Rex Banner
Baseball

Series Recap – Sox Take 2 of 3 From Tigers: Good Enuf Edition

By Andy Jonathan 1274 0

BOX SCORES

Game 1: Sox 10 – Tigers 1

Game 2: Sox 5 – Tigers 3

Game 3: Sox 3 – Tigers 6

 

Well it’s not a sweep (which against a team as miserable as the Tigers should always be the goal) but any series win at this point has to be viewed through a positive lens. Honestly if I’m being picky there were a few things that were this the middle of the season I might bitch more about, but at this point of the season all I can do is shrug and gaze longingly at the postseason (and Tim Anderson’s current batting average). The things that needed to be good this series were good (except for Reynaldo Lopez), and the things that didn’t matter were kind of good as well, but still didn’t matter. Playing the Tigers is good for reminding a fan base that despite all the things that have gone wrong for a team during a season, and this season there have been plenty, it can always be much much worse.

 

To The Bullets……OF THE FUTURE™

 

IT’S SUCH GOOD SHIT

 

-The Sox hammered out 47 hits this weekend. 47!!! That’s…a lot. I would’ve wanted some more runs to go with those 47 hits but…POSITIVITY!!!

-TIM ANDERSON WATCH, GAME 155: Timmy did all right this weekend, getting 4 hits and keeping his average at .334, but LeMahieu creeped in a little closer at .329. It will be interesting to see if Renteria gives Anderson an extra day off this week or keeps him out there. I’m sure if it was up to Anderson he’d be out there every day.

-Eloy is on fire right now, going 6 for 14 in the series with two home runs (one of which was of the grand slam variety) and a triple. He came a double short of the cycle Friday night, and is looking like the demigod that was promised us. Oh, his second home run of the series? It was his 30th, good for 2nd in the league for all rookies. He’s gonna lose the rookie of the year honors to Yordan Alvarez of the Astros, but whatever. Alvarez gets to hit in the middle of the MLB lineup equivalent of a fleet of Star Destroyers, so what can you do?

-Speaking of those that deliver, Yoan Moncada is on another plane of existence right now. 6 for 12 on the series with 2 more home runs and some spiffy defense in the field. In his last 15 games, Moncada is hitting .477/.493/.754. I don’t miss Chris Sale that much, do you?

-Credit where credit is due, Adam Engel is quietly having himself a quality back half to the season. In his last 15 games he’s slashing .286/.314/.571 and has 4 home runs for himself. That’s not too bad for your 4th outfielder next year, especially with the defense we all know that he can play. Good for him, good for us.

-All was not roses this weekend, however. Reynaldo Lopez is back to being extremely hittable again, and on top of that it seems like he might be getting frustrated on the mound. He and Renteria had an animated conversation in the dugout after he gave up his second dinger of the day to Gordon “I’m Still Here?” Beckham. Whatever was said didn’t work, as he went back out there and gave up the trifecta to Victor Reyes. Lopez will have one more start on the year, and here’s hoping he ends it on a positive note, as I still feel he’s a solid 5th starter for this club going forward.\

-Next up is the Cleveland Indians, and a chance to play spoiler as the Tribe attempt to sneak into the wild card as they currently sit a half game behind Tampa Bay after the weekend series. Ohhh how glorious it would be to fuck the Tribe out of a postseason appearance, let’s make that a thing.

 

 

 

 

Baseball

Series Recap – Zombieland

By Sam Fels 1743 0

It’s strange, because there’s not much more that’s new to say. I’ve written series recaps before that pointed out how that given series was a perfect demonstration of the systematic failure at every level of the Cubs this year. Ownership, front office, managing, training staff, players. Every single thing has simply not been up to par this season, and in some ways the Cubs are getting exactly what they deserve in the most humiliating fashion. And yet, I bet you and I are a lot more upset about it than the Ricketts family right now.

The thing I kept coming back to is arrogance. Arrogance of the whole organization that things would simply work out because it was the Cubs doing it. The arrogance of Theo Epstein that he would be able to buy his way out of all the mistakes he’s made, and then having no plan when he couldn’t. The arrogance that any player coming through the system would come good, simply because it was the Cubs system. The arrogance that not producing one pitcher until Rowan Wick would be fine. The arrogance of the manager who simply refused to learn how to adapt to a game that has rapidly changed on his watch. The arrogance of players who have burned through three hitting coaches now because they refused to change anything they did in the biggest situations. The arrogance of a medical staff that waited a week to get Javier Baez an MRI, or had Cole Hamels clearly pitching hurt for a month, which had its knock-on effects, or Kris Bryant on one leg for longer than that, or the more I can keep mentioning.

And that has led to a season of Hail Marys to try and save it. Calling up Ian Happ before he had really dominated at Iowa was a Hail Mary. Robel Garcia was a Hail Mary. Ben Zobrist after four months out was a Hail Mary. Craig Kimbrel with no spring training was a Hail Mary. Anthony Rizzo on one leg was a Hail Mary, though one that ended up pretty much working. The Cubs didn’t have a foundation, so they just had to throw everything they could at the wall.

And it’s come to a head over the last six games. And funny enough, it starts with the starting rotation, which was supposed to be the one thing they could count on. For weeks, Jon Lester has been a fifth starter, and given his age and odometer, that’s not really surprising. Jose Quintana decided that looked like fun and didn’t want to stick around for more than three innings. Hamels as previously mentioned.

Which meant that even a September bullpen was charred, to the point where the Cubs had no choice but to let Yu Darvish try and finish this one out today. There was no one else. It led to rushing Kimbrel back when he clearly was not ready on Thursday or yesterday. It led to Joe Maddon having to make a lot of in-game decisions, which isn’t what you want. Which is why you have a Make-A-Wish like Danny Hultzen trying to pull Q’s ass out of a jam yesterday to give up a lead.

Yesterday’s game is a stinger in another way, as when the Cards did take that 5-3 lead they did it by simply lining a single up the middle or the opposite way with men on base. If the Cubs had taken that approach more often this season and only trying for the world-ending bomb when it was on offer, where might they be? Nah, we’ll just whiff on another high fastball. It’s going great for us.

But hey, the offense put up eight runs yesterday. They just can’t string any innings from the pen together. Here’s a question, how does Tyler Chatwood throw a third of an inning this series? Is he hurt too? The Cubs had a chance to have a multi-inning piece all season with him in the pen, to shield all the things they didn’t have. Maddon refused because he doesn’t see the game that way. Let’s try James Norwood some more.

At the end of the day, I don’t know how upset at the offense I can get when Baez is out, Bryant is clearly hurt and not on cortisone shots anymore, and Rizzo is also on one leg. Might have helped if Willson Contreras took a pitch this week, which he didn’t. But it’s the rotation, rotation, rotation. It left Yu without a net. Final nail.

When you lose four one-run games, and as many as the Cubs have this year, it’s easy to point to luck, and that’s part of it. The bigger part for this team is the pen and they simply don’t make all the plays like they used to. They find a way to give up another run, or keep an inning going, or walk a guy to keep turning the lineup over. They haven’t been as locked in this year as they have been, and they’re now a middling defensive team. This is a big deal. It’s mostly the outfield, as the infield still ranks among the top in groundball efficiency. You’ve got to make the plays. The Cubs didn’t today, they haven’t a lot, and they lose.

They’re going to win less than 85 games, likely. That should never, ever happen with this roster.

Heads will roll now, unlike the only-promised bloodletting of last offseason. Maddon’s toast, to be replaced by whatever automaton that will run the team exactly how Theo sees it. I guess that’s fine, though I wonder how Theo sees the game now. It’s felt like he’s been caught and passed by other front offices, and without an unending checkbook, he can’t find a way back. We’ll see. For the first time here the daggers will be out this winter and a heavy focus on what they do.

There will be talk of trading a major piece. I don’t see how you get equal value for any of them and not create a hole in your lineup you can’t fill properly. If I had to wager, Contreras’s name will be the one you hear most, and I guess if you get a genuine centerfielder out of it, and maybe a pitcher, you’d have to listen. I don’t know that Victor Caratini wouldn’t be exposed with a full slate of ABs, and just how many .900+ OPS catchers do you think there are out there?

Still, these questions would have easier answers if the Cubs had produced anything out of their own system the past few seasons. The Dodgers can’t fit all of them in. Neither can the Astros. The Yankees had a whole team injured and might end up with the best record in the game. You have to keep reloading. The Cubs gave you Robel Garcia.

And I don’t know the future is any brighter in that sense. It would be the same mistake the Cubs made on Almora, on Happ, even on Russell back in 2015, to just hand the 2nd base job to Nico Hoerner in Mesa. He has too little experience. But the Cubs might have to given financial restraints. Which are in place because they’ve blown so many big contracts.

There’s a way out of this. But it’s an awfully dark tunnel to get there, with a lot of pits and wrong turns that have to be avoided. I can’t tell you I’m 100% confident the Cubs can negotiate it, given what we’ve seen over the last eight months.

But as always…

Onwards…

SF2
Baseball

Series Preview – White Sox at Tigers: Round 4, FIGHT

By Andy Jonathan 1273 0

VS

Records: White Sox 66-86  Tigers 45-107

Game Times: Fri 6:10/Sat 5:10/Sun 12:10

TV: Fri/Sat NBCSN Sun WGN

TIGER UPPERCUT!: Bless You Boys

SERIES PREVIEW POSTS

Depth Charts & Pitching Staff

Series Spotlight: The Tigers Pipeline

 

I don’t hate the Tigers anymore. I really used to, back in the early part of this decade. Much like my hatred for the Vancouver Canucks and Red Wings in hockey it’s just sort of fizzled out, leaving behind a feeling of indifference bordering on pity.

The Tigers are a bad team, perhaps even historically so. With their current .420 winning percentage (heh) the Tigers fall 3rd on the list of worst teams ever since the league went to 162 games in 1961. The other two teams? Last year’s Orioles and the Tigers again in 2003. Not exactly wonderful company to be in. They’ve already past the 2003 version of themselves by 2 games, and need 2 more to tie Baltimore which seems likely but by no means a guarantee.

Detroit already set a team record this past week by losing 17 consecutive games to Cleveland this season. They won the second meeting between the two teams back on April 10th 4-1, then lost 17 in a row to them to finish the season 1-18 setting the mark in the modern era for record against a divisional opponent.

The Tigers got this bad by basically fielding a team full of less than 1 WAR players and Nick Castellanos, who they then flipped to the Cubs at the deadline as he proceeded to go on a tear the likes of never seen in Detroit. They’re dead last in the league in hitting, and the only team that has had a negative WAR production from their offense. The second worst team is the Marlins, and even they have gotten 2.3 WAR out of their hitters, compared to the -1.5 for the Tigers. If you look up the top hitters by WAR on the Tigers, only 2 players are worth more than 1, and that’s Niko Goodrum (who is out with a groin strain) and Victor Reyes. So thankfully Dylan Covey isn’t scheduled to go during the series, as you don’t wanna let an opponent up off the mat when they’re down.

The pitching staff has actually not been as awful as the hitters, currently 10th in the AL out of 15 teams, so that’s an improvement. They’ve also produced 1100% more WAR than the offense, currently sitting at 10.1 for the season. Matthew Boyd has had a solid season thus far, posting an 8-11 record with a 4.34 ERA and a 1.20 WHIP. He features a solid 4 seam fastball and a plus slider which he uses as his punchout pitch. Boyd gets a lot of swinging strikes with it, almost 36% of the time.

After Boyd it’s Spencer Turnbull (who the Sox will miss), then rookie Tyler Alexander who was called up back in June and had his first start against the Sox, in which he went 5 innings and gave up 2 with 4 Ks in a no-decision. The kid has pitched fairly well since then, going 1-3 with a 4.68 ERA and striking out 27 in 6 starts. He was relegated to long relief for a time during August but is now back starting and will go head to head with Nova Saturday.

As for the Sox, the story continues to be the production of The Future™ in the top half of the lineup. Tim Anderson continues his quest for the AL batting title and sits .006 in front of DJ LeMahieu. Right behind LeMahieu is the outfielder the Sox didn’t want in the off-season, Michael Brantley. Hard charging a few behind him is last year’s favorite bust declaration by Sox Twitter Yoan Moncada, who is tearing the shit out of the ball in September to the tune of a .460/.500/.667 slash line.

Taking the mound for the Pale Hose will be Dylan Cease, Ivan Nova and Reynaldo Lopez who basically comprise the only starts worth watching for the rest of the season. Cease should find the waters a bit calmer against the moribund Tigers offense, and maybe help build some confidence in his fastball location.

On paper this should be an easy series for the Sox, but nothing on paper has ever worked out that way for Rick Hahn and company. I just want a batting title for Timmy, and this pitching staff should help with that goal.

 

Let’s Go Sox.

 

 

Baseball

Tigers Spotlight: Pitching The Future

By Andy Jonathan 1280 0

The Detroit Tigers are a bad baseball team. There aren’t many people out there who would argue otherwise with you, and if they did odds are they’re huffing paint outside the wreckage of Tigers stadium. Even the Tigers themselves know this, and are OK with it. For a long time, the team was very similar to the White Sox of the late 2000-2013 era. The farm system was treated like a debit card, to be swiped whenever a piece needed to be added to the roster at the deadline for a playoff run.

Much like most debit cards, there was a limit. The Tigers bottomed out of that limit at the end of the 2014 season, their last appearance in the playoffs where they were broomed right out by the Baltimore Orioles (another team that sits at rock bottom right now). This last push by the Tigers was the result of Mike Ilitch desperately wanting to win a World Series before passing away (which he eventually did in February of 2017). For the next few years the Tigers were in the sort of limbo that kills the future of baseball franchises; not bad enough to get the high ranked young talent in the draft, but not good enough to go anywhere in the playoffs.

Finally in 2017 with Ilitch dead and gone, the Tigers bit the bullet and decided for a full rebuild. The problem at that point was that all of their best talent was either on the last year of their deals (Justin Upton), in the middle of the worst stretch of their careers (Justin Verlander), or just too damn expensive and old (Miguel Cabrera and Victor Martinez). So the return for all these guys was not going to be the type that can jump start a rebuild and shorten it by a few years like (hopefully) the White Sox got for trading Sale, Q, and Eaton (remember forever that the Sox got Giolito and Lopez for Adam fucking Eaton).

This left the Tigers with one option, that being the “suck so bad you build through the draft” one, which is exactly what they’ve done. It’s been an ugly few years on the west side of Detroit Rock City, but it’s yielded results in terms of farm system rankings. To start the year, most analysts had the Tigers somewhere around the 10-11th best system in the league. After re-ranking the teams after the trade deadline and adjusting for some callups around MLB the Tigers now are just outside of the top 5, usually around the 6-7 position. Jim Callis of MLB.COM has the Tigers at 6th best in the league after all the deadline shakeups.

Sitting in the 1 and 2 spots for Detroit in the farm system rankings are former #1 pick Casey Mize (and #2 overall in prospect rankings) and Matt Manning, both of whom are right handed pitchers. Mize had some shoulder issues this year, but when healthy dominated the hitters of high A level and AA. He will begin next season (shoulder permitting) at AAA and much like Dylan Cease end up on the big league roster at some point after June. Manning has progressed on a very similar path, laying waste to the AA level this season and earning a few honors along the way, including Eastern League Pitcher Of The Year and Baseball America’s pick for best Tigers minor league player.

Six of the top ten spots in the Tigers minor league rankings are reserved for pitchers. Beau Burrows, Alex Faedo and Franklin Perez will all be throwing at the AA level or higher next season and Burrows may even break camp with the squad next March. Which is good for the Tigers, as they currently sit in the bottom 3rd of the AL in pitching, and without the breakout year from Matthew Boyd they might be sniffing Orioles territory.

For position players, the crop is lead by outfielder Riley Greene who’s the only Tigers position player currently in the top 100 ranked prospects in MiLB. Green is a solid contact hitter with solid power that projects out to 25+ dingers a year. His athletic tools grade out positively as well, but the kid is only 18 and probably can’t be counted on before 2021 at the earliest.

The next two callups for the Tigers offensively seem to be catcher Jake Rogers and SS Isaac Paredes, both of whom would be upgrades for the major league team as it stands. The rest are works in progress, pushing the Tigers window for contention back past 2022 which works well for the White Sox as it stands. Bless You Boys has a good rundown of the rest of the position player prospects for the Tigers here if you want to check it out.

The risk for Detroit having such a pitching-heavy top half of their system was apparent back in June when Mize was pulled from a game with shoulder pain that caused a collective gasp among the Tigers faithful. Fearing the worst, he was sent to Dr. James Death-Andrews and was given a diagnosis of shoulder inflammation. He pitched for another month and a half and then was shut down for the team for precautionary measures. Manning has so far avoided the injury bug that seems to plague young arms in the lower levels but there are no guarantees. If all breaks well for the Tigers they could have an amazing rotation in a few years. If they end up with the kind of luck the White Sox have had over the past 12 months, the window for them could be pushed even further back. With a team like the Tigers hard to watch enough as it is, it could spell doom for their attendance, which was already down almost 21% from 2017 to 2018.

The Tigers have charted a path through risky waters, but really no rebuild is guaranteed success. Their ultimate timeline will probably be more clear next June when they pick once again in the top 5 of the entry draft. If they take a polished college player like the Sox did with Andrew Vaughn it signals they expect to be competitive sooner rather than later. If they go a different route, it may signal another few long winters for the Tigers faithful. That would be quite all right with me.

Baseball

Series Preview – Cardinals vs. Cubs: Death Smiles At Us All

By Sam Fels 1437 0

vs.

RECORDS: Cardinals 85-67   Cubs 82-70

GAMETIMES: Thursday 6:15, Friday-Sunday 1:20

TV: Fox Thursday, ABC 7 Friday, WGN Saturday, NBCSN Sunday

I DON’T LIKE YOU EITHER: Viva El Birdos

SERIES PREVIEW POSTS

Depth Charts & Pitching Staffs

Cardinals Spotlight: Doing What They Wouldn’t

And so it’s come to this. After a four-year stretch where it generally felt like the Cubs had switched the dynamic on THE AULD RIVAL FROM THE SOUTH, everyone in blue is prepping for the most gruesome of deaths. Maybe it comes this weekend. Maybe the more cruel twist comes on the final weekend of the season. Either way, a feeling you thought you might have left behind has come roaring back. It’s almost comforting in a way, because we’ve lived with it for so long.

Oh, but there’s hope too. A hope that this infuriating, unsatisfying, unenjoyable season could find salvation. Perhaps the previous five and a half months wouldn’t sting as badly if it ends by sticking it to the Cardinals over seven games in 11 days. Perhaps the stale and foul taste of this season can be washed away. It’s possible, it’s just that it’s not something we’re accustomed to.

In all likelihood, the Cubs have to take at least five of the seven games on offer from The Red Menace. And even that could only likely ensure a tie, as in the interim the Cubs have the Pirates while the Cardinals have three games that looked like they might be treacherous a couple weeks ago against the Diamondbacks, but assuredly aren’t now. Anything less than a sweep of the Pirates could doom the Cubs. But we’ll get there.

A split here and it’s over. Three games down with six to go means even a 6-0 finish isn’t going to be enough. And of course there’s the small matter of the Brewers lurking as well, and they finish with one against San Diego today, and then Pirates, Reds, Rockies. It could open up for them if the Cubs and Cardinals hold each other in place.

And the real fear is that the Cardinals can expose two of the bigger problems the Cubs have through their rotation. One is that the absence of Anthony Rizzo and Javier Baez is just too much to carry. The second is that the inconsistency within the Cubs rotation is another they can’t overcome thanks to the solidity of the Cardinals’ staff. The second one is debatable, as the matchups have come out ok. Both will throw top of the rotation guys in Kyle Hendricks and Jack Flaherty tonight. Both will throw question marks in Jose Quintana and Michael Wacha tomorrow, though you’d trust Q slightly more than Wacha. The weekend finishes with what look like advantages for one team (Saturday for the Cards with Hudson, Sunday for the Cubs with Darvish). But baseball doesn’t work that way.

While the Cardinals offense over the whole of the season hasn’t been impressive, it’s been more than enough of late to go by the Cubs as they sat around poking a carcass with a stick. Perhaps it was their own. Tommy Edman, the kind of young go-getter the Cardinals always produce that pop for a few weeks and make you want to reach through the screen and either throttle him or just yourself before they sink back into anonymity, has been their hottest hitter. Right behind him is the Shit Demon behind the plate, and you’re already picturing some piece of garbage off his fists landing softly enough over Zobrist’s head to not actually make a sound to drive in two in the 7th of one of these. You’ve seen it too many times. Kolten Wong and Paul Goldschmidt are both on one as well, so the challenge is set.

And you don’t want to be trailing this team late, because they’ve fashioned quite the shutdown pen of late. I wouldn’t trust Carlos Martinez with anything valuable, too many memories of him going to the zoo at the slightest hint of trouble, but he also hasn’t given up an earned run in a month. Ryan Helsly, Giovanny Gallegos, and Dominic Leone have all been great the past month. The Cardinals know exactly how they’re getting to the last out. The Cubs have to guess every night.

It doesn’t shape up well. But it doesn’t have to. A Bryant or Schwarber binge. Quintana rediscovering what worked in August to join what Hendricks and Darvish have continually been doing. A meltdown from any Cardinal reliever, and it could all swing back.

The Cubs have a lot to overcome without even considering the opponent, like injuries and general malaise. We’ll find out if they can ever truly lock it in as they claimed they would all season, or if they’ve always wanted it to just be over like most of us have.

Pessimism is for assholes. C’mon Cubs, give us a reason to keep hoping for at least another week. We’ve got nothing else to do anyway.

Baseball

Cardinals Spotlight: Doing What They Wouldn’t

By Sam Fels 1739 0

While this series doesn’t have to serve as an execution in the public square, it’s hard for Cubs fans to feel otherwise given the whiskey-dick nature of the entire season. Should it go that way, the epitaphs will range far and wide, even though it will mostly do with what the Cubs didn’t (or wouldn’t) do in the offseason. There will be articles about “Cardinals Way” or “Magic,” and you’ll customarily vomit up your ankle joints. Some will speculate whether this signals a tectonic shift in the NL Central, back to the way things were forever, or whether this was just a one-off. We’re sure you’re very excited.

But one thing to focus on, if the Cardinals should hang on, is that they’ve done what the Cubs refused to do. Because this isn’t a great lineup, the Cardinals have had to pitch their way through. And they’ve done it behind a couple of first-round picks and developed relievers. We know, it sounds illegal, but it turns out teams can actually do that.

The Cardinals spent 1st round picks in recent years on Jack Flaherty and Dakota Hudson. The Cubs will see both this series. You’ll recall the Cubs policy has been to spend high picks on hitters, because they’re more of a sure-thing (and boy don’t Happ and Almora and Russell look like sure-things!), and they would either develop the pitching in bulk in later rounds or simply buy it on the open market. And it worked there for a minute.

But they’ve been passed by a team led by Flaherty and Hudson. Flaherty is the unquestioned ace of the staff, sporting a 4-to-1 K/BB ratio while striking out over 10 hitters per nine innings and keeping his ERA right around 3.00. He’s been otherworldly of late, as he had an ERA of 0.71 in August and 1.23 in September so far. His K/BB ratio is nearly six in that time.

Flaherty of late has been throwing what is a plus-fastball less in favor of a two-seam or sinker. It’s gotten him a ton of grounders, as over half of his sinkers end up killing worms, and this month it’s been near 75%. His slider has been the real weapon, as it had been generating over half whiffs on swings taken against it. Of late though, it’s been losing some tilt and some of those whiffs, and that might be one concern the Cards have closing out the season. Flaherty has already thrown 23 more innings than he did last year, and perhaps fatigue is showing in the finish on that slider.

Hudson isn’t as explosive, but he’s been no less effective during this Cardinals charge/plague. He carried a 2.38 ERA in August and a 1.89 so far in September. He doesn’t have near the strikeout power that Flaherty does, but he does his work by getting an obscene number of ground-balls. And for once, the Cardinals infield isn’t a collection of generally bewildered carnies. They catch everything thanks to Wong and DeJong.

Hudson gets there through the use of a power sinker that averages about 94 MPH but doesn’t get a lot of swings-and-misses. It’s meant for hitter to pound into the ground, and that’s precisely what they do. Hudson will feature a cutter more often to righties, and that’s another meant to generate ground-balls.

Given that Hudson is 25 and Flaherty 23, it feels like the top of the rotation down there in Mos Eisley for the foreseeable future. Wouldn’t that be nice instead of wondering what might fall off Hamels tomorrow or if Lester is finished?

In the pen, the Cards have been able to convert Carlos Martinez from a occasional boob of a starter into an effective reliever. John Brebbia and Giovanny Gallegos were brought into their minor league system either via Rule 5 or trade and turned into effective relievers. That’s another thing the Cubs haven’t done in a while.

Now, the pen is hardly long-term fixed, and given the volatile nature of any pen could turn back into a suck factory next year. Still, St. Louis was able to fashion a successful one for a season out of spare parts and leftovers, which the Cubs have been angling for for a couple season. They’ve had to solve that with established free agents, which has had a mixed record. Then again, Andrew Miller is essentially a scarecrow these days as well.

Even with that, Flaherty and Hudson will anchor whatever the Cardinals are for the next few years. They’ve led the Cardinals to a three-game lead with 10 to go. Meanwhile, first-round flameouts like Happ and Almora and a half-season of meh (followed by one of greatness, to be fair) from Schwarber are a big reason the Cubs are where they are.

Maybe all policies on the draft shouldn’t be so ironclad.

Baseball

An Ode To Lucas Giolito

By Sam Fels 1323 0

I know Sox fans can be an insular bunch. Actually, I know Sox fans can be THE insular bunch. But you’ll have to excuse a non-Sox fan being inspired to write this post.

Even up here on the Northside, with our daily rainbows and IPA-filled rivers (that actually might be true considering the amount of breweries clustered by the river), I was hit with a touch of disappointment when Lucas Giolito was shut down for the season. Which was silly, because he was only going to miss out on three starts or so, and none of them would matter in the long run. And it’s not like his arm fell off, or I have to write my own funeral dirge and wear a shroud like most of baseball media did when Christian Yelich broke his kneecap (and the Brewers have lost once since, because baseball is weird and evil).

And the funny thing is that it’s only been three seasons since the White Sox had another genuine ace in the rotation, one of the  10-15 there are in baseball (if that many). It’s not like it’s an unfamiliar feeling for the guys in black. They know the joy of the day when that guy is taking the mound, and even if it’s just for that day, your team is must-watch. And yet what Chris Sale and Lucas Giolito represent seems so different.

By the time Sale reached the rotation, the Sox were stuck in that skipped-record cycle where Kenny Williams would go for it every year, construct a mish-mashed collection of assorted parts that he found on the garage floor, and if absolutely everything went right…they’d finish three games or more behind the Tigers. Which they did once, in Sale’s first year as a starter in 2012. And then Sale never pitched an important game for the White Sox again. Sox fans had long ago seen exactly what was going on, and where it wouldn’t go, and how it would never change.

So almost from the get-go, there was this feeling that Sale was going to go to waste. Before his career unfolded, there was a fear that it wouldn’t amount to anything for the team. Sox fans had already tired of their front office approach, wanted coherence, and could see down the road that there wasn’t anything down that road. It was impossible to avoid the conclusion that something special was going to get tarnished by its surroundings.

(It also didn’t help that much that Sale turned out to be a complete pissbaby, but whatever).

Giolito seems to be the complete opposite. He portends to all the big things down the road. There’s a lot in the distance instead of a void.

Sox fans believe in the rebuild for the most part, but they hadn’t had much vision of it before. Yoan Moncada, Giolito, Tim Anderson, Reynaldo Lopez and others have come up, and they’re physically there, but they hadn’t flashed before this year what they could be. That’s what this year was about.

And obviously it’s not Giolito alone, because Moncada and Anderson have been great as well. But Gio…well, there’s a place a genuine ace holds that no regular player gets to. Sure, there might be a three-homer game there, or a 4-for-4, or a walk-off hit. But they rarely if ever hold the whole game in their hand and simply squeeze the life out of it just to hear the wheeze. And that’s what Giolito did most of the time this year.

The one that sticks out to me is the late-August complete game in Target Field with the 12 Ks against the Twins. But there are so many other to pick. That day, Gio’s change-up was Merlin-created. It seemed to stop in mid-air to point and laugh at whoever was swinging at it. That’s the thing with pitchers. Hitters can make one pitcher or one pitch look foolish once. Pitchers can make eight hitters look like it’s their first day on the job and they’ve been kept awake for three days before multiple times in a game. Gio did that that day, and many others, but that day it was to a lineup that’s going down in history (however strangely).

When Sox fans watched Giolito this season, they didn’t look into the future and have to wonder or dread that it would all be for nought. That it would be a well-kept secret, a cult hero, much like King Felix in Seattle as well. They watched Giolito and saw big starts against the Twins in September, or October. They saw starts and games they’ll talk about years later. The saw the spearhead to the charge up the standings. Because on that day, Giolito is on the hill and the Sox are unbeatable. There’s a tide or wave of confidence behind a top-end starter that seems to propel a team, if only for those nine innings.

When Sale was in his pomp on 35th, all you could see was doom. Giolito makes you see the possibilities. And sure, you don’t know for sure that they’ll all come to fruition. But that’s part of the excitement, too. At least they’re there. That’s a start.

 

Baseball

Series Recap – Cubs Lose Two Of Three To Reds: You Can Only Dance For So Long

By Sam Fels 1419 0

Game 1 Box Score: Cubs 8, Reds 2

Game 2 Box Score: Reds 4, Cubs 2

Game 3 Box Score: Reds 3, Cubs 2

The reason I usually take some time before any recap of game or series is it’s best to do your best to see the depth of something. So while I was ranting and raving on Twitter, and being at the last two games certainly didn’t help increase any level-headedness, and this team has been an infuriating watch except for a three week stretch in April and May, at some point you can’t outrun what you’re missing. And this Cubs team is missing Anthony Rizzo and Javier Baez. That’s two perennial All-Stars on a team that was already offensively spotty.

Sure, it hurts more after you put up 55 runs in four games. But you don’t get to play the Pirates every day. Sometimes you run into Sonny Gray, which I think we all can accept to a point.

That doesn’t make one goddamn hit off Tyler Mahle acceptable or palatable or something you can just shrug off. Even though the Cubs have been pulling shit like this all season, you thought the momentum they had carried from before or the urgency of the situation would click them into some sort of alertness. But we keep saying that, and it doesn’t happen. Kris Bryant’s cortisone has worn off, and he looked awful at the plate tonight along with a dumb base-running decision. Jason Heyward has backed up all of September and is back to what he’s been his entire Cubs career. We could go on.

It’s just upsetting, no matter how hard you try and rationalize it, because the call before the season (as I keep repeating) from the front office was that the Cubs had to “lock in” on certain games to get the wins they didn’t get last year (even though they got 95). Getaway days, chances to sweep, chances to win or split a series. Well now they had to have this, and they came up with one hit on hardly the Reds top starter and another three against a pen that’s been leaky. They’re not locked in. They’re just middling.

And now they have to take three of four this weekend to even keep the division debate alive. Split and they’re down three with a week to go. It won’t be enough. And they’ll have to do it against a starting staff that’s perfectly built to expose the lack of Rizzo and Baez and also the shortcomings in their rotation (unless Hamels can rediscover health and Q his form from August). That doesn’t mean it isn’t possible It’s just going to be really hard. And this team hasn’t wanted anything to do with hard all season.

All right, let’s…

-The urge is to go off on the bullpen, but Joe Maddon is doing the best with what he’s got. He’s missing his closer, who hasn’t been all that good anyway. Steve Cishek was down. Brandon Kintzler is hurt. That’s the whole top of the pen. Sure, maybe bringing in Pedro Strop into a big situation was the height of optimism, but the bottom of the order is the kind of situation you do that in because your options are limited. You need Wick or Ryan, which is a statement, for the meat of the lineup. There’s just no other way to go.

-Doesn’t mean you need to walk Peraza twice in the late innings, helping to keep turning over the lineup.

-Somewhat fitting, if you’re a masochist, that Jose Iglesias got the winning hit. He was the shortstop available for a song to back up the middle infield when the Cubs opted for another season of Addison Russell and his recovery they were so invested in (which we’ve heard nothing about since the season started).

-You’re running out of time. Is it the worst idea to see if Happ can’t give you better ABs than Heyward right now? The outfield defense might kill you, but Happ’s ABs are at least more battling than Heyward’s and are you really confident that Heyward can find it with ten games to go?

I can’t escape the feeling that there are just too many obstacles in front of this team, either provided by the front office and ownership before a ball was thrown in anger, or the injuries now, for them to get through. You can’t miss two top-of-the-order hitters and the top of your already undercooked pen and think you’re just going to rip through the rest of the season. They couldn’t find a way past the Padres with Rizzo, for fuck’s sake. Feels like a split with the Cards that give them nothing is what’s coming, before the final insult in St. Louis that will have you tasting battery acid all winter.

I pray that I’m wrong.