4/8/24 - Cubs (Assad) @ Padre (Darvish) - 8:40 WFT MARQ

[Derwood]

I turned it on when it was 8-0, so this one's on me

[CubinNY]

5 hours ago, Brock Beauchamp said:

Went to sleep at 8-0, woke up to horsefeathers yikes.

 

Me too. WTF? 

[Outshined_One]

I see the bullpen still needs some ironing out.

[17 Seconds]

56 minutes ago, JD94 said:

Anybody else wake up in a bad mood this morning? Trying to tell myself it’s just 1 game of a long season, but damn letting a 8-0 lead slip away is infuriating. Especially considering the rest of the pitching matchups the rest of this series. 

it helps if you remind yourself that several nightmare losses happen every year, no matter what. one of them happened to be last night

[Rex Buckingham]

Baseball is by far the easiest sport for me to deal with losses. Such a long season. But man that one sucked. Still not really worried about Adbert, Tatis is a beast and he'll do things like that to a lot of really good pitchers. 

[Bobson Dugnutt]

24 minutes ago, Outshined_One said:

I see the bullpen still needs some ironing out.

Who woulda thought?

[BigbadB]

Got back from doing the path of totality thing yesterday and it was 8-0. Went to sleep after deciding not to start the game from scratch on the DVR. Woke up in the middle of the night and looked at my phone. Ugh. Fell right back to sleep. Now to delete the game from my DVR. Can't watch that.

[UMFan83]

Not gonna lie, while I was pissed off last night, I’m a jerk and was looking forward to waking up and see everyone’s reaction that didn’t stay up to see the collapse. 

[muntjack]

29 minutes ago, Rex Buckingham said:

Baseball is by far the easiest sport for me to deal with losses. Such a long season. But man that one sucked. Still not really worried about Adbert, Tatis is a beast and he'll do things like that to a lot of really good pitchers. 

Yeah, though it didn't take Steve Stone to know the slider was coming.  I think I said out loud 'don't hang it'.  

[WhyCantWeWin]

1 hour ago, 17 Seconds said:

it helps if you remind yourself that several nightmare losses happen every year, no matter what. one of them happened to be last night

This one was so bad though it hasn’t happened to the club in 22 years. This was a massive implosion not seen most of the time. 

[We Got The Whole 9]

This is one of those losses where I don't want to open any sports apps or read articles. It stings like a bitch. 

[17 Seconds]

10 minutes ago, WhyCantWeWin said:

This one was so bad though it hasn’t happened to the club in 22 years. This was a massive implosion not seen most of the time. 

yeah but they've had two 8-run comebacks of their own since then (2008 vs rockies, 2018 vs braves), so they were due for one going the other way

it helps if you remember that it only hurts because of sequencing. if they were down 9-0 and lost 9-8, it wouldn't have really hurt. so what's the difference? they just got their runs in different innings. and the bullpen sucks ass, so it's not like they were screwed by baseball randomness. they earned that L

[Jason Ross]

Yeah, I think a few things can be all true at once:

1. This was annoying, a game we should have won

2. There is probably a larger, big picture, bullpen issue here

3. This probably won't happen again and we were due for that kind of implosion. So while it's fair to question our bullpen, we probably won't be blowing these kinds of games moving forward.

[NorthsideAvenger]

51 minutes ago, UMFan83 said:

Not gonna lie, while I was pissed off last night, I’m a jerk and was looking forward to waking up and see everyone’s reaction that didn’t stay up to see the collapse. 

I followed the game as it was happening, then I had to work (I work overnight) with that game still on my mind. The work helped calm me down but it was still a long night.

 

[CubinNY]

David Ross was probably pretty happy sipping his coffee this morning on the redneck riviera. 

[gflore34]

Does Cuas have an options left?  If he does, I'm thinking he's going to be moved to Iowa soon, question is who do they call up?

[Jason Ross]

9 minutes ago, gflore34 said:

Does Cuas have an options left?  If he does, I'm thinking he's going to be moved to Iowa soon, question is who do they call up?

Cuas does have options. Part of the issue is that right now, there's no one on the 40-man to be called up other than Keegan Thompson. The issue with Thompson is the velo is down and he was shelled in Triple-A (I wouldn't be surprised if he's hurt). There could be a slot opened up if Merryweather moves to the 60-IL, but the "who" is a question that would need to be answered. CJ Edwards just got to Iowa and might not be ready. Then you're down to like Thomas Pannone who has 2.2 MLB IP since 2019 (when he had a 5.5+ xFIP) or Sam McWilliams who is 28 and logged zero MLB innings, missed all of 2023, was bad in 2022...

Kind of rock and hard place with the injuries and the young players like Horton not ready for the MLB yet and it being well too early to make any sort of meaningful trade as I'm not sure anyone other than the literal worst of the worst are even considering giving up the plot on April 9th.

[Transmogrified Tiger]

Yeah my order of takeaways would basically be:
 

• Even the best teams lose 2+ months worth of games, and among them are going to be many painful, frustrating losses.  When you use 4 relievers(including 2 late inning stalwarts and your stuff-monster LHRP) and they all give up runs, sometimes it's just not your day.
• This is the price you pay for rotation injuries.  I mentioned earlier in the thread but the last turn through the rotation got 21.2 IP from the starters, 49% of innings. If you're counting on the bullpen to throw more than half of your innings, then you're giving more innings to the worst of your pen and tempting fate.  This is compounded by both Merryweather's injury and the fact that Cuas and Almonte would be less relied upon if Assad and possibly Brown were bullpen options.
• Cuas probably needs some time in Iowa to find his command/release point.  I'd expect that to happen whichever happens sooner between Edwards getting ramped or Taillon being ready to rejoin the rotation, possibly sooner if they want to throw Keegan out there(hey after a bad first outing the last 2 have been solid)
• There's nothing else peripherally standing out, but 2 HR in 5 outings for Adbert has me side-eyeing his progress over the coming weeks, especially with Merryweather out.

[Hairyducked Idiot]

I know most people agree with this but I'm gonna say it again anyway:

If managers actually fixed or broke bullpens, the good ones would make a lot more than $8m/year

[Stratos]

57 minutes ago, 17 Seconds said:

yeah but they've had two 8-run comebacks of their own since then (2008 vs rockies, 2018 vs braves), so they were due for one going the other way

it helps if you remember that it only hurts because of sequencing. if they were down 9-0 and lost 9-8, it wouldn't have really hurt. so what's the difference? they just got their runs in different innings. and the bullpen sucks ass, so it's not like they were screwed by baseball randomness. they earned that L

Besides the pen blowing up, Dansby needs to catch that liner hit at him by Machado.  The exit velocity was 96 mph I believe, not crazy.   And Tauchman needs to stop that ball rolling past him in the gap.   Suzuki missed one like that the other day. 

 I'll never understand how outfielders can watch balls roll past them to the fence when any infielder even a 1B  could easily at least knock it down with a slide.  They just need to slide.

[KCCub]

37 minutes ago, Transmogrified Tiger said:

 

• There's nothing else peripherally standing out, but 2 HR in 5 outings for Adbert has me side-eyeing his progress over the coming weeks, especially with Merryweather out.

Both homeruns have came off his slider - both 85 mph and catching way too much of the plate. The pitcher in me knew after he came high and in with a fastball to Tatis that a breaking ball was coming next. Seemed like Tatis had the same thoughts and was sitting on it. Doubt you'll see much peripherally, but maybe he just needs to locate his breaking pitch better and rely on other pitches to get ahead to where he can throw the slider as more of a chase pitch out of the zone?

[Transmogrified Tiger]

4 minutes ago, KCCub said:

Both homeruns have came off his slider - both 85 mph and catching way too much of the plate. The pitcher in me knew after he came high and in with a fastball to Tatis that a breaking ball was coming next. Seemed like Tatis had the same thoughts and was sitting on it. Doubt you'll see much peripherally, but maybe he just needs to locate his breaking pitch better and rely on other pitches to get ahead to where he can throw the slider as more of a chase pitch out of the zone?

In that vein I suspect if there is an issue, it's that he needs to miss the plate more, which given his control is a gameplanning tweak more than an issue with hitters figuring him out or anything long-term worrisome.  His O-Swing isn't particularly elite for a reliever, doubly so when you consider he has a fairly high Zone% for a reliever, so there's probably room to take a few more risks, like 1-0 to a very dangerous hitter.

[squally1313]

1 hour ago, 1908_Cubs said:

Yeah, I think a few things can be all true at once:

1. This was annoying, a game we should have won

2. There is probably a larger, big picture, bullpen issue here

3. This probably won't happen again and we were due for that kind of implosion. So while it's fair to question our bullpen, we probably won't be blowing these kinds of games moving forward.

4. Our offense is Good. 

 

[Jason Ross]

19 minutes ago, squally1313 said:

4. Our offense is Good. 

 

Oh yes. This is true. And so much fun. I really enjoy watching the team hit,

 

[UMFan83]

2 hours ago, 1908_Cubs said:

This probably won't happen again and we were due for that kind of implosion.

This is the second 6+ run implosion in the late innings while holding a large lead in the last week.  I don't expect it to happen twice a week for the rest of the year, maybe there isn't another one all year and this was just a weird quirky blip, for now its definitely something a bit alarming.

Not trying to get into 'sky is falling' mode because its not but given how historically bad the Cubs pen was last September, this is the last thing I wanted to see to start the year.

Edited April 9, 2024 by UMFan83