8/13 Cubs (Darvish) vs Brewers (Anderson) 6:15 FOX

[We Got The Whole 9]

Bote silky horsefeathering smooth this year with the leather

[UMFan83]

Just when you thought scary 9th innings were a thing of the past

[soccer10k]

W!

[Brian]

who was giving fist bumps with a Cubs hulk hand

[Tim]

:flythew: :flythew: :flythew:

[Bertz]

[bukie]

Just when you thought scary 9th innings were a thing of the past

They are.

[Cubswin11]

:flythew: #WeAreGood

[Andy]

 

Savage

[Brian]

should have ended with the Yu vs. Brewers since 2018 stats that Marquee showed though

[Cubswin11]

 

[UMFan83]

Cubs are now 6.5 games clear of a playoff spot after 16 games played. Even with 8 playoff teams per league that is impressive.

 

They also have the best record in baseball by 1.5 games now.

 

I’m definitely getting 2016 feels with the amazing starting pitching, offense that wears down pitchers and great defense.

[soccer10k]

 

I’m assuming it’s over the same time frame but they showed on a broadcast last week that he had something like a 17 K/BB ratio since mid 2019 and the next best guy in that span was 9. He walked two today and it doubled his walks on the year.

 

Last year he walked 22 in March/April, 19 in May and then 15 guys total from June on. 8 of those were in June so he walked 7 from July through September.

[Bertz]

 

:shock:

[Bertz]

In the month of August, the Cubs bullpen has been worth 0.4 WAR, with positive contributions from Jeffress, Wick, Rea, Tepera, and Sadler. Ryan had the bad outing on August 1st but has been effective otherwise. Kimbrel...well, he hasn't been given an opportunity to blow games of late, so he's in a good spot.

 

Yeah, I think the bleeding has stopped on the bullpen. I feel decent about all 6 of those guys.

 

The problem still is there's not anyone who I feel really good about. A lot of those guys are still missing an MPH or two, I'm hoping simply because summer camp wasn't a real ST. Like I'll be very quick to fully trust Ryan when he's hitting 90 MPH again, and Wick when he's sitting 95 instead of just touching 95.

 

It's not hard to see a path to the pen fairly quickly being an outright strength. Have 2-3 of the above guys show they are (or still are) higher end guys, grab an impact guy via trade, and have one of Carraway or Marquez come up and shove.

[squally1313]

Probably a little tougher than normal to pick up an impact guy through a trade. You're going to have 20+ teams in 'contention', all of them having room for an impact reliever, with really only a handful of teams looking to sell.

[Bertz]

Probably a little tougher than normal to pick up an impact guy through a trade. You're going to have 20+ teams in 'contention', all of them having room for an impact reliever, with really only a handful of teams looking to sell.

 

That's fair, maybe they end up having to get creative, like they did with Jesse Chavez two years ago. Thankfully, as bad as the team has been at FA pitching the last few years, they've been stellar at trading for guys on the fly and having them produce. Chavez two years ago, Wick/Ryan/Wieck last year, and too early to tell but possibly Sadler and/or Tepera this year. And those were all up and down type arms at the time of being acquired, I'd like to see what they can do with someone already has pretty stellar stuff, like Miguel Castro on the O's.