Note: Due to expanded rosters, some players can’t fit due to space or lack of caring. You know how we do.
White Sox
Game 1 Box Score: Indians 11, White Sox 3
Game 2 Box Score: White Sox 6, Indians 5
Game 3 Box Score: Indians 8, White Sox 6
Game 4 Box Score: White Sox 7, Indians 1
I’m not sure how many moments Sox fans have gotten this season that they can point to and say to themselves or anyone around (Sox fans rarely need an audience to perform), “That’s what it will look like very soon.” There were a few early in the season, but the year’s middle portion and toward the current end have mostly been filled with injuries or dips in performance or wonder if some players would ever put it together. It’s been a whole lot more rush-hour traffic than most were hoping, that’s for sure.
The last three games of this series will definitely be one that’s marked, as even in the loss the Sox offense was carried by those who will do so in the future and beyond, and only a circus catch kept them from taking all three of those games. There were enough glimpses around for a whole vision, and that has to feel good.
Let’s run it through.
-We can start with Eloy Jimenez, who had eight hits over the four games, laced some outs that could have been hits on another day, and had one of those games he wins by himself on Tuesday. The kinds of games there will be tons more of, is the hope. A big portion of Eloy’s hits, and even hard contact, were made on sliders this series. That can go one of two ways. One is that at least a couple were mistakes, but you can make a shit ton of money hammering mistakes and fastballs anyway. What it doesn’t portend is whether Eloy can lay off the sliders that do bite off the outside of the zone and into the dirt. Or you could argue that he has been laying off of those of late, forcing breaking pitches closer to the zone, where they don’t have to miss by much to stay in the zone, and this is what you get. It’s still a work, but you can see what will happen when he forces pitchers to the zone. It’s got a lot of volume to it.
–Dylan Cease missed out on only his third quality start of the season with the aid of the pen, but it was still a big step forward from what we’ve seen. Cease way upped the use of this change at the expense of fastballs, throwing 18 of them which was the most in any start this season. That generated 12 ground-balls, which you can’t complain about. And the big thing is two walks.
-Of course, Cease struck out 11 but was overshadowed by Reynaldo Lopez, who also struck out 11 today while only giving up one hit. And the Tribe weren’t anywhere near him all day, as his slider was barking and yakking all over them. Lopez got 10 whiffs on the 24 sliders he threw, and no solid contact on any of the others. And only three walks for Reynaldo, who when he stays near the zone can be unhittable. And all of this came in a series against a team that needed these games, which might be most encouraging, even if Cleveland is a touch beat up.
–Zack Collins was on base six times in the last three games, and most ever AB was battling. The Sox might focus too much on the Ks, but he gets on base and the rest of this season should probably be spent giving him most of the starts at first or DH to see if he can take that on next season. The Sox still have an OBP problem, one they’ve had for a decade or more now, and there aren’t too many candidates to fix that. Collins is one.
Pretty good stuff from Erie-side.
vs. 
RECORDS: Cubs 75-63 Brewers 71-67
GAMETIMES: Thursday/Saturday 6:10, Friday 7:10, Sunday 1:10
TV: NBCSN Thursday/Friday/Sunday, WGN Saturday
KHALIL IS COMING FOR THEM TOO: Brew Crew Ball
PREVIEW POSTS
Depth Charts & Pitching Staffs
Try it again, assholes.
The Cubs had a chance to end this stupid Brewers season and annoyance last weekend, and after looking like they might actually do the things they said they were going to in the offseason–y’know, the stuff about being ruthless and getting that extra win instead of being checked out and putting teams away and really the things actual really good teams do–in the first game they promptly went to sleep like an old family dog for the next two. They didn’t score a run, they didn’t look like they wanted to score a run, they didn’t look like they knew how even if they wanted to, and this Brewers thing is still hanging by a thread.
So now the Cubs will have to do it in what has been something of a house of horrors this season. The campaign’s first weekend saw the Cubs get mutilated up there, and then the next trip saw them have two of their dumber losses of the season in the late innings. This is the time for that happy horeshit anymore.
And the Brewers need at least three of these, possibly all four, though a split probably keeps the last rites away for a few more days. They’re four games behind the Cubs for the second wildcard spot, which makes the division lead pretty much unattainable for them. They also have to leap the Phillies and Diamondbacks to even get at the Cubs. so this is desperate shit. Which means three Cubs wins ends the Brewers season, which would be at least something to feel good about at the moment.
Since you last saw this outfit, they split two games with the Astros at home. Jordan Lyles somehow danced around and through the Astros lineup made of monsters and mutants for their win, while their Labor Day loss came in extras after Christian Yelich once again pulled their ass out of a sling in the bottom of the 9th. However you slice it, this is pretty much the Brewers’ last stand. Then again, it should have been last weekend, and yet here we are. They’ll probably think if they can really take hold of this series, their schedule is pretty light afterwards and the possibility of a ridiculous closing kick like last year is still there.
They get the Marlins for four after this before a stop in St. Louis. After that it’s Padres, Pirates, Reds, and Rockies for them, which yeah, is something a team that had to could tear through if so inclined. Whether this Brewers bunch with its two starters and a bullpen made up of 1st round Punchout characters can is another debate.
For the Cubs, they’ll show up pretty wounded, but having to gut it out. There’s no telling if Javy Baez and Kris Bryant are actually healthy, but they’ve each gotten two days off now and the hope is that’s enough. There isn’t another off-day for two and a half weeks, so the words “suck it up” are going to reverberate around. Yu Darvish is apparently good to go for Saturday as well.
With the Cards losing last night, the lead is still claw-back-able. But they get to play the Pirates on the weekend, so the Cubs can’t really afford any slips here. And let’s but to the truth, it’s enough of the horseshit. Either you are you keep saying you should be, or you are what you’ve showed us for five fucking months. This Brewers team is aching to be put out of its misery, and it’s time the Cubs finally dong-whipped this team around for a few. Now that they’ve won two road series in a row, they don’t have to answer those questions. There are eight games here agains beatable teams. So beat them and shut up.
TIME TO MAKE THE CHIMI-FUCKING-CHANGAS.
We know in one sport that the state of Wisconsin likes to hold itself up as a beacon of “the right way” and “what football should be.” It’s nauseating as fuck and hardly true, as the career of the greatest QB of all-time goes pretty much to waste. And really, their baseball team should be more of an example to others than that. At least in one sense.
Most teams, or owners to be precise, think the way to the mountain top is to dive for the valley first. Sell off anything that’s not nailed down, acquire prospects and pool money, get high picks in the draft, take three-four years, and presto. You’re the Astros or Cubs. It worked a couple times, so many assume this is the only way. Of course, owners like this plan because they can promise fans they know what they’re doing and the reward is coming while also getting to spend nothing for a few season and soak in the profits.
But it doesn’t have to be that way, and the Brewers have proved it. You can become a contender, such as the Brewers are, by just being shrewd and making your move at the right time. You don’t need a slew of top-three picks to reconstruct a system.
The Brewers have never really bottomed out this decade. Since winning the Central in 2011, they only had one truly bad campaign, which was in 2015 where they only managed 68 wins. Which is the season that got David Stearns the GM job and kicked Doug Melvin upstairs.
But Stearns was able to profit off the work Melvin had done before, as soon the system was producing Kyle Davies, Chase Anderson, Jimmy Nelson, Domingo Santana (before he returned to the Earth’s core, apparently), Josh Hader (the latter two in a trade with the Astros). Most of these players would form the backbone of the recent Brewers teams that have been so annoying.
And it was Melvin’s picks in the past that made up the haul for Christian Yelich from the Marlins, which of course is the biggest move of all. Stearns sensed there was something there for the Brewers have an 86-win campaign in 2017, and struck. He also signed Lorenzo Cain, who was a down-ballot MVP candidate last season. At no point did the Brewers have to spend three or four seasons making up the numbers, making players up, and making everyone in Milwaukee go do something else.
More teams should probably do this, because it’s less torturous. The problem is, the boom window might not last as long, and that’s what the Brewers could be finding out.
They have little option going forward but to keep going for it, as Yelich only has three years left on his contract (two years plus a team option that is most certainly going to be exercised). As we said with the Packers, you don’t waste a perennial MVPs prime. But Cain is aging quickly, the pitching staff is in shambles, and as they’re finding out this year, a team built on a bullpen has the rockiest of foundations.
They’re also not terribly young in the field. Keston Hiura and Yelich are the only regulars who matter that are under 30. and Grandal has a mutual option in the winter so he’s no guarantee to come back (though given how free agency went for him and many others last time, he may just take the security of a paycheck). So to suggest anyone other than Hiura or Yelich is going to be as good next year is the hilt of cock-eyed.
The rotation is probably priority one, as they can no longer know what Jimmy Nelson will be and Brandon Woodruff appears to be constructed entirely of matchsticks. This team could use Gerrit Cole more than just about anyone, but he’s headed straight to Anaheim when free agency opens. Anthony Rendon would be an upgrade on the corners, though that would involve moving Moustakas to either second or first full-time. And the former isn’t really an option thanks to Hiura.
It’s also a question of how high the Brewers can go. They draw well when they’re good, and they’ve been good the past three years. But they’re already on the hook for in the neighborhood of $160M next year, and it’s hard to see them going too much higher and anywhere near $200M next season or anytime soon.
You can rebuild by patchwork and creativity. But you don’t end up with quite the base. What the Brewers do going into next season will show just how sustainable, and attractive, their option for building a team is for others.
Note: With expanded rosters, space is limited, so we did our best to include only the non-bozos. With these two teams, that’s a hard choice.
Cubs
Brewers
Game 1 Box Score: Cubs 5, Mariners 1
Game 2 Box Score: Cubs 6, Mariners 1
And here we go again, it’s never gonna end… The Cubs went from a sweep of a mediocre team in the Mets, to pretty much shitting their drawers against the Brewers, to doing exactly what they should have against a Mariners team that’s made of silly putty. Monday’s win felt like drunk sex, and tonight’s win just felt like what should have been. At least it got there in the end.
Let’s…
-This season has gotten to the point where I’m being threatened with basically a defenestration (though off a roof is not technically that) simply so someone can feel again. How else do you sum it up?
-A team actually intentionally walked Albert Almora. Anything is possible kids, as long as you believe hard enough.
-Schwarber got the big hit off a lefty pitcher, which only makes some earlier lineup choices even more infuriating. That doesn’t mean I think The War Bear is automatic against lefties, but at this point there’s just enough balance between he’s earned the chance of late and there being no one else that he needs to start every day until the season is over.
-Good god the Mariners are terrible. Is there anyone you think about seeing in the future?
-Against any representative team, Lester probably gets shelled tonight. Luckily, the schedule says he didn’t have to.
-Unluckily, it also says the Cardinals didn’t have to either.
-For a long time I’ve hoped that Ben Zobrist would be some kind of answer for this team, but recently I’ve come to the conclusion he won’t be any more of one than Robel Garcia or Ian Happ. Prove me wrong kids, prove me wrong.
-The fact that Bryant took a seat again tonight in recent memory almost certainly means he’s not healthy, be it knee or shoulder. The Cubs are three back with three to go. Unless you absolutely can’t, you’d be starting your best players every game. You rest them earlier for that exact reason.
-Hey does anyone remember the last time Heyward was on base?
-Is it weird that Kimbrel didn’t get an inning either yesterday or today? Especially with an off day next? Because the last time he came out of the pen throwing 95 and nothing on his curve, as he did Sunday, he was on the IL for two weeks the day after. Is he healthy? Is anyone sure?
-It’s good to see Schwarber higher up in the lineup, but he should be hitting leadoff and no one should give him any shit about the kind of hitter he is there. Because there’s not anyone else to do it, unless you want to see the Joy Division song in baseball form that Heyward is there.
Onwards…
After watching the Braves bludgeon the White Sox over the weekend, I kind of sat mystified as to how the Braves offense is significantly better than the Cubs. This could come into major relief should the two meet in the first round of the playoffs, as they would do if the Cubs flag down the Cardinals in the season’s last three weeks. Because both offenses are basically top-heavy. The Braves sport Ronald Acuna Jr., Josh Donaldson, Freddie Freeman, and Ozzie Albies at the top of the lineup. Which really shouldn’t be out-producing Kris Bryant, Anthony Rizzo, Willson Contreras, and Javier Baez. And really, in terms of wRC+ and other measures, it’s not.
As a team, the Cubs and Braves walk and strikeout at almost exactly the same rate. They’ve hit just about the same amount of homers (the Braves lead in this category 218 to 213), and the Braves have hit 16 more doubles, which probably doesn’t have as great of an effect as you might think at first.
It would be easy to point to the batting average, as as a team the Braves hit nine points higher (.260 to .251). And maybe it’s just that difference that’s led to the Braves having 97 more hits as a team, but when you think about it that’s just one per game. And yes, casting your mind over the season, you can find more than a handful of games where one hit instead of one out would have made a huge difference. Maybe it is that simple, and the Cubs just need that one hit more often over the last three weeks (cue Al Pacino speech about fighting for that inch).
As you were probably about to suggest, the numbers slant even more when there are runners in scoring position. The Braves hit 16 points higher in that spot, have gotten 58 more hits, and in turn 50 more runs in that spot than the Cubs. Which means the Cubs have to do more of the splashing from downtown as it were, solo homers or homers with guys on first.
And yes, perhaps it could be that simple. But as I just pointed out at the top of this, the tops of these lineups are almost carbon copies of each other. And the supporting casts really haven’t been that much different, as Matt Joyce’s late boom has been basically the same as Nicholas Castellanos’s. The Braves haven’t had the massive black holes in spots like center and second that the Cubs have had, but they’ve mitigated that somewhat by shifting guys around. It can’t explain it all.
But looking this over more, and somewhat off of our Kris Bryant post from a couple weeks ago, the Cubs as a whole just don’t hit the ball very hard.
In the majors, the Cubs rank 26th in hard-contact rate. They rank second to last in line-drive rate. Considering the hitters in this lineup, how can that be? For a clearer illustration, the Braves have eight guys who have a 40+% hard-contact rate. The Cubs have one, and that’s the dude who came 2/3rds of the way through the season in Castellanos. The Braves have five guys with a 25+% line-drive rate. The Cubs don’t have one. Line-drives don’t have to be necessarily the name of the game, but you’d like to think you could better than this.
And again, we can’t stress this enough, this is in a season where the baseball has been designed specifically so you can hit it ludicrously hard. Everyone is. Except the Cubs. The type of contact they make has nothing to do with their strikeouts and walk tendencies. This is just about when they get the bat on the ball. This was an issue last year too, where only Schwarber had a hard-contact rate over 40%.
It would be hard for the Cubs to raise their batting average in the season’s final throes, though anything is possible in a short stint in baseball, without raising the volume of their contact. And that’s probably the case heading into the future as well. Sure, they almost certainly don’t make enough contact, though that’s not quite as big of a problem as it’s been made out to be, thanks to some very memorable situations where the Cubs haven’t gotten the bat on the ball when they had to. But what might be just as big of a problem is the Cubs don’t make the right contact when they do.
Chili Davis couldn’t fix it. Anthony Iapoce hasn’t been able to fix it. Which leads you to believe it’s the players. But considering the lineup, this really shouldn’t be a problem. Why is it? We know they make less contact than anyone, but again, that doesn’t have any effect on how hard they hit the ball when they do hit the ball. The first instinct is to say that they make contact on the wrong pitches, but they have the lowest amount of contact outside the zone in the NL.
Whatever it is, the Cubs just don’t hit the ball very hard, and they don’t seem inclined to do anything about it. And that’s if they even know it’s a problem.
VS 
RECORDS: White Sox 60-76 / Indians 79-58
START TIMES: Monday-Wednesday 6:10, Thursday 12:10
TV: Mon/Wed/Thurs NBCSN, Tuesday WGN
Too High? What Do You Mean Too High?: Let’s Go Tribe
So this is kind of a big series for the Tribe. If they have any deigns on the postseason, they’re going to have to start now. Cleveland (much like in real life) is currently hanging onto the final wild card spot by the last millimeters of their fingernails, only .5 games ahead of Oakland. Unless something wacky happens in Boston, it’s a 3 horse race for the 2 wild card spots, and Cleveland has not fared well against the other two remaining teams. Last Friday they had a decent lead heading into their series against Tampa Bay, but that floated away on the wind after the Rays took 3 straight. The Tribe muddled their way through August, going one game over .500 in the month (which is not what you’d want out of a team with playoff aspirations).
For a bit there, things were looking up for them as it seemed Cory Kluber was ready to come back and Jose Ramirez had finally broken out of his year long slump. Then Klubot strained his oblique during a rehab start and hasn’t pitched since, and Ramirez broke his hand while swinging a bat a week ago. Whoops. One cool thing, however, is the return yesterday of Carlos Carrasco who pitched in relief for the first time since being diagnosed a few months ago with leukemia. It’s an awesome story, and I’m glad he’s doing well.
With Kluber going down and Carrasco having to take time off, the starting rotation has had some big holes to fill. Luckily for the Tribe some rookies have stepped up to fill in the gap. Monday’s starter Zach Plesac (nephew of journeyman and most famous person to escape Gary, IN Dan Plesac) has acquitted himself nicely in the number 4 starter slot. He’s gone 7-5 since being called up with a 3.61 ERA, and 1.21 WHIP. He’s primarily a fastball/changeup kinda guy, with a decent slider and a solid curveball rounding out his arsenal. Plesac has had quite a bit of batted ball luck so far this season, with a .244 BABIP and an over 80% strand rate, so at some point the regression monster is going to come for the guy. It hasn’t yet, and the Sox are going to have to contend with his luck tonight. Shane Bieber continues his ascent towards the top of the Tribe’s rotation with another excellent year so far, posting a 3.27 ERA and a crazily low 1.01 WHIP thus far. His 30% K rate against his 5% walk rate is something to behold, and with a .285 BABIP there’s not much room for regression. Between those two and adding in Mike Clevinger and Carlos Carrasco the Tribe’s rotation is gonna be set for a long while.
Offensively this team still has it’s table set by superstar shortstop Francisco Lindor. He’s having another atypical season for himself, slashing .296/.347/.878 with 26 HR. The more impressive thing about that is he missed almost the entire month of April after messing up his ankle preparing for spring training. Carlos Santana has been able to dial back the clock to his early days in Cleveland by hitting a very solid .290/.411/.954 so far, well on his way to a 40 HR, 100 RBI campaign. He’s a switch hitter that absolutely murders right handed pitching, so the Sox rotation is going to need to tread lightly around him (and maybe Moncada can take some notes). Yasiel Puig is also here, the main piece of the deal that sent starting pitcher and Professional Twitter Edgelord Trevor Bauer to Cincinnati. The Tribe filled their need of OF help by dealing from a position of strength as they also got HR machine Franmil Reyes from the Padres as part of the deal.
For our White Sox, the story remains the same. The starters need to go 5-6 innings a piece to give a badly taxed bullpen some relief. The return of Carson Fulmer and Manny Banuelos should help, but it would be nice to see the rotation carry it’s weight after getting scorched by the Braves this past weekend. Eloy Jimenez seems to be getting the timing of his swing back after his 23rd stint on the IL this season, but needs to hit for power as it’s been 11 games now since he’s had an extra base hit. Whatever other September call ups are not here yet, as Charlotte is trying to get into the postseason down in AAA, so it’ll be a bit before Zack Collins heads North. With Jon Jay fucking back off to the IL with hip surgery you can plan on seeing more of Adam Engel and Ryan Cordell wandering around the outfield grass and flailing around the batters box like a used car inflatable air dancer.
It would be nice for the Sox to play spoiler this series and help Cleveland screw themselves out of a postseason appearance, since they can’t do the same to the Twins. That way the depression in Cleveland can roll right into the NFL season when the Browns inevitably crush everyone’s hopes when Baker Mayfield turns back into a pumpkin.
Lets Go Sox
Mike Clevinger isn’t what you see when you think of the top starters in baseball. They’re usually of the Johnny Unitas type, a haircut you can set your watch to. But here is Clevinger, looking like he fell off the Allman Brothers bus, and since he returned from injury in late June, there hasn’t been a better pitcher.
The numbers pop right out at you. Since July 1st, Clevinger has the best WAR of any pitcher, the fourth best ERA, the best FIP, sixth-best K/9, and they third-best ERA-. He’s a huge reason, along with Shane Bieber, that the Tribe have been able to surge to the top of the wildcard standings and still keep some hot breath on the neck of the Twins atop the Central. And they’ll need all their pitchers to be on top of their game with the resurgence of Jose Ramirez now over thanks to a broken hand.
How did Clevinger get here? A couple of different answers. One, he has one of the best sliders in the game. According to FanGraphs, his slider ranks behind only Max Scherzer’s and Patrick Corbin’s as far as value. That’s always a nice place to be. Clevinger’s slider doesn’t have a huge amount of tilt but it does have a hue amount of sweep, moving nearly 10 inches across the zone and out of it. Which is a big reason that hitters from the right side whiff at over half the ones at which they swing.
Another reason is that hitters can’t do much with his fastball, either. He throws pretty hard, averaging 96 MPH on it, which is top-1o in the game. Clevinger gets a fair amount of run on his four-seam, which moves it on the hands of righties and away from lefties. And it’s the fastball that’s been the big difference from last year, gaining nearly two MPH of average velocity and going from a good pitch to a great one. Clevinger credited better mechanics coming into this season, getting away from using only his arm to produce it.
But it’s in the past two years that the slider became the main weapon, especially this year when he was able to really increase the tilt it got and the sweep. Raising his arm slot appears to have been a key, as you can see here:
So with the greater velocity, and the already-damaging slider, hitters don’t have much of cushion to diagnose either, and you get what you have so far this season.
Clevinger’s return to health and entrance into dominance, as well as Shane Bieber’s, made Cleveland comfortable dealing All-World Tool Trevor Bauer across the state, and probably will make it easier for them to lose Cory Kluber in the winter (they almost did this past one). Carlos Carrasco returning is also a boon to that. Kluber has two years of club options at a pretty reasonable rate left, so his value probably won’t be much higher than this for the always cost-conscious Indians.
But both Clevinger and Bieber are going to be around a while, and the base for the next great Tribe team (if that has Lindor, of course). As for this year, they’ve got six game left with the Twins that will probably decide the Central. And they have the one thing, thanks to Clevinger in part, that the Twins don’t. And that’s dominating starting pitching.
Note: We didn’t have enough space for the expanded rosters, so bullpens is by top usage.
