Baseball

Series Recap – Cubs Take Two Of Three From Pirates: At Least It’s Over

By Sam Fels 1266 0

Game 1 Box Score: Pirates 3, Cubs 2

Game 2 Box Score: Cubs 2, Pirates 0

Game 3 Box Score: Cubs 7, Pirates 1

It was inches away from being a sweep, and coming home with a 5-5 road trip, which would not have been acceptable given the circumstance but wouldn’t have felt like some punitive prison punishment that this has turned into. And yet, despite all their cock-ups and idiocy, the Cubs end this roadie in first place, though having to share it. And they’ll return home for six games, where they’re 12-3 since the break. And while they do that, the Brewers and Cardinals will be throwing their fake teeth and harvested manure at each other, so if the Cubs continue to play at home as they have they’ll be gaining games on someone. Thanks to the balloon-handedness of the division, and despite their own nincompoop ways, they still have it all in their own hands.

Right then, let’s…

-I guess we’ll start with Friday night’s what-have-ya. First off, you should never be muzzled by Joe Musgrove like that unless you’re intentionally trying to do so. The Cubs didn’t much look interested Friday night, which is a luxury they’ve lost with all the other games they’ve spent trying to light their own farts.

But hey, Maddon even got away with letting Tony Kemp bat, against a lefty no less, and you get the lead. There was sone consternation about bringing Brandon Kinztler straight from the DL into this bonfire, but what choice was there? Cishek and Kimbrel are hurt. Strop is broken, and along with Wick was part of the monk-immolation in Philly the night before. Really, the only mistake was Kintzler not throwing the ball down the middle to some rookie hitting .196 and seeing just exactly how far he could hit it.

-There was also daggers being tossed at David Bote, and the whole rigamarole about using Bryant as a defensive replacement is a touch weird. Bote is just unlucky to get another ball like that, and one if he even fields cleanly he might not have a play on. This is just sequencing again. Whatever the faults of Bote, defensively he’s been just fine, and more so at third. Proclaiming him a plague on society is overly strong.

-The Cubs didn’t look all that more interested against Steven Brault either yesterday afternoon, but  the Pirates can’t even take two games in a row that they’re being handed. Lester made some huge pitches and dodged and weaved out of trouble, and while he’s not what he was and probably won’t be again, he still can pull these efforts out when the Cubs need them most.

-Use Chatwood for multiple innings more often. Thank you for your time.

-Kris Bryant to the rescue again on Saturday, but it still feels like he’s having a weird season. Given the baseball and what others are doing, shouldn’t he be heading for a career-high in homers too? Or anywhere near it? Or are the 39 in his MVP year the aberration? His slugging is the second-highest of his career, so you can’t complain, it just seems like it would have been more.

-Since July 1, Jose Quintana has been the seventh best pitcher in the NL in terms of fWAR and FIP. But keep stabbing yourself in the heart about Eloy Jimenez and his .293 OBP.

-I would like to think getting to do something as goofy as play in Williamsport for a night and hang out with the kids will remind this team what it’s like to have fun again, but I became way too cynical about these sorts of things way too long ago to truly mean it.

Onwards…

Baseball

Series Preview – Cubs vs. Pirates: Because They Say You Have To

By Sam Fels 1070 0

vs.

RECORDS: Cubs 64-57   Pirates 50-70

GAMETIMES: Friday 6:05, Saturday 12:35, Sunday (In Williamsport) 6:10

TV: WGN Friday, ABC 7 Saturday, ESPN Sunday (oh boy)

THE ALREADY DEAD: Bucs Dugout

I can’t decide if it’s better that the Cubs get right back at it tonight at whatever the fuck that was in Philly or if they should have to stew on it for a day, like a child sent to his room. The fear is that whatever hangover/malaise/soul-death is emanating from those three games carries over and the Cubs continue to play like the undead. Which still might be enough against this outfit, as the Pirates have called it a season but keep showing up because it’s mandated. Fuck, both of these teams feel like they’re here this weekend merely because they have to be.

This series takes place in two locations, as Sunday night they’ll decamp for Williamsport to add to The Little League World Series, which in no way has gotten creepy and weird tanks to television and sponsor money. It also could be considered child abuse to make kids watch the Pirates right now.

Because this team is a bloated carcass being poked with a stick some kids found. They’ve gone 11-27 over the past six weeks, put up a 4-18 stretch after the break and clearly just want things to be over. They’re fighting with each other and their coaches. When they’re not doing that they’re fighting with other teams. Or they’re throwing at people, leading to the aforementioned bullshit. In the middle, they suck at actual baseball. Or at least they suck at pitching it.

The offense has been somewhat ok over the last month. Bryan Reynolds and Starling Marte have hit over .330 in that span. Josh Bell has cooled off but can still pop here and there. The rest of the infield is a major issue, as Colin Moran, Kevin Newman, and Adam Frazier are basically taking cardboard up to bat right now. Get through the outfielders and Bell, and this team can’t really hurt you.

The pitching staff is where the fun starts. With Jameson Taillon now down for good and for next year as well, there’s just no frontline starter here. They are “guys” at best, with Chris Archer decomposing in front of everyone’s eyes. The Cubs will see Musgrove, Brault, and Keller, the latter of which has some eye-popping numbers at AAA but is far from the finished product. Brault is just back from the IL and has been getting turned into pudding since. There are no monsters here.

It’s even better in the pen, where everyone hates Felipe Vasquez because he’s actually good and the rest are Kingston coal bags. Michael Feliz has been all right over the past month, but the rest of the crew have hitters sprinting to the plate. And apparently Kyle Crick and Keone Kela are raging assholes that have the rest of the team unable to wait to get to their offseason homes. A very healthy outfit here.

Which should make it the perfect tonic for the Cubs, who haven’t won a road series since there was snow on the ground. If they can’t get it together, no matter the morale, against this collection of fuckwits and dipshits for at least two wins, you can give up hope. The Pirates are begging for it to be over and would just like you to help them along to the back of the barn where they can be put out of their misery.

The Cubs should get Brandon Kintzler back this weekend, and Craig Kimbrel shouldn’t be far behind. It won’t feel good, but take all three from this roadkill and it’s a .500 road trip and you can at least argue it’s a starting point. Otherwise, what the fuck are we even doing here?

Baseball

Pirates Spotlight: Dysfunction At Every Junction

By Sam Fels 1298 0

Everyone knew that when the Pirates were flirting with the top of the division at the beginning portion of the season it was something of an illusion. Even with a healthy Jameson Taillon, and health elsewhere, this was based on Josh Bell’s freak-onomics at the plate and some other blind, dumb, idiot luck. What no one could have expected is that the market correction would be so harsh, so violent, and so complete.

The Pirates have gone 11-27 since July 1. They’ve lost 18 of 22 at one point. They have losing streaks of eight and nine games just in the past three weeks. They have the second-worst record in the National League, with only the we-don’t-even-try Marlins propping them up.

And what’s it’s done is expose rifts, stupidity, and simply indifference at the playing, managerial, front office, and ownership levels. This is a fine mess, and maybe something a real commissioner might feel tempted to do something about. But we’ll get back to that in a minute.

Just today, The Athletic in Pittsburgh broke a story about how the Bucs have had to suspend two pitchers and one coach for insubordination. This follows their actual brawl with the Reds, caused by the Pirates either encouragement of pitchers throwing at hitters’s heads or their inability to get them to stop, or an unwillingness or lack of motivation to even try. Pitchers and players have openly balked at the Pirates still cutter-heavy teachings and shift-heavy ways, even though they’re one of the worst ground-ball producing pitching staffs in the majors.

Secondly, you can’t lose that many games in that big of a bunch without some players quitting. And yet there’s been little mention of Clint Hurdle being fired, even though he’s got open insubordination and a team that doesn’t seem to care. This runs through the Pirates organization as a whole, as when owner Bob Nutting is reminded he actually owns a baseball team he’s shown loyalty over anything else, though that could just be indifference or laziness to not even wanting to bother.

The Pirates have been unlucky with injuries, as Taillon is headed for a second Tommy John surgery, and the pen can’t seem to keep anyone upright for very long either. But that doesn’t explain it all.

The dysfunction flows upward. Neal Huntington, the GM, doesn’t seem to have worry about his job status much either, and in the interest of fairness he does have his hands tied by strict payroll limits from his owner. Still, this was a team that tried to force Gerrit Cole into their very limited view of how pitchers should work, and then sold low on him to Houston and watched him become perhaps the most dominant starter in the American League. And all that was a result of the Astros just letting him be what he wants. Michael Feliz, Colin Moran, and Joe Musgrove either are or could be nice pieces, but none are defining a team.

But Huntington has always struggled to know what he has. Only Bell has come through the system to be a star under his watch, and that was only this year. Gregory Polanco has flattered to deceive, Taillon is hurt, and he gave up on Tyler Glasnow and Austin Meadows way early to bring in the husk of Chris Archer. Sure, Glasnow has the same injury problems as Taillon, but Meadows has been a borderline star, and in the outfield where the Pirates are currently sporting Melky Cabrera. And if you’re sporting Melky Cabrera in 2019, you suck. This list could go on.

But the rot starts at the head, and that’s Nutting. There’s no better example of a MLB owner just pocketing his BAMTECH and revenue sharing money and leaving the team he owns to flounder and turn weird colors, but still produce a profit. The Pirates drew over two million fans for five years running, covering both ends of their three wildcard berths stretch. But do you remember the Bucs ever adding to those teams in an ambitious way with a free agent pitcher or hitter they desperately needed to stick with the Cubs and now Brewers? Hey, the Brewers have swung trades for Christian Yelich and signed Lorenzo Cain and Yasmani Grandal, and they’re the same sized market as Pittsburgh or thereabouts (at least in baseball terms, Milwaukee has nearly twice the population).

Nutting rarely talks to the press, and is heavily guarded when he does. So we have no idea what he thinks. Yet being in Pittsburgh doesn’t seem to hold the Penguins or Steelers back much, even if they exist in leagues with salary caps.

The Pirates have been caught and passed on the field with their once-forward-looking methods, and don’t do much about it. Their front office seems helpless to add anything with the budget they have or to rightly evaluate what’s around. Their owner doesn’t seem to care. It’s rotten in The Iron City.

 

Baseball

Series Wrap – Cubs Sweep Pirates: I’ll Have More Of That, Please

By Sam Fels 1487 0

Game 1 Box Score: Cubs 4, Pirates 3

Game 2 Box Score: Cubs 10, Pirates 4

Game 3 Box Score: Cubs 8, Pirates 3

That’s about as perfect of a start out of the All-Star Break as you could have asked for, aside from one Pedro Strop two-seamer that still hasn’t landed. And even that didn’t end up mattering. Three quality starts. A lot of offense, from a lot of places. Kris Bryant binge. Other than Strop, clean enough work from the pen. No dumbass mistakes. And suddenly, just like that the Cubs have some breathing space atop the NL Central. Nice how that works, eh? Let’s run it through.

The Two Obs

-Let’s start with the only bad aspect, and that’s Strop. At least he didn’t give up a wall-scraper. Strop’s velocity on his four-seam is down this year, significantly. FanGraphs has it nearly two MPH, BrooksBaseball has it at about one MPH and a half slower. Which has led to Strop trying to use a cutter or two-seam, and a splitter more. You see the results. Everything but the slider is getting tagged right now, and the way the two-seamer to Marte leaked up and in just like it did to Eloy is concerning. Strop can’t throw all slider, though maybe he should think about just doing it mostly. In ’15 and ’16 he threw it nearly half the time. What do we have to lose here?

In a perfect world, Carl Edwards would just come back from his rehab, you’d stick him in that slot and let Strop work things out in lower leverage spots for a while. But this is Carl Edwards we’re talking about here. He’s always looking for an excuse to fold in on himself like a flan in a cupboard. Still need answers out there.

-To their credit, you would have been forgiven if you thought Strop’s chum to Marte would signal another one that would get away. Instead, the Cubs locked down for once, just got another run immediately and closed it out. And they did it with timely baserunning and hitting, with Bryant knowing exactly where the outfielders were and getting a great jump on Heyward’s single. That’s a team a little more locked in, though Bryant was never really at the center of those problems.

-Look, Yu Darvish’s splitter was back, thrown about 10 times on Friday and got whiffs on 75 percent of them. He used his slider more, though I think his slider and cutter are probably the same pitch and it’s just how he accentuates it. The 36 sliders he threw were the most since that start against the Marlins where he couldn’t find the 5th. Hopefully he’s unlocked something here.

-Contreras’s homer in Saturday’s 1st inning is almost certainly the result of the ball. He didn’t get full extension on it, seemed to even get under it a touch, and sliced it into the third row. But hey, who’s complaining?

-Jason Heyward with six hits, two game-winners on the weekend, and an .833 OPS. Thanks much.

-I don’t know if Robel Garcia is any good. I know it’s worth finding out. And I’m not sure Nick Castellanos is that much of an answer, though he should at least be cheap.

-Just enough change-ups from Quintana today to keep the Pirates off balance. He got a bit Fiendish Kung Fu Treachery’d in the third, but settled down the rest of it. Again, quality starts is all this team really should require.

-It worked out, but I’m still furious about Joe actually thinking a Rosario-Bell matchup on Friday was a good idea, because the fury helps to plug the hole within me.

-Given what Caratini has provided and there’s been no need to burn Contreras, I would expect Willy to have a huge August and September.

Onwards…

Baseball

Series Preview – Pirates vs. Cubs: No Time For Silliness, Dr. Jones

By Sam Fels 1164 0

vs.

RECORDS: Pirates 44-45   Cubs 47-43

GAMETIMES: Friday-Sunday 1:20

TV: NBCSN Friday, WGN Saturday, ABC 7 Sunday

CANDELARIA’S CADRE: Bucs Dugout

PITCHING MATCHUPS

Chris Archer vs. Yu Darvish

Jordan Lyles vs. Jon Lester

Trevor Williams vs. Jose Quintana

PROBABLE PIRATES LINEUP

Adam Frazier – 2B

Bryan Reynolds – LF

Starling Marte – CF

Josh Bell – 1B

Melky Cabrera – RF

Colin Moran – 3B

Kevin Newman – SS

Jacob Stallings – C

PROBABLE CUBS LINEUP

Kyle Schwarber – LF

Javier Baez – SS

Kris Bryant – 3B

Anthony Rizzo – 1B

Victor Caratini – C

Jason Heyward – RF

Robel Garcia – 2B

Albert Almora Jr. – CF

 

The Cubs begin the post-break schedule, hoping the rest and now shorter half of the slate will rouse them from their season-long slumber/malaise/absence of give-a-fuck. Perhaps the sight of the team their manager is trying to drum up a rivalry with out of nothing will act as the greenie they need.

And that will be the main story for the weekend, whether the Pirates and Cubs get into more mishegas about pitches inside and whether or not they are throwing at each other. Maddon was clearly trying to get some jump from his team with his theatrics over the July 4th holiday, but his team certainly needed it. There’s no question that Clin Turtle is something of a red-ass, and the Pirates do seem to find themselves in the middle of these more often than other teams. They’ve already been in it with the Cubs and Reds this year, and other teams had something to say.

You’d like to think the Cubs have bigger fish to fry. They’ve dicked around all season and yet find themselves in first, but they can’t expect the Brewers and even Cardinals to keep their head inserted in their rectum for the rest of the year either. It would seem over the top to try and get your manager fired by missing out on the playoffs by open lengths, and if the Cubs were going to make that move anyway they would have done it this week. So Maddon and his team are stuck together, if indeed that’s what it is, so they might as well get on with it.

To the more important stuff. There was a moment there when Yu Darvish looked like he might be turning a corner, probably around when he struck out 10 Dodgers. But he hasn’t put in a quality start in the three since then, though he hasn’t gotten shelled in that badly in any of them either. The Cubs need him to start putting up quality starts again. From there it’ll be Lester and Quintana, and you know the story with them.

But really, it’ll be about whether or not the Cubs get hits when they need them, and can they find any reliever who can keep them in the game when they’re behind. A couple more hits and they at least split with the Pirates last week and take both of the games from the Sox. When they can line up Kintzler-Strop-Kimbrel you feel pretty good. But when trailing by a run and they have to roll out whatever’s left of Cishek and doofus-du-jour, they have problems. And they’ll have to solve them.

Thanks to a more than functional staff and Josh Bell, the Pirates are still in this (along with the Cubs and Brewers’ incompetence). With Reynolds and Newman joining the lineup, they’ve become uber-annoying for pitchers to navigate. But it’s enough of that, the Cubs just have to start beating whoever is front of them now, no excuses. Even if that starts with they highly tedious Pirates and Reds on this homestand.

Leave the bean-ball nonsense behind. The real work is at hand. Onwards…

Baseball

Pirates Spotlight: Josh Bell Got The Ill Communication

By Sam Fels 1289 0

As Josh Bell turns the National League into ash and dust, it’s important to remember that he was always projected for this. Of all the prospects the Bucs have debuted over the years–Marte, Polanco, Meadows, one or two others–Bell was the one with the most hype when he arrived. He never really showed this kind of power, but this kind of average was the thought.

A year before his call-up, Bell tore AAA apart in 35 games at just 22-years-old. He hit .347 and slugged .501 in that brief stint, and then backed that up when he started the ’16 season in AAA with .295/.382/.468 in 114 games. That earned him a call-up for the end of the season in Pittsburgh, as they tried to salvage whatever they could from the wreckage that Jake Arrieta and Kyle Schwarber had wrought the previous October.

Bell’s first full season in the majors wasn’t bad. He popped 26 homers, while maintaining plus-walk and strikeout rates. But other than walking a bunch and those homers, he didn’t do much else, hitting only .255 which kept his on-base down. And that was basically the story last season, though Bell only managed 12 homers.

Clearly, things have changed this year. And it probably has to do with Bell’s new “GRIP IT AND RIP IT” attitude at the plate.

Bell is swinging at 5% more pitches outside the zone, a whopping 13% more pitches inside the zone, and overall has increased his swing-rate 7% more to nearly 50%. It’s led to more swinging strikes than at any point in his four seasons at The Confluence, but no one seems to care as long as it comes with the very loud noises he produces. You can accept strikeouts when you’re providing souvenirs a good portion of the time.

To go along with that, Bell is pulling the ball more than ever. Last year he only pulled about a third of his contact. This year’s it’s 43%, more than his rookie year when he had those 26 homers, and now he’s got 27 with 73 games to go. That’s also seen his hard-contact rate at nearly 50%, and that’s from either side of the plate.

The selling out to yank anything into the river at PNC has made a difference in where pitchers can go. You used to be able to go inside and high in the zone to Bell. No more:

You would think being this swing-happy and pull-happy (so happy!) would leave Bell vulnerable to breaking pitches. But the big improvement in his game is his work on curves and sliders. For his career he hits .233 and .216 on them respectively. This year it’s .400 and .308. It used to be that you could get Bell on breaking pitches in the zone, but that’s not the case anymore. He’s not missing them, and you see the destruction he has wrought so far.

Physically, Bell has calmed down some ticks and triggers in his swing, which he always seems to be changing his first couple dances in the majors. Ben Clemens in May at Fangraphs had a pretty good breakdown of it, but the nutshell is that Bell is keeping his feet straight instead of an open stance and just being calm before the pitch.

All of it has made Bell one of the more feared sluggers in the NL, and he certainly looks the part looming over the plate with his 6-4 frame. So basically Bell can look forward to being the next Pirates star to be shipped out for peanuts before Bob Nutting has to actually spend any money. Good times.

Baseball

Series Wrap – Cubs Lose Three Of Four To Pirates: One Man’s Fighting, We’re Just Not Sure Whom

By Sam Fels 1179 0

Game 1 Box Score: Pirates 18, Cubs 5

Game 2 Box Score: Pirates 5, Cubs 1

Game 3 Box Score: Pirates 6, Cubs 5

Game 4 Box Score: Cubs 11, Pirates 3

It always seems to be in Pittsburgh around the All-Star break. It was in ’16 where the Cubs took a month off basically and got swept there and sent everyone into a highly comedic and highly unnecessary panic. It was there last year where the Cubs managed a solo home run in four straight games to prove their offense had issues. And hopefully, the first three games of this series will be remembered as something of a nadir where the Cubs faced the abyss and decided to finally step in the other direction. Maybe they can even do that without some major roster shakeup. But it feels like they might have crossed that threshold already.

Let’s do it:

The Two Obs

-Most of what can be concluded from this series can be found here. But there’s two points to go over, so here’s the first. Maddon’s blowup yesterday at the Pirates dugout seemed more performative than these usually do, but you can understand it. Maddon has watched this team go to the zoo on him for most of this season, especially of late. They may be quitting on him, but he has to show he hasn’t quit on them, like Pinella-style. So he’s going to show he’s still backing them. Hopefully they take the cue, because as I said in that piece, this doesn’t feel like it’s on Maddon again. And if it is, then Theo probably should go ahead and pull the trigger now. We’ll see how they respond over the weekend.

-Obviously, Wednesday’s loss is going to be replayed a lot, and was the worst of the season. I suppose there’s a ton to be written about Addison Russell’s stubbornness and inability to see the wrongs, but frankly I’m too tired to do it now. He fucked up. Kimbrel fucked up by walking Diaz. Contreras fucked up by not catching the ball, but with Heyward and Bryant hurt there wasn’t much choice. All of that happens. Still, there is something to wonder about:

With Kimbrel’s velocity down a touch, though at a more than passable 95 MPH, he’s going to have to use the top of the zone more if he wants to keep missing bats. None of this happens without guys able to make contact off him, and there are times when you need a whiff. He didn’t get them, and anything can happen when the ball is in play, especially against a team that seems intent on blowing its toes off.

-That’s two straight quality starts from Quintana. There were less change-ups, but he kicked up the amount of fastballs instead of sinkers.

-We’re going to deal with Robel Mania, aren’t we? He’s going to strike out a ton and that might gobble up whatever usefulness his bat has, but for now let’s bask in a great debut.

-Kris Bryant has a big game, the Cubs score 11 times. This isn’t hard.

-Mike Montgomery is dead. Tuesday’s game was in reach, until he got involved.

-So those calls for David Bote are going to have to be quieter after seven straight strikeouts, huh?

Baseball

Series Preview – Cubs vs. Pirates: Ok But This Time We Mean It

By Sam Fels 1167 0

vs.

RECORDS: Cubs 45-39   Pirates 39-43

GAMETIMES: Monday-Wednesday 6:05, Thursday 3:05

TV: NBCSN Monday-Wednesday, WGN Thursday

STUDIED UNDER GRADY TRIPP: Bucs Dugout

PITCHING MATCHUPS

Adbert Alzolay vs. Trevor Williams

Kyle Hendricks vs. Joe Musgrove

Yu Darvish vs. Chris Archer

Jose Quintana vs. Jordan Lyles

PROBABLE CUBS LINEUP

Kyle Schwarber – LF

Kris Bryant – 3B

Anthony Rizzo – 1B

Javier Baez – SS

Jason Heyward – RF

Albert Almora – CF

Victor Caratini – C

Addison Russell – 2B

PROBABLE PIRATES LINEUP

Kevin Newman – SS

Bryan Reynolds – RF

Starling Marte – CF

Josh Bell – 1B

Colin Moran – 3B

Corey Dickerson – LF

Elias Diaz – C

Adam Frazier – 2B

 

Ok, this time the Cubs are going to get their road record straightened out and close out strong against an inferior opponent. We really mean it this time. For sure it’s going to happen here. Yep, definitely. Totally.

Sigh.

It sounds good, but much like the Reds the Pirates might not be exactly what they seem. They were 11-15 in June, worse than the .500 record than they had in April and May, but they actually had a positive run-difference in the month which they definitely did not in April and May. That’s baseball for you.

Overall, this is a pretty middling Pirates lineup. Josh Bell has been an unholy monster of course, and he killed the Cubs when he was struggling. But other than him, the only regulars to be above average at the plate are Bryan Reynolds and Kevin Newman, both newcomers on he scene. If you can believe it, Gregory Polanco is hurt again and so is Francisco Cervelli, so those grounders just past short that always seem to drive in two runs from him won’t be a feature this holiday week. Marte has made a lot of contact as usual but it doesn’t really result in much. Cory Dickerson returned from the IL in June and has actually hit, so he’s been a boost and has made left field his.

Guess what? The rotation isn’t that impressive either! That’s Pirates baseball, baby! They’ve missed Jameson Taillon, who looks unlikely to pitch again this year as they’re being awfully careful with the Tommy John survivor. Archer isn’t missing bats as much as giving up more fly balls these days, which in 2019 baseball means you’re getting crushed. Trevor Williams and Joe Musgrove have been ok, with the former barely walking anyone. They’ve had to jumble it in the back with nine different guys making starts in June, with the occasional use of an opener.

Like most go-nowhere teams, they’ve had trouble bridging to their closer in Felipe Vasquez. Richard Rodriguez is on a heater with a scoreless June. But Francisco Liriano has been awful of late, Kyle Crick has no idea where the ball is going, and the rest of the crew is the normal gunk you find in a bullpen for a non-contending team.

For the Cubs, Kyle Hendricks will return tomorrow night from shoulder knack that the Cubs are most certainly not rushing him back from in the wake of Cole Hamels‘s injury. Nope, not at all. Ideally, this is the only outing Hendricks will have before the break, and it’ll be a good 10 days before his next one to clear up any lingering problems, if there are any. Alzolay will get another look tonight and if all goes well he could close out the Sox series. Jason Heyward’s latest flare-up at the plate has seen him move up to fifth in the order, which has always gone well in the past of course.

The Cubs caught a bad break with Hamels going down on Friday and leaving the pen to cover eight innings. But at some point, they either need to get going to we’ll just have to live with this being what they are. I’m not there yet, so enough bullshit. Let’s go.

Baseball

Pirates Spotlight: Not All Archers Are Good For A Laugh

By Sam Fels 1110 0

There are few, if any, organizations that are a prime example of how you can fuck up a great team and feel no pressure like the Pittsburgh Pirates. It’s been five seasons since they won 98 games and got Arrieta’d, and not a lot has gone right since. The past couple years have been particularly astounding, and sending Pirates fans on their way in droves. But what does it matter when Bob Nutting can still pocket revenue sharing and BAM tech money and make a huge profit?

The Pirates started last season by moving along team legend Andrew McCutchen because he was a year from free agency, and if that wasn’t bad enough (it was), they also shipped off ace Gerrit Cole because he was two years from the market. We could study how the Bucs mishandled Cole forever, trying to shoehorn him into their cutter-ground ball ways and then watching the Astros unleash a monster by letting him simply be him and chuck 97 MPH all the time.

The Pirates, in the midst of a surprise above .500 season, tried to make up for that by shipping out perennial disappointment Austin Meadows and seemingly perennially wayward Tyler Glasnow for Chris Archer. Let’s be fair to Archer, he was never as good as Cole and to expect him to be was silly. And it’s not Archer’s fault that Meadows has gone on to be a plus-plus outfielder in Tampa while Glasnow was one of the best starters in the AL before getting hurt. That’s on the Pirates. But Archer is going to be the target.

The warning signs were there on Archer before, of course. Even in his good days, 2014-2018, Archer was a two-pitch pitcher. He threw only a fastball and slider, though both being weapons were more than enough for then. But the thought was as soon as either slipped, he was going to have problems. And so it has proven.

Archer’s fastball has lost a full MPH on it this season, though you wouldn’t think averaging 94 MPH instead of 95 would be a major issue. But it has been. He’s seen a 100-point rise in slugging on his fastball, to .562 this year.

Velocity hasn’t been the problem for Archer’s slider, and he still gets over 40% whiffs on the swings on it which is very good. But it has lost some of its tilt, and has more of a sweeping action these days than it did. Which means it’s been a little easier to get in the air, and Archer has seen that increase too. And these days, if you’re giving up more fly balls, you’re asking for trouble. You’re asking for death.

Archer’s home runs per nine innings have nearly doubled this season, though it’s hardly his fault that pitchers are using Titleists out there this season. Archer’s fly ball rate is the highest of his career, which normally wouldn’t be a big problem in PNC Park, but his home run per fly ball is miles above anything that’s been seen before.

Archer has tried to make up for it by introducing a change-up this season. It’s had mixed results. He does get a lot of grounders off it, which is key. He’s getting 28% whiffs-per-swing, which is definitely something to build on. He’s still giving up too much slugging on it (.500), but as this is the first year he’s tried it it’s at least a start.

Of course, the main concern for Nutting’s Pirates is affordability, and Archer is still that. He’s got a team-option of $9M next year and $11M the following, which is nothing for even a 5th starter. And with Cole hitting the open market after this season, he’ll probably pull in three times that or more. For the Bucs, that’s what matters. Shame, that.

Baseball

Series Wrap – Cubs Take Two Of Three From Pirates: And There Was Much Rejoicing

By Sam Fels 1417 0

A series win. A very good start. These things were late to the party for the Cubs this season, but they’re here now. And while most of Cubdom seems intent on bending and turning and balancing to tear down the wins, the Cubs put up 10 runs on a very good starter in Jameson Taillon, survived what is a pretty good Pirates staff for two wins. If you thought they were going to get all the games back to .500 at once, I hate to explain how things work. It’s a process.

Let’s clean it up.

The Two Obs

-Jose Quintana said he wanted to use his change-up more. We didn’t see that in Milwaukee, partly because he wasn’t around long enough and when he was he was mostly turning around to look in the distance. He threw 13 of them tonight, which was more than 10% of his offerings, he got six swings and four whiffs from it. Very encouraging. Of course, everything was working tonight. Dotting his fastball, getting the curve over. I suppose the real test is when something isn’t working. But hey, this is a good step.

-The Cubs are averaging over six runs per game and Anthony Rizzo, Kris Bryant, haven’t really done dick. That’s encouraging.

-Kyle Schwarber has struck out in seven of his last eight ABs, which is less than encouraging. He’s getting pelted with breaking pitches, and he’s going over the top of them pretty much every time. That’s fine with lefties, but is less so when it comes from righties as it has the past two nights. But hey, it’s just a stretch of three games. Let’s not go nuts here.

-Len and JD were mentioning on the broadcast how much more Jason Heyward is using his legs in his swing. It’s quite apparent. Maybe that’s a real change.

-Cishek has appeared in half of the Cubs games, so at least we’re still on that pace. He should be dust by Labor Day.

-Something has been made about the Cubs’ pen scoreless streak, but to me it’s kind of horseshit because they did let inherited runners score last night. Earned runs for relievers is always something a bit misleading. And when they took the lead Monday to the wire, they had a touchdown lead at least to work with. Not that that’s stopped them from self-immolating before. Mighty oaks from little acorns, I guess.

-I think Joe Maddon was just cold.

Onwards…