Baseball

Series Preview – Braves vs. Cubs: Clearing The Hand Wall

By Sam Fels 1332 0

vs.

RECORDS: Braves 46-32   Cubs 42-35

GAMETIMES: Monday-Wednesday 7:05, Thursday 1:20

TV: NBCSN Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, WGN Wednesday

BABY DRIVER EXTRAS: Talking Chop

PITCHING MATCHUPS

Julio Teheran vs. Jon Lester

Max Fried vs. Adbert Alzolay

Dallas Keuchel vs. Yu Darvish

TBD vs. Tyler Chatwood

PROBABLE BRAVES LINEUP

Ronald Acuna Jr. – CF

Dansby Swanson – SS

Freddie Freeman – 1B

Josh Donaldson – 3B

Nick Markakis – RF

Austin Riley – LF

Ozzie Albies – 2B

Tyler Flowers – C

PROBABLE CUBS LINEUP

Kyle Schwarber – LF

Kris Bryant – 3B

Anthony Rizzo – 1B

Javier Baez – SS

Willson Contreras – C

Jason Heyward – CF

David Bote – 2B

Carlos Gonzalez – RF

 

So, you’ve kind of biffed a long homestand, and now you need to ace the last series to have a successful one. Nothing better than having to face the National League’s hottest team to do it, right? The Braves are 16-5 in June, have surged to the top of the NL East and have kind of hid from the Phillies with a 6.5-game gap. So that’s who the Cubs have to grab at least three of four from to claim what they should have from 10 games at the Friendly Confines.

So how did the Braves pull an Easy Goer on the outside in the division this month? Well, pretty much everything. The offense has gone plaid, led by Freddie Freeman, who’s got a 1.157 OPS in the month. Ozzie Albies has recovered from a slow start, and Tyler Flowers has been mashing as well. In fact, the only two regulars who don’t have a .900+ OPS in June are Dansby Swanson and Nick Markakis. So yeah, that’s six guys tearing the ass off the baseball the past three weeks.

The rotation hasn’t been far behind, though it has some injury issues. Kevin Gausman has landed on the shelf, and Mike Soroka was pulled from his last start. Given that he’s only 21, any tweak to his arm is going to be treated like ebola. Mike Foltynewicz was so bad this year he was sent down. So the Braves have Teheran, Fried, and Keuchel ready to go today and a bunch of questions. The Cubs might see Touki Toussaint slide into the rotation for a bit, depending on how the injuries turn out.

The pen has been a touch rocky. Anthony Swarzak and Luke Jackson have been dominant, with the latter taking the closer’s role. Toussaint has been able to dance through the fire of his nearly five walks per nine, but that won’t last. Beyond that it’s been an adventure. Jacob Webb doesn’t strike many out nor get ground balls, but has a 1.77 ERA. One wonders just how long he can keep that up.

For the Cubs, they’ll give Alzolay his first start in the majors on Tuesday, and give Chatwood a full week before starting again on Thursday. The Cubs don’t have a day off until July 5th, so they’ll likely stick with six starters until then and keep Hendricks on ice until after the All-Star Break. Hopefully this is the start of Bote getting a run at second base with no bullshit breaks for Descalso or Russell. If we can get that, I’ll live with the Carlos Gonzalez experience.

It’s a rough week, because backing up the Braves is probably the other hottest team in the league, non-Dodgers division, in the Reds on the road. They’ve been annoying as fuck for the Cubs as is, so this week shapes up as a nasty test. Let’s get through it.

Baseball

Series Wrap – Cubs Split With Mets: Pulled Back From The Edge

By Sam Fels 1263 0

Game 1 Box Score: Cubs 7, Mets 4

Game 2 Box Score: Mets 5, Cubs 4

Game 3 Box Score: Mets 10, Cubs 2

Game 4 Box Score: Cubs 5, Mets 3

There have been a handful of times this year, going against my try-to-keep-calm nature about a baseball season, where I’ve been on the precipice of getting worried or upset about this team and thinking it might need bigger changes than I thought. Or giving up on any sort of glory in October. And then right about as I’m going to Tommen myself over the edge, they’ve pulled a rabbit. Splitting with the Sox and Mets isn’t exactly acceptable, but losing three of four to the Mets would have been far worse. Now you’re only one game off where you should have been on this homestand really, and a series win over the admittedly molten Braves probably gets you there. There’s still much to complain about, but now they’re just complaints instead of outright beefs.

Let’s clean it up.

The Two Obs

-Javy Baez’s last two ABs are the difference between the raw variety show he used to be and All-Star he is now. He was completely overmatched by deGrom in his first two PAs, though a lot of hitters were. He couldn’t pick up the slider and he wasn’t getting within a foot of it. Then in his third AB he went with a plan, fought off some tough pitches, and muscled a single through the middle. Gained a little confidence, and even being down 0-2 to Lugo didn’t phase him. And then he finally remembered right field is legal, and pulled his team’s ass out of a sling. I shouldn’t doubt him.

-If you do want to worry, here’s Jose Quintana for you. It was only four starts ago that he did throw seven against the Rockies, but walks in the last three have been a problem. Yesterday he was wild in the zone, and though I thought he had some rough BABIP luck with Jeff McNeil basically cricket-ing a double for two runs, he fell apart after that. I think it’s just a blip, but when he got in trouble yesterday he abandoned his change. He can’t do that, because then he’s just two pitches. Even if he doesn’t have a feel for it, he’s got to find it. Hopefully back to basics soon.

-I’ve had enough of McNeil and Alonso for a while, thank you.

-Alzolay’s debut was certainly enticing, and no one should get ahead of themselves. But he does present some more interesting options, and one of them the Cubs will use this week is six starters to keep everyone fresh. When Hendricks returns he could again be what Chatwood and Montgomery could have been, a multi-inning weapon out of the pen. He was going to be on an innings-limit anyway. We’re a long way from that, but it’s at least something to get excited about.

-Friday’s loss is the one that hurts. Sometimes it’s not your day and you get stuffed like Saturday. But Friday was there for them. Yu was itchy again, there seems to be this fascination with getting Brach right even though he probably won’t be here next week, and then continued use of Montgomery as a LOOGY which he’s never been. It’s not like McNeil crushed that ball off of him or anything but Monty isn’t missing a ton of bats either. Give him a clean inning, or two, or three. It’s what he’s built to do. He’s not a high-leverage one-hitter dude. Add up enough games you feel like you should have gotten and you’re in the muck with the Brewers and Cardinals. And no one wants that.

-Bryant has two homers in June. He’s slugging .453 in the month. Are we a touch worried about either wear or the shoulder again? This seems long for a slump.

Onwards…

Baseball

Series Preview – Mets vs. Cubs: Something About These Colors

By Sam Fels 1260 0

vs.

RECORDS: Mets 35-39   Cubs 40-33

GAMETIMES: Thursday 7:05, Friday-Sunday 1:20

TV: Thursday WGN, Friday NBCSN, Saturday and Sunday ABC

ASLEEP ON THE 7 TRAIN: Mets Blog

PITCHING MATCHUPS

Walker Lockett vs. Tyler Chatwood

Jason Vargas vs. Yu Darvish

Zack Wheeler vs. Jose Quintana

Jacob deGrom vs. Cole Hamels

PROBABLE METS LINEUP

Jeff McNeil – LF

Pete Alonso – 1B

Robinson Cano – 2B

Michael Conforto – RF

Wilson Ramos – C

Todd Frazier – 3B

Amed Rosario – SS

Juan Lagares – CF

PROBABLE CUBS LINEUP

Kyle Schwarber – LF

Kris Bryant – 3B

Anthony Rizzo – 1B

Javier Baez – SS

Willson Contreras – C

Jason Heyward – RF

David Bote – 2B

Albert Almora Jr. – CF

 

As the Cubs return to regularly schedules National League action, they’ll be greeted by the visit of the ship that always seems to be facing the wrong way, the New York Mets. What is it about teams in this shade of blue and orange? There’s a lot of similarities between the Mets and Edmonton Oilers, from the greatness in the 80s to the seemingly unable to get out of their own way methods of the past decade to wasting the prime of generational talents like deGrom and now possibly Pete Alonso. It was ever thus with the Mets.

Alonso is the story on the offensive side for the Metropolitans. He’s third in the NL in homers with 24, seventh in slugging, and has propped up a lineup that has had to drag along too many guys, including Robinson Cano who was supposed to be the dragger and not the dragee. Other Mets system products like Michael Conforto and Jeff McNeil have done most of the rest of the heavy lifting. The offense took something of a hit when Brandon Nimmo‘s neck was filled with bugs and Yeonis Cespedes’s feet were the recipient of a witch’s curse (though Cespedes has never been that good), which forced Juan Legares into the lineup every day pretty much. Todd Frazier has been just about average, as has Wilson Ramos. It’s a line up that just screams, “fine.” There are some clear holes.

The rotation is about what you’d expect, though it’s had what are no its usual injury problems, as every member of it has missed a start or two and had to have some weird microscopes or resonance tests. It’s very Mets. deGrom, Thor, and Wheeler have also suffered from what is still a subpar Mets defense, as they’re carrying far lower FIPs than ERAs. The Cubs will only have to see two of them this weekend in Wheeler and deGrom, whose matchup with Hamels on Sunday is going to be the main event of this series. That’s not to discount Vargas who has been able to dance through the rain drops this year with some heavy fly ball ways and some righteous BABIP Kung Fu Treachery. Walker Lockett, which sounds like a name out of Deadwood, will make his Mets debut tonight instead of Thor. He’s a control/grounder type who made a brief cameo for the Padres last year.

The Mets pen has been the normal adventure is always seems to be. Prized winter acquisition Edwin Diaz has not turned out the lights as he had before, though mostly effective. Robert Gsellman is already about to die of exhaustion. Seth Lugo has been another stalwart, but after that the Mets have trotted out 17 other clowns to try and get outs and it’s been…well, let’s say abstract. Jeurys Familia, scumbag that he is, responded to losing his closer role by being awful and then hurt, and the Mets haven’t found any other solutions besides the first three mentioned.

And as always, the Mets are a circus off the field, between how they’ve ground their pitchers with obvious injuries to the bullpen to not getting a game out of Jared Lowrie with an injury they can’t seem to diagnose, to today where they’ve fired their pitching and bullpen coach. You can always count on them to be the Mets.

For the Cubs, they’ll fill in for Kyle Hendricks tonight by letting Tyler Chatwood start and then having their only pitching prospect Adbert Alzolay follow up. It’s a first look at an actual, breathing promise on the mound for the Cubs, who have yet to produce one since…arguably Hendricks? Before that it’s probably Andrew Cashner? Let’s not think about it.

As for the rest, they’ll hope Contreras’s big night is the sign of another binge, as the Cubs could use it. They will miss Thor and Matz, which is something of a boon, but they’ll not want to have to get past deGrom to win this series if at all possible, as he’s coming off his best start of the season. Then again, they made quick work of Lucas Giolito, so who fucking knows?

The Braves will be a stiff test after this. Best to treat the Mets like the Mets.

 

Everything Else

Series Wrap – Cubs And White Sox Split: Baseball Gonna Baseball On Ya

By Sam Fels 1320 0

Game 1 Box Score: Sox 3, Cubs 1

Game 2 Box Score: Cubs 7, Sox 3

It’s somehow perfect, at least on the blue side, that this mini-series would work out in opposite fashion than you would have guessed. The Cubs couldn’t figure out Ivan Nova, but then they shelled the American League’s hottest pitcher. Sure. Why wouldn’t it be that? Nothing about this Crosstown affair has ever made sense. And of course it would be Willson Contreras delivering the deathblow tonight, because I poopooed him earlier in the day. You can’t fucking script this stuff.

So the Cubs and Sox split. Everyone who works at NBCSN will try and attach greater meaning to it. And there is none. It was just two games. In the words of Homer, “It was just a bunch of stuff that happened.”

The Two Obs

-Fine, we’ll get the main story, or the one that everyone will push, out of the way first. Of course Eloy Jimenez hit the winning homer off of Pedro Strop in the 9th of the first game. It’s the perfect arc. The Cubs have pen problems, Strop is meant to be a partial salve, Eloy is the “one who got away” according to everyone who needs there to be a narrative. We could have told you this on Monday afternoon.

Clear up some facts, partially thanks to Hess. Quintana has been better than Lester since he arrived, and if you sold the trade as Eloy and Cease for Lester, Cubs fans probably go along with that. Second, Schwarber and Eloy have been equals mostly for this year, so it’s not clear where the hell Eloy would have played had he still been here. Eloy will go on to be a great player, likely. The Cubs did not make a mistake. Both of these thing can be true.

(If you want the mistake, check out Gleyber for Aroldis. And that one ended with a parade, so is it really?)

-It’s strange that Ivan Nova has been so much better on the road, because thanks to the weather Comiskey has not played like the launch pad it normally does. But that’s just how it’s been.

-Lester got six whiffs on the eight swings on his curve tonight, which I suppose is encouraging. Him having to hump and sweat through 17 outs kind of isn’t.

-Aaron Bummer is kind of the perfect example of how weird relievers can be. He came up in ’17, and though he had a bad ERA no one could really touch him, as a .178 BA against would prove. Perhaps an inept defense didn’t help. Last year, he was bad, and now he’s dominant. Would you take the bet that he nets more than Colome at the deadline? He does throw left-handed, remember.

-Galactus is fighting it a bit, at the moment.

-From the minute that Kelli Crull said she’d be touring the park during Game 1, you knew exactly what would happen, right? It would be a series of couples and groups split between fans of each team, and they would just scream into the microphone. And it would be something along the lines of the Cub fan screaming how great Wrigley is and the Sox fan about how Cubs fans are only out for the party and other shit we debunked like 15 years ago. We’ve been watching this for 22 years. Give her something better to do for all of our sakes, especially hers.

-Hmm, David Bote homered on the same day I suggested he just play every day. Is it working in reverse now?

Onwards…

Baseball

Will The Cubs Need Another Bat?

By Sam Fels 1475 0

Granted, this is a poor post to explore a day after you’ve been smothered by Ivan Nova, statistically the worst starter in all of baseball. One is capable of the irrational at the moment. And it’s not fair to get really emotional about it when you’ve just run the Dodgers gauntlet for four games, because right now no one is scoring against them. But the thing is if you want to go anywhere, you’re going to have to bust through that Crossing The Desert, or out-slug them, or out-slug the Brewers to even win the division (Lord knows the Brewers aren’t going to out-pitch anyone), or the suddenly nuclear Braves…anyway, you get it.

The worry area for the Cubs all season has been the pen, and the signing of Craig Kimbrel doesn’t magically make all of that go away. And you still imagine that when the deadline approaches, that still will be Priority #1, and possibly #2 and even #3. Fair enough, the Cubs still only have two to three reliable guys right now, and that might even include Kimbrel. There are a lot of wildcards out there.

Still, what’s been apparent is the Cubs have obvious holes in the lineup. They’re at second, center, and right. The last is being a tad harsh, as even with Jason Heyward’s abhorrent May, he’s still having an above-average offensive year (barely). But we can aim for a little higher than barely above average, at least I hope we can. Mom always told me aim high. The Cubs can carry average or a tick below at one spot, maybe even two.

The problem is that when the main five–Bryant, Rizzo, Contreras, Baez, and now Schwarber–aren’t all firing at the same time then the offense becomes something of a wasteland after the fifth hitter. Baez is in a slump, Contreras has gotten ground-ball happy again, and this is a big reason the Cubs haven’t put together a bunch of runs of late.

Still, I don’t want to base things on a bad week or two. It’s a long goddamn season. But over the last month, the Cubs are 10th in runs in the NL, 12th in average, 11th in wOBA. A month gets harder to ignore.

And what’s clear is that the answers mostly aren’t on the team. There’s no way the Cubs could have foreseen that Ben Zobrist would leave the team and his return be totally up in the air. It’s easy to forget how good Zobrist was last year in a more limited role in service of his age, but his 123 wRC+ or .355 wOBA would be miles above anything they’re getting for the most part from anyone not in that fivesome mentioned.

With Zoby 18 being somewhere in the quantum zone, the Cubs aren’t left with many answers. Carlos Gonzalez is dead. He’s not going to be reanimated. Everyone but Joe Maddon seems to know this. What’s hilarious is that Mark Zagunis was never given near the opportunities that CarGo has been, and his numbers are significantly better. And no, that’s not a plea to recall ZagNuts and play him. It’s just an illustration of how toast CarGo is.

Addison Russell is probably not going to hit, because he never really has. Some in the organization are blinded by the 98 RBI he put up once, but that’s more a function of the great offense ahead of him in ’16 than him being a great hitter. He’s never had an above-average offensive season, and has been actively bad the last three seasons. Daniel Descalso has been a disaster, and would likely be DFA’d if Zobrist were to return.

Whatever momentum Albert Almora might have had in May has been stunted by the arrival and usage of Gonzalez. I’m not sure how exactly, but Almora had a productive May. He had terrible luck (.253 BABIP), still hit too many grounders (50%, but that was down from April), and yet hit for enough power to overcome all of that. It’s the Heyward argument; given his defense you take average or just above offense and you have yourself a very useful player. June has seen Almora hit the ball in the same fashion as May, at least contact-type wise, it’s just that none of it has gone out of the park as a quarter of his fly balls did in May. I don’t know what the truth is here, but I know there’s more potential here than trying to wheeze one more breath of oxygen into CarGo.

The only in-house answer right now is to play David Bote every day. I know that Maddon would tell me that would expose Bote, or make the Cubs too right-handed, but quite frankly that’s horseshit. In fact, Bote has been terrible against left-handed pitching this year and great against right-handed, the complete opposite of last year. Which makes you at least hope he could blend the two one day.

Bote’s run into some bad luck in June as well, as he’s had a 32% line-drive rate in the month which is insanely high. Overall, his hard-contact rate is down but I can’t see how lacing line-drives all over the place is a bad thing. He’s hardly a star, but given what else you have, it’s just about the only choice. Whether that’s playing second with Almora in center and Heyward in right, or at third with Bryant in right and Heyward in center, I really don’t care. You have to at least try. We know Maddon loves his roster flexibility, but that’s not this roster. Quite frankly. Russell, CarGo, and Descalso have played themselves off the rotation. That’s just how it is.

The problem with getting a bat via trade is they’re going to be costly, whereas you can find any reliever anywhere (and I’m kind of in the would rather have Bummer than Colome camp right now if the Cubs go shopping crosstown again). In my dreams you plug Howie Kendrick into second base and get on with your life. But even if the Nats decide to pack up the cats, Kendrick is going to cost and I don’t think the Cubs have the boat to spend, prospect-wise. It’s like Alzolay and Hoerner and that’s pretty much it. We’ll throw Amaya on there, but he’s a long way off. And Amaya is probably the only one you’re comfortable, barely, including in any deal just because he plays catcher and you seem set there for a while.

Any other bat on the market is probably the same story. It’s hard to know who that would even be. Whit Merrifield isn’t going anywhere and if he did it wouldn’t be cheap. Eric Sogard? That’s a risk but would probably be cheap? He’s kind of Zobrist-lite at this point and is only a year removed from being a black hole for the Brewers. Maybe you wait out how the Reds toggle the Derek Dietrich/Scooter Gennett conundrum, but neither are guaranteed to be moved and neither would be cheap if they were.

It’s a problem, which is why Bote should probably be given the month to see what he does with an every day role. Hell, you extended the guy anyway, right?

Baseball

Series Preview – White Sox vs. Cubs: A Lot Of Unimportant Noise

By Sam Fels 1115 0

vs.

RECORDS: White Sox 34-36   Cubs 39-32

GAMETIMES: Tuesday and Wednesday at 7:05

TV: WGN (Sox) and NBCSN Chicago (Cubs) Tuesday, NBCSN Chicago (Sox) and ABC 7 Wednesday (Cubs)

WE’RE NOT LISTING OTHER BLOGS BECAUSE WE’RE ALL YOU NEED, BITCHES

PITCHING MATCHUPS

Ivan Nova vs. Cole Hamels

Lucas Giolito vs. Jon Lester

PROBABLE WHITE SOX LINEUP

Leury Garcia – CF

Tim Anderson – SS

Jose Abreu – 1B

Eloy Jimenez – LF

Yoan Moncada – 3B

Zack Collins – C

Yolmer Sanchez – 2B

Ryan Cordell – RF

PROBABLE CUBS LINEUP

Kyle Schwarber – LF

Kris Bryant – 3B

Anthony Rizzo – 1B

Javier Baez – SS

Jason Heyward – RF

Willson Contreras – C

David Bote – 2B

Albert Almora Jr. – CF

 

I won’t lie. These games stopped being fun for me somewhere around 2008. Maybe earlier. At first I thought trying to be above it was a way to annoy my Sox-leaning friends. But then I was just above it. They were, and still are, a nuisance. They’re only that these days because of how much “meaning” the local media wants to attach to them to justify all the frothing about it when they’re just two more games on the schedule. I used to think they meant more to Sox fans, but these days it feels like even they’re over it. The Cubs have been contenders for things that matter for years now, putting these games in proper perspective. And Sox fans finally got their wish of a rebuild and have a ton of young players to enjoy watching grow up and that’s where their focus is, along with what the future might bring. Sure, two wins against the other side is always nice, but nothing that happens here is going to change what these teams are about. The days of Jerry Manuel trying to engineer his lineup and rotation in spring training for a Cubs series are long gone, and we’re all better off, that’s for sure.

Both teams come in off frustrating weekends. The Cubs only averted complete disaster thanks to a Anthony Rizzo 9th-inning homer off of Kenley Jansen. Meanwhile, the Sox took two straight from the Yankees to pull themselves up and look over the edge of the landing of .500, before their grip gave way and they dropped the next two to roll back down the hill a bit. .500 doesn’t really mean anything to the Sox in the grand scheme of things, but it would be a nice benchmark for team and fans alike to grab hold of as proof things are moving forward.

For this one, the Lester-Giolito matchup on Wednesday is going to grab the marquee. And that’s mostly due to Giolito, who’s been one of the best five starters in baseball this season. The Cubs just had to run the Dodgers gauntlet, so the idea of now having to put up with Giolito right after that probably sours the taste of food this week. Lester has been fighting it the past month, basically getting shelled in four of his last six starts and gutting through a four-run first inning against the Cardinals two starts back to keep that from becoming another bloodletting. Lester tried abandoning his change in his last start against the Dodgers, but that didn’t work. So it feels like he’s a touch short on answers.

On the other side, it looks like Yoan Moncada will return for at least Wednesday if not both. New call-up Zack Collins should go right into the fire, as they’re not going to break up the Giolito-McCann Axis of Darkness anytime soon. Or McCann could get both but hey, the kid is here so let him out of the house. McCann has pretty insane patience, to the point where he watches a lot of strikes. Also pretty big pop for a catcher. Sox fans should be excited.

Ivan Nova has held something of a voodoo sign over the Cubs before, with a career 3.97 ERA and a 5.5 K/BB ratio against them. I personally watched him out-duel Jake Arrieta in Pittsburgh in 2017, but thankfully a distillery tour before that game left me pretty “meh” about the whole thing. The Sox will have to deal with the ridiculously hot Cole Hamels, who hasn’t given up a run since May 27th.

There will still be sections of each fanbase who attach too much to these two games and the two that will follow right before the break. They’re shrinking in size, but they’re still there. And the local media will do whatever it can to stoke their fires. Inside the park you know you’ll have a fair amount of drunken arguments. But not as many as before apparently, because it wasn’t too long ago everyone would have balked at having these games at night. Not so much anymore. Let’s get it over with.

Baseball

Cubs-Sox Meditation

By Sam Fels 1440 0

Instead of our usual spotlight, for the Crosstown series the three of us who have been covering baseball so far this year–yours truly, Hess, and AJ–got together to talk about the status of each team heading into this two-day gimmick on the Northside. 

Fels: We used to joke around here that these games meant little to Cubs fans and everything to Sox fans, because lord knows in the past I’ve come across more than enough Sox fans who had a “DEY COULD WIN TWO GAMES ALL YEAR BUT IF DERE AGAINST DA PACKERS I’M HAPPY” attitude about these. But it seems in the past couple Sox fans also regard these crosstown games as a ginned-up gimmick. That about right?

AJ: I would agree.  The fact that CSN (now NBCSN) has tried to turn this thing into an NCAA Football kind of rivalry with some Monopoly token kind of trophy has had the opposite effect and actually highlighted how goofy the concept is.  That, and the fact that in our heart of hearts most Sox fans that follow the team closely know the best we could hope for these past few years was a series split.  I’m wondering if now that the team is trending upward we might see a resurgence of that type of behavior.  I know personally that as much as I’d like the Sox to smoke the Cubs it’s far more important to not get clobbered by Minnesota so if they lose 3 of 4 I’m not gonna be too pissed about it.  

Hess: I am right there with you both, but I still think it is fun and kind of important that they play each other. Is it a true rivalry? No. The most heated moment in the history was the Barret-Pierzynski fight, and even any Sox who thinks they wouldn’t punch AJ when aggravated and they had the chance is a liar. But there is something fun about having them play one another, especially with the teams in the current states, as the Cubs represent everything the Sox are hoping for out of the rebuild. And the NBCSN commercials for it are nauseating.

Flipping to you, Sam – The Sox are set to see Jon Lester on Wednesday, who seems to be having more hills and valleys with his play this year than the Rocky Mountains the Cubs left behind last week. What’s been his deal?
Fels: Well, he’s old. Lester’s stuff has definitely declined a bit, which makes his margin for error somewhere in Hendricks range. Lester hasn’t been able to blow anyone away in a while, which is fine, because he could just beat the corners into submission. But now as his stuff plays even lower, he really has to hit the corners and nothing else and when he misses it’s ya-ha time. He’s been trying a new approach and trying to get inside more than just merely staying not the outside corner, but again, he can’t miss. Some days he doesn’t. Some days he does and he gets shelled. There seems to be no in between. He also hasn’t quite figured out how to make his change as effective as it should be.

Looks like this week could be the debut of another Sox toy, in Zack Collins. Is this just a Wellington injury fill-in? Is he here for good? How worried are you about the swing and miss in his game?
AJ: At this point with the hilariously bad production out of the DH spot (.191/.294/.357!?!) I’m excited to see what he can bring to the table.  I’ve set my expectations fairly low, so if he can make me forget Yonder Alonso is a thing that is here then I’ll be thrilled.  The swing and miss portion of his game seems to fit right in with most of the hitters in MLB now anyways, what with the Three True Outcomes and all, so that part doesn’t concern me as much.  What does concern me is his ability to actually stick at catcher.  If he’s unable to play there at least half time then we are looking at a career DH, as the dearth of 1B prospects the Sox have are probably gonna boot him from there.  My guess is that he’s here until Castillo is healthy, as the Sox want to try and feature The Beef as much as possible to trade him in 2 weeks.
Hess: The funny thing about the swing-and-miss in Collins’ game is that in all reality, he doesn’t swing much. He’s one of the most patient hitters I have ever seen, and only really swings if he either really has to or really gets a pitch he likes. That has resulted in hilarious strikeout and walk rates in the minors so far, as he’s basically walked or struck out in half of his MiLB PA’s. But a 15%+ walk rate is nothing to scoff at, even if it comes with a ~30% K-rate. I echo AJ’s catching concerns, but I saw him do it in person and was actually encouraged, and I also saw him play a competent 1B in person. If he can be a C/1B/DH combo with a high OBP and big power, you will never hear me complain. In terms of who he might be replacing, I would think Collins is here the rest of the year, and either Castillo or Alonso get DFA’d on August 1 if the Sox can’t get anything for them.

Speaking of new faces, the Cubs are still waiting patiently for Craig Kimbrel to arrive in full. Is he going to solve their bullpen issues well enough, or are they still gonna need to look elsewhere? And relatedly, do you think they’d be wanting enough for back-end help to pay up for Alex Colome from the Sox?
Fels: Kimbrel definitely won’t solve everything, but he’s an improvement over what they have. It pushes Strop to be the fireman of sorts, or would if Maddon were in any way creative with his bullpen usage. They’ll still be on arm short, maybe two, because Maddon may have broken Cishek last year. Right now, Kintzler and Strop are the only ones they can consistently count on. Edwards was good upon his recall, but his hurt again and you can never quite trust him. There’s a chance Alzolay ends up being another arm late in the year, but even that will leave them one short I think. And while I’d love to tell you it’ll be my guy Dillon Maples…

Colome is a name they will definitely be connected to but I think their preference is going to be someone who throws left-handed. Will Smith maybe. And I don’t think they’re going to be too interested in forking over the boat for any other reliever.
The Sox are floating around .500 without surpassing it, but that won’t change their plans much. Still, other than Colome is there anyone they can get meaningful things for at the deadline now?
AJ: The only other players who might be worth anything at the deadline would be James McCann or Jose Abreu and at this point the offer would have to be fairly impressive for the Sox to budge on either.  Though Tim Anderson has come a long way I think Abreu is still the face of the franchise, and having him here to mentor the other Cuban kids matters more than most may think.  

As for McCann, even though his BABIP is insanely unsustainable his defense and his work with Giolito combined with his super affordable price make him pretty unmovable unless a team came along with a deal Hahn couldn’t refuse.
Sam, what’s up with Javy right now?  Is this just the inevitable result of his free swinging ways catching up to him?  Or is this something more to do with the foot injury he was nursing for a few weeks?  Maybe a combination of both?
Fels: You always worry about injuries lingering, and if it were they definitely wouldn’t tell you. But mostly I think this is just how Javy is, that there’s going to be a couple weeks or month, maybe even six weeks, where he makes you tear your hair out (if I had any) and then the rest of the time he’s the best show on Earth. He’s definitely gotten a little pull-happy and whereas in May and April he was actually taking a noticeable number of walks he hasn’t walked at all in June. Maybe the heel injury has slowed his swing a touch, we’ll never know. Once he starts going back to right field again, he’ll probably put up stupid numbers again. Javy doesn’t make a lot of sense, but I learned long ago to stop questioning it.

All right, feels like we’re ready to go for these two stupid games. Let’s get through it.
Baseball

Series Wrap – Cubs Lose Three Of Four To Dodgers: You Can’t Miss The Bear

By Sam Fels 1269 0

Game 1 Box Score: Dodgers 7, Cubs 3

Game 2 Box Score: Dodgers 5, Cubs 3

Game 3 Box Score: Cubs 2, Dodgers 1

Game 4 Box Score: Dodgers 3, Cubs 2

There was a chance to get out of this road trip in better health. With a record that didn’t make you wince. There were essentially three coinflips on this swing, the first game in Colorado and the last two in Los Angeles. The Cubs only got one of them, and they really have the pen to thank. Jim Deshaies was pointing out last night, before the Cubs got their first win of the season when trailing after six, that the reason that record is the way it was, and is, is that their pen can’t keep deficits down. We kvetch about the blown leads, but that’s almost as important. You saw the proof of that Saturday, though it helped that the pen was only asked to provide three outs before turning over a lead to Strop. Kimbrel will obviously help with this, but it won’t be a cure-all.

Steve Cishek is a good reliever, and it’s not like he’s getting continually shelled all season. But he does leak runs here and there, and that’s not good enough. Especially when you’re playing teams like the Dodgers where the margins are so thin. Cishek exits the game with a 3.38 ERA, which is not an embarrassment. But successful pens are trotting out relievers with ERAs under 3 or even around 1.00. The Cubs don’t have that. This wasn’t a trip of the pen having the world crash around them. Cishek twice, Montgomery once let runs just leak in. Get those two wins and suddenly it’s a 4-3 trip and that would be a success. On such margins are things decided.

Losing three of four to that team that’s 23-4 in its last 27 homes games doesn’t make this team a failure or anything resembling. And who knows what each could look like come October. But it does plant a seed of doubt about how the Cubs would find a way around that monster. Even a pen augmented by Kimbrel and one or two more arms is not automatic to get through that lineup. And remember, they didn’t have Seager either. And the Cubs can’t think about October when they’re still a game back and merely seven games over. There’s a lot more woods here.

The Cubs have built a really good team, and one that very well might get better. It just might have been timed to keep running up against a team that’s just better in just about every area.

Anyway, let’s run it through.

The Two Obs

-If Albert Almora didn’t run like old people fuck, the Cubs tie that game or maybe even win it. I’ll never be not amazed at how he can be such a good center fielder, which he is, and be that slow. Oh well, he is what he is so this is shouting at the rain.

–Cubs Insider ran a pretty interesting piece on why Jon Lester can’t seem to get his change-up to be that effective. It was definitely a problem on Thursday night, and you can’t get through this lineup with two pitches.

-You’re never going to feel comfortable about a pitcher going on the IL with shoulder inflammation, as exciting as getting a look at Adbert Alzolay will be. If that’s the route the Cubs go, that is. It feels like if the Cubs are truly careful with Hendricks, he’s going to miss three or four starts. This is not something you want to fuck with.

-Still, Anthony Rizzo kept this from becoming a complete disaster, and who knows how big that homer could be down the road.

-The only Dodgers starter the Cubs got out before the 7th inning was Clayton Kershaw, which is something.

-Baez is definitely slumping. His line-drive rate is down to 11% in June and his hard-hit rate dropped 13 points from May. And he hasn’t walked once. He’s never going to walk much but he at least did it enough in the season’s first two months to let pitchers know he was capable. He’ll have to get back to that, and he will.

-Hopefully this is a springboard for Darvish, and it should be. An awakening will soften the blow of Quintana struggling to find it right now and any Hendricks injury layoff. One walk in his last two starts is highly encouraging.

-You’ll never convince me Dave Roberts has any idea what he’s doing, and the 6th inning was an excellent example of that. Getting one more inning from Ryu was hardly worth leaving him in to bat with one out when you can take the lead. And then you know that the Cubs are going to bring in a lefty to face Pederson, which is hardly better than Hernandez facing Kintzler right now. Should have taken more advantage.

Onwards…

Baseball

Is It In My Head?

By Sam Fels 1455 0

You couldn’t have scripted a better baseball game than last night’s Cubs-Dodgers one to come on the same day as Ken Rosenthal wrote this on The Athletic. 10 runs scored, all on home runs. That goes along with the 17 strikeouts combined by each team, which these days isn’t even that high of a number. A lot of days one team reaches that on its own, but it’s not too hard to remember a day when that didn’t happen.

Many pundits and professional viewers have been complaining about the lack of action in baseball for a couple years now. And the numbers prove that it’s become a Three True Outcome game (homer, walk, strikeout). There are definitely less balls in play. And now we just have homers to make anything happen. We have more of them than we know what to do with. Or do we?

Certainly, over the past two seasons especially I’ve noticed how the game has changed. But would I notice as much if there weren’t writers like Rosenthal or Joe Sheehan (both of whom I really like, I have to point out) and many others (which I don’t) pointing it out seemingly daily? I might, but then I might not. But when you have someone screaming every day that “Nothing is happening in these games!!” surely you look more for the action that isn’t happening.

If I were in a vacuum, at least a media one, would the lack of balls in play really bother me? After all, I enjoy watching pitchers with overpowering stuff. It’s fun to watch someone blow 97 MPH by hitters or send them spiraling into the ground like that thing the Ninja Turtles used to get to the Earth’s core to bother Shredder and Krang with a deflector-shield curve/slider. And every baseball fan enjoys watching one of those get sent to the goddamn moon. They say that too much of a good thing is bad, but I’ve never been convinced. Sure, I love a bases loaded double or triple too, but were those all that common 10 years ago? Their uniqueness is what makes them special, at least in part. I’m not sure I get that bored of homers, and I don’t think I’m alone.

So do the baseballs being golf balls ruin my enjoyment? A touch, but rarely. Bellinger’s first homer last night felt a bit cheap, because even he didn’t think he hit it very well. And then it sails over the wall the opposite way in Dodger Stadium at night, which is supposed to be really hard to do. I’m biased, because I’m a Cubs fan who loathes the Dodgers and is starting to feel the same way about Bellinger individually, but that was one that had me looking side-eyed at. But I don’t find myself doing that too often. The explosion of homers doesn’t feel like Wrigley with the wind blowing out, where harmless flies are carried out as hitters slam their bats down and then sheepishly jog around the bases. You can’t base anything on feel, but it feels like it’s just well hit balls that probably would have gone out anyway going even farther out.

The only thing about the juiced-ball that I find strange is MLB throwing its hands up and claiming to not know anything about it or not having anything to do with it. They’re either lying or stupid, possibly both. How could you not be in total control of like, the entire center of the game? And if weren’t then why aren’t you now? Hell, the NFL went to war with one of its own franchises over the condition of its ball, and that’s a sport where they let teams control their owns spheres/spheroids.

Do fans care about there being too many homers? I wonder. Sure, attendance and viewership is down, and maybe that’s the only argument you need. But that could just as easily be about so many teams not even trying, and one of your truly good teams playing in Tampa. What would Baltimore’s attendance be if they had the Rays team? I’m not sure there’s a large swath of fans who have been turned off because there’s a lot of homers. Football has a lot of touchdowns, doesn’t seem to bother them much.

I guess my other complaint about a juiced ball is it doesn’t fit in with the natural evolution of the game. We know hitters are trying to lift the ball more, pitchers throw harder, shifting defenses, all that. So if more homers were only due to that, you would just say that’s how the game has grown and eventually will shift again when more pitchers are at the top of the zone and more hitters have to work with the open spaces they have. The game using a Titlelist as a ball causes all of that to be slowed or stopped completely, because more guys can just hit it over shifts and walls, deservedly or not. Homers would be on the rise without the Slazengers because of a change of style, but they wouldn’t be like this and it wouldn’t feel as artificial.

It’s funny, because writers like Rosenthal bemoan how attendance is down and baseball is falling behind, and then spend just as much space telling you why the game sucks. And I’ll agree with them that it is fun to watch players like Baez run the bases or Kiermaier or even Bellinger make plays in the field. And they’re getting less chance to do so. But you wonder how many defensive plays that bring people out of their seats are being sacrificed for homers that also bring people out of their seats. After all, more balls in play will result in routine fly balls far more than the diving catch in the gap or the nailing of a runner at second. I would take some convincing that this is what the routine fan is crying out for.

Something tells me a normal baseball would still see a lot of home runs being hit. After all, these are better athletes than they’ve ever been with faster bat-speed turning around pitches that are being hurled at greater speeds than ever before. It’s probably easier to get a 95-MPH fastball to go far than an 88-MPH one.

I notice games like last night’s now, and I definitely remark how different it is than what I grew up with. I don’t know that has to be a bad thing, and I don’t know how much I’d notice if everyone wasn’t yelling for me to notice. I guess I’m undecided, and I would guess most fans are too, despite what those with the pens and microphones keep telling us to think.

 

Baseball

Series Preview – Cubs vs. Dodgers: You Wanted The Best…

By Sam Fels 1248 0

vs.

RECORDS: Cubs 38-29   Dodgers 45-23

GAMETIMES: Thursday and Friday 9:10, Saturday 8:10, Sunday 6:05

TV: NBCSN Thursday, WGN Friday, ABC Saturday, ESPN Sunday

WE KNOW YOU LOVE LA, THERE’S NOTHING LEFT TO SAY: True Blue LA

PITCHING MATCHUPS

Jon Lester vs. Clayton Kershaw

Kyle Hendricks vs. Rich Hill

Yu Darvish vs. Walker Buehler

Jose Quintana vs. Hyun-Jin Ryu

PROBABLE CUBS LINEUP

Kyle Schwarber – LF

Kris Bryant – RF

Anthony Rizzo – 1B

Javier Baez – SS

Willson Contreras – C

Albert Almora Jr. – CF

Addison Russell – 2B

David Bote – 3B (batting 9th)

PROBABLE DODGERS LINEUP

Enrique Hernandez – LF

Justin Turner – 3B

David Freese – 1B

Cody Bellinger – RF

Chris Taylor – SS

Max Muncy – 2B

Alex Verdugo – CF

Austin Barnes – C

 

The only thing that could make a frustrating series in Colorado with it’s Peewee’s Playhouse rules is backing that up by having to deal with the National League’s best team for four nights. Which makes it pretty damn tough to get out of this road trip over .500, as that would mean taking three of four in a place where the home team is 25-7. Good times all around.

So where to start with the Dodgers? Maybe Cody Bellinger doing a damn fine Mike Trout impression for two and a half months?That’s what he’s been doing, cutting down his strikeouts while losing none of his power and becoming a plus right fielder even though he’s a first baseman (still convinced he has rohypnol in his house though). There’s Joc Pederesen cutting down his strikeouts and still providing the power he always did. There’s latest lab project Max Muncy providing offensive force from a variety of positions. Or maybe Justin Turner and his dependable dominance. Perhaps we should stop.

If there’s a silver lining, it’s twofold: One, the Cubs are catching them right after Cory Seager had his latest twang and he’s out for a month at least. Second, the Dodgers effectiveness against lefties is still not nearly as strong as the other side, and the Cubs will be tossing two of them. That brings Enrique Hernandez into the lineup and Chris Taylor, and both have been not good. But it’s not much, as both Muncy and Bellinger still hit lefties really well, Turner is still around…and well that’s enough.

Going to the rotation won’t provide any solace, as the Dodgers have five starters with sub-4.00 ERAs. And Kershaw has maybe been their third or fourth best starter as he ages. It’s a wonder how anyone hits Buehler at all given his stuff, and Rich Hill is still here TO SHOW YOU HOW MUCH IT MEANS TO HIM GODDAMMIT HE CARES SO MUCH CAN’T YOU SEE HOW MUCH HE FUCKING CARES GOD HE CARES SO MUCH. Ryu has been the best starter in the NL. So even if they don’t bash your skull in with the bats, they’ll probably smother you with the pitching.

If there’s been anything resembling a bugaboo, it’s the pen. So they’ll be competing with the Cubs for an arm or two in the trade market, using pieces from their system that’s become a goddamn assembly line. Kenley Jensen hasn’t been as automatic, though still very hard to break through on, and the bridge to him has been rickety. Joe Kelly got a contract to solve that even though he’s always sucked. Pedro Baez has been his usual highly effective while making everyone understand Nietzche while doing so. Ross Stripling has been a touch unlucky, while Yimi Garcia has been straight up bad. But generally, they only have to get 3-6 outs per night which just about anyone can manage, even Dave Roberts.

So yeah, four with all that. The Cubs got two of three from the Dodgers in April, before they ascended to whatever plane they’re on now. There are no such things as markers or measuring sticks in a season this long, but there’s more than a small chance the Cubs and Dodgers will renew their blood feud in the NLCS come October. It would be refreshing for us, not the players, if they looked like they belonged on the same field this weekend. It’s always fascinating to see Kyle Hendricks go against a lineup this high-powered, and it’ll be another test for Darvish.

No one said this will be fun.