5/27 Cubs (Hamels) @ Astro’s (Cole) WGN 2:10 Eastern

[Jaxbro]

Platinum sombreros are a special feat

[Schwarber Fan]

We can’t live with Descalso in the lineup much longer either. Pick someone up if Zobrist isn’t coming back.

[Gilby]

The bottom of the 9th would've been a kick to the dick anyway

[Hawk4Hall]

We can’t live with Descalso in the lineup much longer either. Pick someone up if Zobrist isn’t coming back.

Agreed. The Daniel Descalso Experiment should be on life support at best. He isn’t providing anything other than a warm body.

[17 Seconds]

the rotation and bullpen are awful.the 86-87 win predictions are looking more and more correct

[soccer10k]

the rotation and bullpen are awful.the 86-87 win predictions are looking more and more correct

 

I’m surprised you’re even that optimistic.

[itisallpartoftheplan]

 

9 games short of the record. Brutal.

[Bote McBoteface]

Starting to think we shoulda picked up Verlander back when he practically begged us to.

[Andy]

Starting to think we shoulda picked up Verlander back when he practically begged us to.

We're not using whatever sorcery the Astros are using that triples all their pitchers' spin rates, so we probably would've just gotten broke Verlander anyway

[BigSlick]

the rotation and bullpen are awful.the 86-87 win predictions are looking more and more correct

Oh chill out dude

[UMFan83]

Starting to think we shoulda picked up Verlander back when he practically begged us to.

We're not using whatever sorcery the Astros are using that triples all their pitchers' spin rates, so we probably would've just gotten broke Verlander anyway

 

It annoys me to read about teams finding these competitive edges (if that’s really what’s happening here). Another example is the Brewers psychic positioning coach. I really didn’t think with our FO I’d ever feel like we were behind on these things. Of course I really don’t know anything about what’s really going on behind the scenes and I could be completely wrong, just how it feels sometimes

[soccer10k]

the rotation and bullpen are awful.the 86-87 win predictions are looking more and more correct

Oh chill out dude

 

This is just what he does.

[soccer10k]

We’ve got 36 games before the ASB after this series. As of now, 8 of those are against teams that are good (4 against LA and Atl).

 

That’s not to say the stretch is easy but we play a lot of .500 teams (StL twice, Col twice, NYM, Pit and Cincy) plus the White Sox. We’re going to be fine. This is the same team that went 14-6 against Pitt, LAA, LAD, Ari (twice), StL and Mil during their hot stretch (I excluded games against the crap teams like Mia and Sea).

 

The offense is good and the pitching is solid enough to generally get the job done. They’re going to have stretches where things go bad, like now, and we’re only 6-8 in the last 14, despite blowing two games to Cincy and one to Philly (I know we pulled a couple out so it probably evens out). But they’re also going to have stretches where everything clicks and they go 23-7 (or whatever it was) largely playing good teams.

[17 Seconds]

We’ve got 36 games before the ASB after this series. As of now, 8 of those are against teams that are good (4 against LA and Atl).

 

That’s not to say the stretch is easy but we play a lot of .500 teams (StL twice, Col twice, NYM, Pit and Cincy) plus the White Sox. We’re going to be fine. This is the same team that went 14-6 against Pitt, LAA, LAD, Ari (twice), StL and Mil during their hot stretch (I excluded games against the crap teams like Mia and Sea).

 

The offense is good and the pitching is solid enough to generally get the job done. They’re going to have stretches where things go bad, like now, and we’re only 6-8 in the last 14, despite blowing two games to Cincy and one to Philly (I know we pulled a couple out so it probably evens out). But they’re also going to have stretches where everything clicks and they go 23-7 (or whatever it was) largely playing good teams.

 

I just think the 23-7 or whatever was kind of a fluke in the sense that I dont think the the rotation (the 3 lefties in particular) are going to have another dominant stretch like they did. It's also unlikely that the top 4 hitters maintain a .950-1.000 ops all season, and I dont see any other hitters getting super hot to make up for the inevitable regression of the top 4. Even when we were on pace for like 100 wins, fangraphs still only had us around 90.

[soccer10k]

We’ve got 36 games before the ASB after this series. As of now, 8 of those are against teams that are good (4 against LA and Atl).

 

That’s not to say the stretch is easy but we play a lot of .500 teams (StL twice, Col twice, NYM, Pit and Cincy) plus the White Sox. We’re going to be fine. This is the same team that went 14-6 against Pitt, LAA, LAD, Ari (twice), StL and Mil during their hot stretch (I excluded games against the crap teams like Mia and Sea).

 

The offense is good and the pitching is solid enough to generally get the job done. They’re going to have stretches where things go bad, like now, and we’re only 6-8 in the last 14, despite blowing two games to Cincy and one to Philly (I know we pulled a couple out so it probably evens out). But they’re also going to have stretches where everything clicks and they go 23-7 (or whatever it was) largely playing good teams.

 

I just think the 23-7 or whatever was kind of a fluke in the sense that I dont think the the rotation (the 3 lefties in particular) are going to have another dominant stretch like they did. It's also unlikely that the top 4 hitters maintain a .950-1.000 ops all season, and I dont see any other hitters getting super hot to make up for the inevitable regression of the top 4. Even when we were on pace for like 100 wins, fangraphs still only had us around 90.

 

Of course 23-7 was kind of a fluke. There’s a reason no team has won 124 games in a season. Our 5-15 stretch in 2016 was a fluke also but it still happened. The Dodgers going 1-14 or whatever they did in 2017 was a fluke but that happened also. It’s how a baseball season works. The point is the team is good enough to have that sort of a stretch. But they’re also flawed enough to have the stretch they’re on now. Even if you say what they’ve done to this point is their true talent level, they’re still on pace for 93-94 wins.

 

As for the projections, of course they didn’t have the Cubs projected for 100 when they were on pace for that. That’s not how projections work. They had us for 80-whatever wins before the year so at the 40 game mark, the projection is a combination of preseason projections and the first 40 games and it's probably going to be weighted towards the preseason projection. The longer the season goes, the more the current season will affect the projections. The Dodgers are on pace for 108 wins but only projected for 100 because they were only projected for 90 something coming into the year. The Nats are on pace for 66 wins but are projected for 81 for the same reason. The projections thought they’d be better going into the year.

 

Want to go solely based on what the team has done this year? Based on what we've done so far, Fangraphs has us projected for 93.2 wins. This isn't just an extrapolation on our record because the Reds (26-29) are projected for 86.7 wins based on season stats so far. Baseball Prospectus has our 1st, 2nd and 3rd order winning percentages all between 31.2 and 31.4 wins. Pythag has us at 31-21. So we're right on where our stats say we should be.

 

So sure, we probably got lucky a bit during the 23-7 run. But we were also unlucky during our terrible stretch to begin the year and maybe a bit during these last 10-15 games.