, and most everyone except Russell wishing it would never happen for a litany of reasons, the Cubs are clearly going to a prevent defense of the highest order. The problem with a prevent defense of course is that it does give up a ton of yards.

It started with Sheryl Ring of FanGraphs. That was picked up by NBC’s Hardball Talk. This was followed by a few beat writers who follow the team saying they hadn’t heard this and certainly hadn’t been threatened by the team, and then some other writers or media members not as close to the team saying they had heard this or been on the receiving end. You know us, we go by the amount of smoke something has, and this one has a ton. Sheryl Ring and FanGraphs aren’t just some yahoos in the dark, even if some would like to still portray them as such, and all this comes from somewhere and something.

And really, when you’re on the side of Bob Nightengale on anything, you’re on the wrong one.

There is nothing comfortable about anything surrounding Russell right now. His suspension, the Cubs handling of him, his impending return, but most of all who he is and what he’s done, and whether or not he has any interest in not being that (sure doesn’t feel like it). While I am as uncomfortable as anyone, just because I’m uncomfortable doesn’t mean I can’t see where the Cubs are on this at the base level. Since the suspension, which at first they didn’t handle well at all, Theo Epstein’s openness has been if not welcome, at least a change. There is no clear answer on whether or not heaving Russell out of Chicago and his job is beneficial to Melisa Reidy and to survivors at large. Some say it does worse damage, others say it doesn’t. Perhaps the Cubs cherry-picked the experts they talked to, but in this day and age a sports organization talking to anyone is a step in the right direction.

Theo has been careful to mention Melisa and their child’s interest at every turn, and even has said Melisa herself didn’t want Russell cut loose. Maybe that’s not exactly what went down, but if it went against her wishes I think we’d know at this point. And considering the hell she and their child have been through, they are deserving of whatever share of a major league paycheck they get. Maybe it’s uncomfortable and upsetting that Russell will continue to get to work here specifically for most, and I get that because no one wants this around. At the same time, it may be that it has to be somewhere. You’re not supposed to feel good about it, or like it, or comfortable, but just because it lacks all of those things doesn’t mean it’s completely wrong. Yes, the point of sports fandom is to feel good and happy and fun, but this is also real life, which is basically none of those things most of the time.

I won’t really know what’s going on until Russell screws up again, which it seems like he will because no one other than those with vested interests have made it seem like he’s even considered at least contrition. Or maybe until the Cubs make it clear what they feel like is screwing up again and then cut him loose. What’s their threshold? Then we’ll know where their interests lie, whether it truly is a life concern and helping or whether it’s simply about baseball concerns (and considering the makeup of the Cubs infield right now, even that seems like it shouldn’t be much of a concern for them either).

But with this, the Cubs aren’t taking responsibility as they’ve said they would and in some ways have. The awkwardness, to be polite, of the the whole thing is part of the story. Trying to whitewash what Russell has done and who he is  is part of the problem. Russell carries this with him everywhere he goes, and will from here on out, which is part of what I would assume his therapy is. The Cubs, by deciding to keep Russell for whatever process they want to run through, chose to take that on. They didn’t have to. So coverage of that isn’t wrong or unfair. It’s the story.

The Cubs can’t have it both ways, though lord knows they’ve spent the offseason and now into this season trying. They made work of making it clear just how transparent they’ve been to everyone about everything, but then are snippy when that bites them in the ass, however true it may have been. The Cubs could have avoided this conflict, at least on this particular problem, and these kinds of tactics by not choosing to retain Russell. Here we are. One wonders if they’re so thorny on this because they know that Russell is just a fuckwad who will do fuckwad things again and are trying to shield themselves.

Figuring out the endgame of this particular tactic is not uplifting. One can only assume the Cubs thought that a rash of positive, “overcoming” stories would make fans forget what had gone on, bringing questions about it to an end, and smoothing over as much as possible what is going to be an even stickier situation than it already is when Russell gets here (if he gets here, which he doesn’t have to, and the Cubs might want to consider that one strongly. Iowa is…well I don’t care what it is this time of year, but an extended stay there is certainly a card to play). Which is in direct opposition to the things they’ve said since Russell got suspended, which has emphasized what he did and what he must do pretty much at every point.

The Cubs keep saying they want to be part of the solution and lead. It might be just words. But if they’re truly to set a new way of sports dealing with domestic violence, that means accepting all that comes with it and not just the aspects that make yourself look good. No one is going to look good out of this. That’s the path the Cubs chose, and I don’t know if it’s necessarily the wrong one. It’s just the much harder one. And maybe they’re balking at just how hard it is. But it’s too late for that.