8/17: Reds (Feldman) @ Cubs (Lester) 1:20 on CSN

[Aaron_Kennelly]

Guess that hope that the Aug/Sept of 2015-2016 would be replicated are fading fast.

 

I still feel like this is a very good team. The talent is there but the pieces just don't seem to be fitting. Still hope for the team to catch fire but starting to accept that this might just be what we are going to get from this team.

 

they're playing at a 101 win pace since the break

 

yeah that's maybe not quite as absurd as those years but come on

 

And 65 win pace since Aug 2nd

 

But to be honest though that pace since the break is better than I thought. Either way they have gone back to showing warts the last 2 weeks. Maybe it's just a blip but maybe the hot streak out of the break was the blip (or maybe like most things is somewhere in the middle)

 

Somewhere in the middle.

 

This is not the same team as the one in the first half. The offense is horsefeathering killing it. And the rotation isn't anywhere near what it was like. Some guys like Lester and Quintana have struggled the last two weeks. But in the first half, Mike Montgomery was our second-most reliable starter. 40% of our starts were going to Eddie Butler and Bad Lackey. We were giving serious PT to Candelario and Zagunis.

 

We'll be fine. They've just had a shitty couple weeks. And they've lost several really stupid games. The bullpen has been atrocious. But there are good arms in the pen, and I don't think there is as much worry with them going forward as what the rotation looked like in the first half.

 

Bad two weeks. Cubs are still fixed.

[Aaron_Kennelly]

We've outscored opponents 96-83 in August and are 7-9. It's just been a weird two weeks.

 

We were scoring 6 runs per game in July after the break. We've scored 6 runs per game in August. The offense has been good and consistent. They are fixed.

 

The pitching has went to horsefeathers in August, for sure. But it has been exacerbated by when they've blown up. This stupid horsefeathering loss. The stupid horsefeathering Goldschmidt Game. The Wieters grand slam game. The pitching has blown up in games we should have won. And we've lost a bunch of close games. And Joe has been drunk all month. It's resulted in us sputtering along, despite being a much better team than we were in June.

[Cubswin11]

That's a made up name