Baseball

Series Preview – Cubs vs. Cardinals: Here Comes The Salt

By Sam Fels 1355 0

vs.

RECORDS: Cubs 56-49   Cardinals 56-49

GAMETIMES: Tuesday and Wednesday 7:15, Thursday 6:15

TV: NBCSN Tuesday and Thursday, WGN Wednesday

BARF: Viva El Birdos

PITHCING MATCHUPS

Yu Darvish vs. Adam Wainwright

Kyle Hendricks vs. Miles Mikolas

Jon Lester vs. Jack Flaherty

PROBABLE CUBS LINEUP

Kyle Schwarber – LF

Willson Contreras – C

Kris Bryant – 3B

Anthony Rizzo – 1B

Javier Baez – SS

Jason Heyward – RF

Robel Garcia – 2B

Ian Happ – CF

PROBABLE CARDINALS LINEUP

Tommy Edman – 3B

Dexter Fowler – CF

Jose Martinez – RF

Paul Goldschmidt – 1B

Paul DeJong – SS

Tyler O’Neill – LF

Kolten Wong – 2B

Matt Wieters  – C

 

So I would love to tell you that this is where the Cubs can make things right. Even just a series win would leave them with a 4-5 road trip, which isn’t exactly acceptable but could be explained away by the anal horseshoe the Giants are toting around. It wouldn’t be total disaster, let’s say. If we want to get ambitious, a sweep would leave the Cubs with 5-4, and even with all the problems and concerns and ulcers provided over the weekend, in the end you’d have to be satisfied with that. As long as you continue to clean up at home, that is. You’d put three games between you and the Red Menace, with an August schedule that isn’t that demanding.

But if you were betting people, and drawing on the life lessons you’ve learned, would you lean toward the Cardinals making things all right or pouring more salt in the wound? I thought so.

What’s insulting is the Cubs shouldn’t be anywhere near this team. Its offense is not good. Its rotation is not good. Only its pen has been able to keep them from sinking into the locker, and the Cubs have hung and hung just long enough for one hot-streak to put St. Louis right in the middle of this. For shame.

While Godlschmidt’s binge the past month has propelled them, over the year as a whole only Ozuna has been a plus-hitter for them, and he’s on the shelf. DeJong continues to deflate from April, Fowler has been hot of late but overall barely average. And worse yet, this team is beat up. Carpenter and Ozuna are either unlikely to feature this series (Carpenter) or out (Ozuna). Molina is still out, though whisper this around that part of the country but Wieters has been better offensively than Yadier would have managed because if they hear you they’ll definitely whip their arm fat at you. But of course, they lose their “soul” without Yadi, or some such horseshit.

The rotation has been the very definition of “meh.” Not one carries an ERA below 3.80 nor above 4.20, which can’t be called anything other than fine. Jack Flaherty has been really good the past month, but Waino, Ponce de Leon (get a new name, jackass), and Hudson have been straight gasoline. Mikolas has evened out a bit with three quality starts in a row and four out of his last five, and of course is just the special kind of fuckwit who will allow the Cubs two hits over seven while striking out like, one guy. Can’t wait.

It’s the pen where lies the Cards’ strength. They strike out the second-most hitters in the NL, have the second-best ERA and FIP. Over the past month they’ve been the best in the league in pretty much every category. Giovanny Gallegos, John Brebbia, Andrew Miller have all been lights-out. And now converted starters Michael Wacha and Carlos Martinez are coming out of there, with the latter acting as a de facto closer at times. Though you still wouldn’t trust him to not go to the zoo for an inning, he’s just less likely to do that when he’s only pitching for one inning. It would be a good idea to not enter the back half of games trailing. Not that it really matters with the Cubs’ pen, because they’ll soon be trailing anyway. The dark arts would swallow the Cubs in the late innings when they had a good pen in that haven of asshoolery, so why would now be any different?

For the Cubs, one of the bigger stories will be off the field in the next two days, as in what they do before the One Deadline To Rule Them All, assuming the Ricketts Family keeps the billions somehow concealed from view to the point where even they can’t see it. Truly a wondrous trick. The Cubs need at least one more arm in the pen, and probably another bat, but probably can’t get both. Hail Marys on Zobrist and Happ will probably the orders of the day.

I would say the Cubs need dominant outings from their starters, but they got that in the first two in Milwaukee and lost both. What they need is the offense to actually assert itself for three games, which it hasn’t done on the road in who the fuck knows. Score a goddamn touchdown every day and worry about the rest later.

This is now the business end of the season. Keep in mind that starting 8/27, the Cubs will have two days off the rest of the season. They don’t want to hit that stretch looking up at anyone, which means they need head-from-rectum removal right fucking now. But it feels like we keep saying that.

Baseball

Cardinals Spotlight: Paul DeJong And Fiendish BABIP Kung Fu Treachery

By Sam Fels 1074 0

If you want to be truly embarrassed by the spot the Cubs find themselves in the standings, tied with the Cardinals for first, consider that in terms of fWAR, Paul DeJong is the best player on the Cardinals. By some distance actually, as he’s accrued nearly twice the WAR of Marcell Ozuna in second. And that’s with DeJong unable to hit a bull in the ass with a snow-shovel since April. Some of that is Paul Goldschmdit’s struggles and playing first base (thus getting little to no defensive credit), and Matt Carpenter being ouchy, old, and grizzled (the official motto of St. Louis). But yeah, the Cubs are tied with a team whose best player got there almost entirely through defense.

If you feel like the Cardinals have been advertising DeJong as a future star for half of eternity at this point, and being influenced on another level by some big homers against the Cubs, you’ll probably be shocked to learn he’s still only 25. But their version of Javy Baez he has not become, nor anywhere close, and let’s all revel in the fact that Cards fans so desperately want their own version of Javy who also happens to be white.

For a minute there, DeJong looked like he might just be that in April. That month saw a .342/.403/.607 slash-line, good for a 163 wRC+. To go along with his spectacular defense, and it looked like you had a real player here, and us lamenting the Cardinals finally being right about a product of their system.

DeJong has been living in an abandoned boxcar since with one can of baked beans, at least offensively (by defensive runs he’s been the best SS in the NL). He hit .200 in May, .218 in June, and .225 in July. His wRC+ have been 95, 66, and 100, as he walked a ton in May (17%), and slugged just enough lately to barely claim average.

It’s not hard to find the discrepancy in DeJong’s start and the rest of the season. DeJong’s BABIP in April was .389. It hasn’t been above .236 since. And yet DeJong, for the most part, has hit the ball extremely hard. Only in June did DeJong not have a hard-contact rate above 45%. Since May 1st, DeJong has the worst BABIP in the National League.

It’s weird. DeJong doesn’t hit an abnormal amount of flies, which tends to lower one’s BABIP because they don’t just fall in when they don’t go out of the park all that much. He doesn’t hit a ton of line-drives, which would help, but that rate isn’t so low as to explain three months of taking it in the moon fortune-wise.

It doesn’t really work to say the past three months have just been market correction on DeJong’s April, because that would entail a higher force equaling out DeJong’s numbers simply to balance the universe. And as we all know because we’ve been told all our lives, if there’s a higher power it definitely works for the Cardinals. Still, DeJong’s numbers are right where they should be according to Statcast, as his batting average and weighted on-base are right in line with his expected-batting average and expected-weighted on-base.

And yet that low of a number over three months seems a tad harsh. DeJong doesn’t have an abnormal amount of flies not leaving the park, as his HR/FB rate is about league average at 12%. As we said, he doesn’t hit an abnormal amount of fly balls. It’s just weird.

Still, with all of that DeJong is a couple of weeks away from his best season in the majors, which was 3.3 fWAR. And if he finds any luck at all in the next two months, he might give Baez a run for title of best shortstop in the National League (0.5 fWAR behind right now). It’s been an odd year for him, and you wonder what the Cardinals might conclude about him if it doesn’t change. They’ve given up on better players, y’know.

Baseball

Series Wrap – Cubs Sweep Cardinals: Pretty Good For A Bunch Of Sucks, No?

By Sam Fels 2049 0

Game 1 Box Score: Cubs 3, Cardinals 1

Game 2 Box Score: Cubs 9, Cardinals 4

Game 3 Box Score: Cubs 5, Cardinals 1

It was only a week ago before most of Cubdom was tearing their hair out and declaring it was all over people, we don’t have a prayer. Swept in St. Louis tends to bring everyone to the irrational zone. The Cubs just has a bad couple weeks, but they seem intent on backing up a bad 10-12 games with a solid month, and they certainly got off to a great start to that by taking six of seven on a homestand. The Cards came into this series with a chance to really vault themselves into the discussion. They leave 5.5 games back and under .500. The Brewers are enough to deal with, thanks.

Let’s get to it.

The Two Obs

-We’ll have to start with Kyle Schwarber, who appears primed to go on a binge. He didn’t start on Friday, but had four hits the past two days, four RBI, a homer on basically a half-swing after seeing 11 pitches Saturday, and another two doubles. The War Bear’s OPS has now crawled above .800, and his OPS from the leadoff spot is higher than Dexter Fowler’s was in 2016 so maybe everyone can shut the fuck up about Fowler for like five minutes? His ABs have been great for a while now and he wasn’t getting the results. This is what he should have gotten. I don’t think this is just a hot streak. I think this is what he is. Let’s go.

-We can go over Jon Lester’s numbers and trends all we want. Point out the added walks and the less ground balls and the harder contact. But at the end of the day, he might just be Sargent Hartman’s corollary, “Sometimes guts is enough.” He’ll have bad innings, he’ll have bad starts even. But more often than not, he’s just going to find a way. He had a bad inning last night, and then tossed five innings where the Cards didn’t even get the ball out of the infield. I’m not sure how, Don’t even know why. He just did it.

-Meanwhile, Cole Hamels on Friday decided it was time to go back to the fastball, as he threw it more than he had in his last five starts. It was mostly that and change-ups, and the Cards didn’t have much of an answer.

-The pen didn’t give up a run all series, but was only asked to cover six innings over three games. Given that workload, just about anyone can find the finish line. So keep doing that.

-You know, I spend a good amount of time bitching about Jason Heyward, but he’s still carrying an above average OPS and wRC+ and if he can hit more balls hard like he did this weekend, he’ll probably stay there. With that defense, that’s enough.

-Kyle Hendricks…man, there isn’t much more to say. He didn’t use the curve hardly at all tonight, but his new toy is going up in the zone and I have no idea how he’s getting away with it but I don’t have to. As long as you’re hitting the corners up there too, then you’ll have the success you have hitting the corners down low.

-I think we might just have to say David Bote is good. I’m not sure I believe it, but given what he’s asked to do an .827 OPS is really outstanding.

-I’m not sure this Cardinals thing is going to work out because Carpenter is actually old, Ozuna isn’t actually that good, and Goldschmidt is going to have to carry it all at some point. Totally heartbroken about it, let me tell ya.

Onwards…

Baseball

Series Preview – Cardinals vs. Cubs: Gotta Get Back The Get Back

By Sam Fels 1162 0

vs.

RECORDS: Cardinals 31-29   Cubs 34-27

GAMETIMES: Friday 1:20, Saturday and Sunday at 6:05

TV: NBCSN Friday, Fox Saturday, ESPN Sunday

HE DOESN’T LIKE YOU: Viva El Birdos

PITCHING MATCHUPS

Miles Mikolas vs. Cole Hamels

Jack Flaherty vs. Jon Lester

Adam Wainwright vs. Kyle Hendricks

PROBABLE CARDINALS LINEUP

Dexter Fowler – RF

Paul DeJong – SS

Paul Goldschmidt – 1B

Marcell Ozuna – LF

Jedd Gyorko – 3B

Harrison Bader – CF

Matt Wieters – C

Kolten Wong – 2B

PROBABLE CUBS LINEUP

Anthony Rizzo – 1B

Kris Bryant – 3B

Carlos Gonzalez – LF

Javier Baez – SS

Jason Heyward – RF

Victor Caratini – C

David Bote – 2B

Albert Almora Jr. – CF

 

The Cardinals had a sweep to avenge last weekend down in Mos Eisley, and now so do the Cubs. If they were to trade sweeps all season, this would probably turn into some holy war. There is obviously no better or worse feeling, depending on how that particular set goes for you. The last thing we need is to be this bipolar, but we’ll take a Cubs sweep this weekend. Let’s get greedy.

Since the Cubs last saw the Cards five days ago, they split two games with the Reds and had one rained out. Thanks to the scheduled off-day and then bonus one, the Cubs will see the same three pitchers they couldn’t do much with last weekend. So that’s a treat. Perhaps the frequency of appearances will help. Lester and Hendricks didn’t throw against the Cards last time, so that…helps? Basically we’re all gonna shit if the Cubs are held at arm’s length by Adam Goddamn Wainwright again, is what I’m saying. But if his defense keeps pulling rabbits out of their ass like they did last time…hopefully the line drives the Cubs did hit aren’t right at people this time.

The Cards are carrying a couple injuries into this one. Matt Carpenter left the game yesterday early and isn’t playing today, and it’s questionable whether he’ll play this weekend. Yadier Molina continues to be out and there’s no word on when he might be back. Which is actually fine for them, though you’ll never get anyone to say it, because Matt Wieters has been bette at the plate than Yadi. But he doesn’t provide the kind of leadership where you ignore what’s actually going on during a play to argue with an ump or ground out harmlessly to short a lot. I guess we just don’t understand baseball.

For the Cubs, they’ll trot out the goofy lineup today when you know it’s the time where Maddon thinks it’s time to give the team a chuckle. Greatest Leadoff Hitter In History Anthony Rizzo returns as Schwarber is given the day off. Somehow, Maddon is still convinced that Carlos Gonzalez isn’t dead, and he’s hitting third, giving the hands team in the outfield the full game. Maddon also hasn’t noticed that Heyward hasn’t hit in six weeks, so he’ll be in the five-spot. Good times all around here. At least Almora and Bote are playing I guess. Maybe this is just not the thing to worry about right now.

The Cards can get right into the thick of this with a series win, as they’re only 2.5 games behind the Cubs and Brewers. And their schedule is awfully light after this, with 11 games against the Marlins and Mets after this, whereas as the Cubs have to go to the funhouse of Coors Field and then into the tiger pit of Dodger Stadium. Then again, playing the Marlins didn’t do much for the Brewers this week. That’s baseball.

It’s been a good homestand so far. Be a good idea to finish it out strong.

Baseball

Cardinals Spotlight: Goldy Hasn’t Done Anything Yet, And You Know When He Does…

By Sam Fels 1161 0

When you’re the Cardinals, and you’ve spent the past three seasons staring at the lights when it’s all over, that creates a sense of urgency. After all, three playoff-less season, after a first-round dry heave to your biggest rival, is purely unacceptable in Mos Eisley. So the Cardinals went out and got the biggest bat there was, perennial MVP-candidate Paul Goldschmidt. Finally, Matt Carpenter would have some support, and if Fowler bounced back and Harrison Bader took a step and Marcell Ozuna got back to normal, the Cardinals should have a scary offense. All of those things have basically happened…except for Goldschmidt being the weapon of mass destruction he’s been. Best laid plans of mice and men and all that…

The Cards offense has been middle of the pack so far this season, except when it comes to on-base percentage as they do have a lot of guys who take walks. Carpenter got off to his usual slow start, though is rounding into form as he usually does when it gets warm (and then falls apart in September from carrying the team). But Goldschmidt hasn’t come along, and even though he’s having a fine season–115 wRC+, 345 wOBA–they’re way off his career norms (149, .390)

So what’s up? On the surface, Goldy’s walks are a touch down and his Ks are a touch up, but nothing that would suggest any long-term problems or anything more than a two-month spike. He’s whiffing at a touch more pitches, but not so much that you worry about bat-speed. If there’s one noticeable difference, it’s that he’s making way more contact on pitches outside of the zone (71.4% this year to 66.7% last) and far less in the zone (77.9 from 82.2). But that’s not really the problem, judging by his slugging zones this year vs. his career:

There’s a couple deadzones at the top there, but that might just be a quirk of the season still being relatively young. You wouldn’t want to go there too often, you wouldn’t think. And pitchers aren’t.

Where Goldschmidt has seen some changes to this year is he’s seeing an uptick in changes and curves. And he’s been atrocious on them. On curveballs he’s hitting .100 with a slugging of .100. On change-ups he’s hitting .125 with a slugging of….. .125. Guess there’s a pattern there. The averages are some 150 points below his career marks and the slugging isn’t even worth talking about. He’s had a bit of rough luck on those pitches, but he can’t make an argument of being undone when he’s barely hitting the ball much less hard on them.

So why so? Usually when a player has this much trouble with offspeed pitches, the suggestion would be that he’s cheating on fastballs and is getting caught ahead. Goldy’s numbers on fastballs are a touch worse than his career norms. He’s whiffing at a few more swings on fastballs (26% to 22%), a few less line-drives (27% to 29%) and perhaps just a touch more worrying is that he’s popping up more of them (10% to 7%).

Goldschmidt is 31, and will turn 32 in September. Lately there’s been a train of thought that it is at 32 or so when players start to struggle with the flood of velocity in the game today. It’s hard to get there with Goldschmidt yet, especially as he’s carrying a 50% hard-hit rate, by far the highest of his career. Still, Statcast doesn’t think he’s performing below where he should be, as his expected wOBA is .356 which isn’t far off from the actual .350 he’s putting up.

Again, two months. Again, this is Paul Goldschmidt. Still, if he remains as vulnerable to offspeed pitches throughout the season, and the slightly less squared up fastballs continue, there’s only one way this slope goes.

Baseball

Series Wrap – Cubs Swept By Cardinals: And Here Come The Pretzels

By Sam Fels 1292 0

Game 1 Box Score: Cardinals 2, Cubs 1

Game 2 Box Score: Cardinals 7, Cubs 4

Game 3 Box Score: Cardinals 2, Cubs 1

It’s always important to breathe at a moment like this. Sweeps at the hand of those from Mos Eisley tend to accentuate the emotions and anger and whatever your particular grievance is with the team at that time. So it is tempting to say that the offense completely sucks, even though it doesn’t. Or that the rotation isn’t good enough, even though they didn’t do anything wrong this weekend. Or that the pen is an absolute abomination…and that would be correct.

The Cubs lost three coin-flips essentially, one caused by a three-hour rain delay which I’m more and more convinced shouldn’t be a thing that exist unless they have to. Both teams looked pretty damn flat this afternoon after a very late night last night, and the Cubs just made one ore two more mistakes and lost the last one.

It’s still important to note that this team is fourth in runs in the NL, second in wOBA. It might not feel like it right now, especially when they just got bladdered by a corpse, but they were also unlucky. Three of those line drives find holes on another day, and then what are we talking about?

It’s definitely a rough patch, 2-8 in their last 10, but that happens. The encouraging thing, if you need, is that the rotation bounced back which is probably the most important thing going forward. Let’s run it through:

The Two Obs

-It seems a bit silly to complain about the bullpen and its handling on a night when the Cubs scored one run, but that’s Friday for you. Miles Mikolas still has that in the bag on occasion, even if this year has been a struggle for him. But I don’t know why anyone would be in a hurry to get to Dillon Maples when there’s already a guy on base, and I’m a Maples guy and want him to be given every chance and more to finally nail down a spot (he probably won’t ever but I’m a hopeful sort). Mike Montgomery isn’t a situational lefty, and yet because he’s the only one out there besides Ryan (who blows but more on that in a sec) he keeps being used as one. I would trust Monty to get through Wong and Bader, though to be fair to Maples he did strike out Bader and didn’t get a call. But now the bases are loaded and you have to do something dumb and Cishek doesn’t really get strikeouts that much and here we are.

-Going over the woes of the pen is probably useless at this point. Everyone knows and there’s little that can be done via trade for another couple weeks at least. Even a Kimbrel Hail Mary doesn’t do anything until July. But it’s just laughable how the Cubs boasted about the amount of arms they would have between here and Iowa and almost none of them are major league pitchers. Ryan isn’t. Brach probably isn’t anymore. Edwards might not be on his bad days. Maples hasn’t proven it. Neither is Webster, Cedeno, or Collins.

-Saturday’s game goes haywire because of the weather delay. It was about how far Chatwood could go, which wasn’t far, but he’s actually been effective this year and is probably allowed a wonky one. There’s just nothing to be done after him, and Strop’s return isn’t a cure-all.

-Rough weekend for my guy Schwarber. He can’t strike out with the bases loaded on Saturday and it looks like the things are snowballing on him again. He remains simply awful with anyone on base, which actually backs up the logic of leading him off, but you wonder how much longer the Cubs can wait on him. It’s been two and a half seasons for him, and the over-glow of a few singles in the World Series can’t count for anything. I still think he has a big boom within him, but I would also say he’s got a month or six weeks to show it, otherwise the Cubs might want to monitor how the Reds handle their Dietrich-Gennett jam at second (probably by just sitting Winker or Puig and playing both and not sending either here, honestly).

-How does a team in the majors not know how to run a rundown or pickoff? The Cubs always make at least too many throws or outright fuck it up more than any team in the league. Only cost them the game today.

-For all the gifts his arm provide, Contreras has had a bad defensive year. He’s been a subpar framer for a few years now, has been lazy blocking balls far too often, and today’s error was another the Cubs can’t have. That doesn’t mean he should be benched or anything, it’s just something we’re going to live with. Teams are rarely going to run on him or even stray off bases that much, so the arm which made up for his defensive deficiencies elsewhere doesn’t even come out of the holster that often.

Onwards…

Baseball

Series Preview – Cubs vs. Cardinals: They’re Going To Be Upset About A Fake Talk Show

By Sam Fels 1156 0

vs.

RECORDS: Cubs 31-23   Cardinals 27-28

GAMETIMES: Friday 7:15, Saturday 6:15, Sunday 1:15

TV: NBCSN Friday, Fox Saturday, WGN Sunday

DON’T EVEN BOTHER: Viva El Birdos

PROBABLE PITCHERS

Yu Darvish vs. Miles Mikolas

Jose Quintana vs. Jack Flaherty

Cole Hamels vs. Adam Wainwright

PROBABLE CUBS LINEUP

Kyle Schwarber – LF

Kris Bryant – 3B

Anthony Rizzo – 1B

Javier Baez – SS

Victor Caratini – C

Albert Almora Jr. – CF

Jason Heyward – RF

David Bote – 2B

PROBABLE CARDINALS LINEUP

Dexter Fowler – RF

Paul Goldschmidt – 1B

Paul DeJong – SS

Marcell Ozuna – LF

Matt Carpenter – 3B

Yadier Molina – C

Kolten Wong – 2B

Harrison Bader – CF

 

The Auld Rivals move down I-55 tonight and this weekend, where the Cubs and Cards will clash for the for the first time in front of the illiterate and toothless in West East St. Louis. Perhaps for the first time ever, most everyone will be paying attention to the Blues instead, at least tomorrow night. If you’re making the trip…what’s wrong with you?

The Cardinals haven’t burst out of the gates with the Cubs and Brewers, and currently are 4.5 games back and under .500. They can’t seem to get everything firing at the same time. The offense has had its moments, but currently Paul DeJong, Dexter Fowler, and Kolten Wong have been trying to shove the bat up their nose. On the flip side, Matt Carpenter is doing that thing again where he comes close to sucking you into the idea that he’s finished at the beginning of the season, and now is going nuclear (he’s slugging nearly .600 the past two weeks). Paul Goldschmidt has been good, but maybe not quite the MVP-candidate the Cards hoped they were getting this winter. Harrison Bader has also been molten the past couple of weeks, but overall has been defense-first. The offense has potential to really carry this team through the summer, but hasn’t yet.

It may have to, as we went over some of the rotation’s problems in the spotlight. The two kids have hit their speed-bumps, and at some point this goddamn team is going to have to admit the Wainwright is dunzo and it’s never going to happen for Michael Wacha. I mean, it’s fine with me if they keep sending Wacha out there to hang a curve or groove a fastball at the worst possible time, but you’d think that an organization that is still convinced it’s miles ahead of the curve would crack the code on two-fifths of their rotation turning odd colors in the sun.

The pen has gotten yeoman’s work out of John Gant and John Brebbia. You’ll hear all about the 102 MPH that Jordan Hicks throws, which always seems to ignore the fact he’s not that good. He walks too many guys, and as hard as that fastball is it’s string-straight and he doesn’t seem to have another pitch so hitters do get to it. Andrew Miller is joining Wainwright in the breeding farm these days, carrying a FIP near 6.00 as he also doesn’t seem to have any idea where the ball is going. Always a genius move to sign and aging reliever who has been worked like a mule the past four years to a multi-year deal, don’t you think? Let’s say the Cards are a touch short in the pen, but not like, Cubs-short.

For the Cubs, they’ll hopefully welcome Pedro Strop back sometime this weekend, and seeing as how everyone else in the pen is stepping on their tongue that will be greatly welcomed. Kris Bryant can look forward to being booed the whole weekend because he happened to speak a very unthreatening truth on a fake fucking talk show that was essentially a platform for aspiring bullhorn Ryan Dempster to get a show on Marquee. Not even joking, that’s what it was. But any slight is taken an a declaration of war down there, and don’t be shocked if Yadier just tackles Bryant in the batter’s box to defend the honor of his chosen hovel. This will be point #1 on his Hall resume according to St. Louis media and fans after the game, you watch.

It’s been a bit of a rough patch. The Cubs are 4-6 over their last 10, the pen is beaten down and dusted, and the rotation needs to reclaim its standing this weekend. They got a primer stopper effort from The Cerebral Assassin on Wednesday. Hopefully the rest pick up the baton. They swept these assholes last time. Let’s have that again.

Baseball

Cardinals Spotlight: He Can See For Miles And Miles…Because That’s Where The Baseball Is Going

By Sam Fels 1037 0

Most of the admittedly overly-puffy chested predictions before the season that had the Cardinals running neck and neck with the Cubs and Brewers were based on their rotation. It contained promising neophytes (they always are with the Cards) Jack Flaherty and Dakota Hudson. As always, there was hope that this would finally be the season that Michael Wacha didn’t shoot himself in the face repeatedly. And hey, maybe Adam Wainwright wouldn’t decompose on the mound…as quickly. And of course they returned scrapheap salvaged/hero Miles Mikolas, whom Phil Rogers definitely knew would work out better than Yu Darvish and he’ll tell you that again and again.

Well, the Cards are under .500, barely holding off the Reds in last, only one member of the rotation has an ERA under 4.00, and Mikolas’s is nearing 5.00. How could this clearly established rock of a rotation go off the boil?

It’s actually pretty strange. Mikolas’s numbers, almost uniformly, are pretty much the same as they were last year. Look for yourself:

K/9: 6.55 (2018), 6.65 (2019)

BB/9: 1.30, 1.44

WHIP: 1.07, 1.17

Left-on-base %: 76.2, 71.1

BABIP: .279, .274

Line-drive rate: 22.2%, 22.1%

Hard-contact rate: 32.6%, 35.9%

So the numbers this year are a smidge worse, except for the strikeouts, but no major changes. Is that enough to explain an ERA going from 2.83 and an outside Cy Young candidate to 4.76 and a FIP from 3.28 to 4.85? No, it’s not.

The big difference you’ll find is how the fly balls he’s giving up are turning out. Last year, he was about league-average in the percentage that became something that went over the mantlepiece for some red-clad palooka. This year, it’s 20.6%. That’s double the league-average (or at least the normal league-average, as this year with the golf balls being used it’s 14.6%). The flies that Mikolas is giving up are being hit harder this year, a 43.3% hard-contact rate on them as opposed to 37% last year. Still, a fifth of them landing out beyond the walls is a touch unfair.

There’s another issue Mikolas is facing. His slider, a definite weapon last year, is getting murdered this season. Last year, hitters managed only a .184 average and a .245 slugging against that pitch. This year it’s .302 and .561. That might be a reason he’s backed off of it this year. but that only results in more fastballs, which hitters will time up. Another problem Mikolas is facing is that his slider has lost about half of its tilt from last year to this one, making it more flat. He’s still getting the same amount of whiffs per swing when it’s offered at, but there’s a lot more loud contact on it, leaving Mikolas pretty much a fastball-curve guy. It’s hard to get by on two pitches alone. You can tell from the swing rates by zone that hitters are either recognizing it better, he’s having to start it outside the zone more, or both, because he’s not getting the swings down to his glove side that he did last year:

Mikolas will probably even out before too long. Even in this souped up era, that HR/FB rate is unjust. The Cardinals will need him to, because Wainwright and Wacha are too old to be saviors, and Flaherty and Hudson might be too young.

Everything Else

Series Wrap – Cubs Sweep Cardinals: Everybody Shut The Fuck Up

By Sam Fels 2407 0

Game 1 Box Score: Cubs 4, Cardinals 0

Game 2 Box Score: Cubs 6, Cardinals 5

Game 3 Box Score: Cubs 13, Cardinals 5

Let’s get it right at the top here. Back in first place. Best winning percentage in the NL. Best run-differential in baseball. Won seven in a row. 16 of 20. It was utterly pointless to be trying to tear your heart out of your chest with your fingernail after nine games. Everyone has a bad nine games. Fuck, everyone has a bad 20 games. I understand the microscope is more focused at the start of a season. I understand it was an unpleasant winter and everyone already had the knives out and wanted to be the first to say, “I told you so.”

But it was always a good offense. Possibly great. It was always potentially a really good rotation, and one that survived an IL stint to Jon Lester. You have those two things, the pen doesn’t matter as much. The Cubs have six players with a wRC+ of 115 or higher. The only regulars who aren’t there are Schwarber, Zobrist and Descalso. And Schwarber’s is 129 over the past two weeks.

So yeah, I don’t want to hear it. This is a really good team, a team that is essentially the one that won 95 games last year and gets to use Yu Darvish and a healthy Kris Bryant. It’s been even able to carry a struggling Zobrist. They’re really good. Everyone on board.

Let’s do the thing:

The Two Obs

-I find it funny that it took Hendricks and Contreras about an inning or two to figure out that the Cardinals were trying to jump on The Cerebral Assassin early in at-bats, proceeded to cut through them like a daisy cutter, and yet the Cardinals never bothered to try anything else. Hendricks threw seven pitches in the 7th. Nine in the 8th. 10 in the 9th. Good thing they hired Shildt full-time, huh?

-Saturday, the right decision was definitely to walk Schwarber to get to Taylor Davis. That doesn’t mean Michael Wacha had to throw him a batting practice fastball that any competent profession baseball player is going to hurt. I thought the Cardinals were smart?

-Yu Darvish is Javy Vasquez. If you remember Little Game Javy, as Yankees fans so lovingly referred to him as, he had five or six different pitches, all of them effective. But it Javy’s world, and apparently Yu’s, no one should make contact on him. Which means he pitches that way, which means he misses, which means walks, which means problems. Until Yu starts pitching to contact and taking the strikeouts when they’re there, this is what you’re gong to get. He’s never had great control, but it’s within him, he simply chooses not to. Remember, before he got to Chicago the previous two seasons saw him carry a BB/9 under three. He’s at 7.44 this year. It has to stop.

-I don’t really care how the Cubs pen does it, but they’ve been among the best in baseball since the first week. And I don’t care. It’s a bullpen, it doesn’t have to make sense.

-This is the rotation the Cardinals are going to take us down with? Ok.

-Quintana wasn’t as vintage as he’s been this year, but he was able to muscle through it which is a really good sign. Also helps that the Cubs catch everything and play defense all over the field.

-Between Bryant, Heyward, and Baez, Cardinals fans aren’t going to know who to boo when the Cubs go down there later this month. And I’m fine with a team of villains.

Onwards…

 

Baseball

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

By Sam Fels 1332 0

vs.

RECORDS: Cardinals 20-11   Cubs 16-12

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

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

GROSS: Viva El Birdos

PROBABLE PITCHERS

Jack Flaherty vs. Kyle Hendricks

Michael Wacha vs. Yu Darvish

Adam Wainwright vs. Jose Quintana

PROBABLE CARDINALS LINEUP

Matt Carpenter – 3B

Paul Goldschmidt – 1B

Paul DeJong – SS

Marcel Ozuna – LF

Jose Martinez – RF

Yadier Molina – C

Kolten Wong – 2B

Harrison Bader – CF

PROBABLE CUBS LINEUP

Daniel Descalso – 2B

Kris Bryant – 3B

Anthony Rizzo – 1B

Javier Baez – SS

Willson Contreras – C

Ben Zobrist – RF

Kyle Schwarber – LF

Jason Heyward – CF

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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