4/28 Cubs (Wesneski) @ Red Sox (Houck) 6:10 PM CT ESPN

[Transmogrified Tiger]

2 minutes ago, WhyCantWeWin said:

Said it a few games ago, Leiter has looked off recently, wonder if he’s dealing with fatigue or injury. 

He gave up a 7 pitch walk, a single to Rafael Devers, and sawed off O'Neill.  Not ideal but not exactly looking broken out there.

[Dfan25]

Where the horsefeathers was  Happ on that play ?  Was he playing against the monster for O’Neill ? Even if Swanson gets that , Duran scores . 

[Illiterate Scholar]

I wish Duran would've been tagging on that replay so I would've felt better. He would not have score there with a catch. Damn.

[Transmogrified Tiger]

3 minutes ago, squally1313 said:

I don’t really know how Happ wasn’t in position to make that catch. Anything over 300 feet ends the game either way. 

Statcast says it went 180 feet, only about 10 feet further than Madrigal's pop up to Dalbec in the top half.  Remember, Swanson was on the infield grass so our point of reference for his retreat to the ball is very different than normal.

[s2obed]

Just now, Dfan25 said:

Where the horsefeathers was  Happ on that play ?  Was he playing against the monster for O’Neill ? Even if Swanson gets that , Duran scores . 

Nah, Duran was already down the line. If Dansby catches that he’s gotta go back to touch 3rd and then go home. 

[UMFan83]

Gotta find a way to piece together a some wins over the few weeks without the players who account for probably 40% of our projected WAR this year.

[Soul]

It’s even more frustrating that the runner wasn’t tagging up.

[JHBulls]

With how little peripheral vision baseball outfielders and infielders seem to have, the alternative would have been for Swanson and Happ to crash into each other and each be on the IL for months. I’ll take the L. 

[We Got The Whole 9]

Swanson, Happ, and Morel need to figure it out. Those guys can't be posting 600 ops. 

 

 

[Brock Beauchamp]

@Rex Buckingham you’re up for Monday’s game thread!

[Stratos]

7 hours ago, squally1313 said:

I don’t really know how Happ wasn’t in position to make that catch. Anything over 300 feet ends the game either way. 

I don't get it either.

[Bertz]

I don't know what specifically goes into this guy's model vs. what shows up on FG but he gets quote tweeted into my timeline pretty regularly by people I respect.  But if Hayden's cutter is now an impact pitch to go along with his sweeper and his fastball/changeup/sinker are all grading out as  vaguely average we might be cooking.  Especially with the way Hayden fills up the strikezone.

[Jason Ross]

51 minutes ago, Bertz said:

I don't know what specifically goes into this guy's model vs. what shows up on FG but he gets quote tweeted into my timeline pretty regularly by people I respect.  But if Hayden's cutter is now an impact pitch to go along with his sweeper and his fastball/changeup/sinker are all grading out as  vaguely average we might be cooking.  Especially with the way Hayden fills up the strikezone.

The big thing about the cutter is this: that's the pitch he's been missing to be an effective SP. Cutters are especially effective from RHP to LHH...it's what's made Kutter Crawford so viable against lefties. It should be unsurprising he basically didn't use it against RHH last night but featured it about 30% of the time to left handers. 

We have discussed a few times on the board as a whole that he's made little progress on a changeup or a splitfinger...but if he can show a cutter that's even a bit above league average...he can stick in the rotation. Really good news. 

[Transmogrified Tiger]

To that end, LHH are 2 for 17 against Wesneski in his 2024 time in Chicago.  Only 1 K, but that can be forgiven for bottom line progress, especially when his GB% is north of 50% to both sided hitters and he's got 1 BB in 10.1 IP.

[Jason Ross]

5 minutes ago, Transmogrified Tiger said:

To that end, LHH are 2 for 17 against Wesneski in his 2024 time in Chicago.  Only 1 K, but that can be forgiven for bottom line progress, especially when his GB% is north of 50% to both sided hitters and he's got 1 BB in 10.1 IP.

Last night was a big step forward on the cutter usage, which is interesting. Thus far, he had been using the cutter about 16% of the time against LHH. Last night was just shy of 30% usage...which is almost a 50% usage jump. Not sure if that's specifically a Boston Red Sox thing or what...but an interesting data point moving forward to note.