5/6/24 - Padres (Darvish) @ Cubs (Steele) 6:40 WFT on MARQ

[PackLandVA]

 

Hey Yu, the Cubs bats are coming to life and you're matched up against their ace from 2023.

 

 

  or 

 

Same difference.

Let's start the series with a win!

 

#WhyNotUS!!

 

 

 

 

[Tim]

(padres)

 

[KCCub]

Have we heard if Steele will have an innings/pitch count restriction?

[Outshined_One]

1 hour ago, Tim said:

(padres)

 

😇

[Stratos]

Hitters batting 0.42 with 62% whiffs on Leiter's splitter.  5th highest whiff% of any pitch so far in MLB.

Further ball Madrigal has hit this year is 316 ft.

[PackLandVA]

3 hours ago, Tim said:

(padres)

 

Danka schön!

[Tim]

55 minutes ago, PackLandVA said:

Danka schön!

de nada

[Derwood]

16:40? So 4:40? 

[Bertz]

10 hours ago, KCCub said:

Have we heard if Steele will have an innings/pitch count restriction?

I think they mentioned on TV one day this weekend 75 pitches

[Bertz]

I'm curious who goes down for Steele tonight

- It's clearly not Leiter, Almonte, or Neris short of a surprise injury

- Brown or Wesneski both got the below nod from Counsell for staying up.  Plus if they were going down you'd think it'd have happened over the weekend

Quote

“They’re getting big-league hitters out, and we certainly see that,” Counsell said. “I think we’re open however we put this staff together and however it works to get those outs every day. We’ll consider those guys, definitely, in any role.”

- Palencia has looked phenomenal since his last callup, so not only should he not go down he needs to get higher leverage work

- Brewer and Lovelady are nothing special, but both are pitching well right now and it feels like the club can't take that for granted at the moment?  Also Brewer you'd lose permanently if you send him down

- Thompson's last two outings haven't been great, but are they really enough to ship him back to Iowa?

- Alzolay is an absolute mess right now, and can't be optioned to Iowa.  Do you phantom IL him to get him a week or two in the pitch lab and then a couple rehab outings to get back into the groove against real hitters?

[WhyCantWeWin]

6 minutes ago, Bertz said:

I'm curious who goes down for Steele tonight

- It's clearly not Leiter, Almonte, or Neris short of a surprise injury

- Brown or Wesneski both got the below nod from Counsell for staying up.  Plus if they were going down you'd think it'd have happened over the weekend

- Palencia has looked phenomenal since his last callup, so not only should he not go down he needs to get higher leverage work

- Brewer and Lovelady are nothing special, but both are pitching well right now and it feels like the club can't take that for granted at the moment?  Also Brewer you'd lose permanently if you send him down

- Thompson's last two outings haven't been great, but are they really enough to ship him back to Iowa?

- Alzolay is an absolute mess right now, and can't be optioned to Iowa.  Do you phantom IL him to get him a week or two in the pitch lab and then a couple rehab outings to get back into the groove against real hitters?

My guess is Brewer, Palencia was elite in that first inning vs the Mets and the brewers game. And i think they’ll keep lovelady until smyly comes back 

[Transmogrified Tiger]

Yeah absent info we don't have like an injury(however legitimate in the case of Alzolay), I think it's Brewer.  He's had a couple decent outings most recently but on the whole hasn't been anything special, he doesn't offer platoon advantage and is clearly at the bottom of Counsell's pecking order.

 

Plus the likelihood of him being needed again is not terribly high and neither is the downside of exposing him to waivers.  If we got to his spot in the Iowa shuttle again, you have no shortage of other options that could be considered next time. From journeyman starter types(Teheran, Straily) to waiver wire fodder(McWilliams, Carl) to legitimate prospects of varying roles(Horton, Hodge, Cuas), there's likely to be someone favored above him at that point.

[Stratos]

55 minutes ago, Bertz said:

I'm curious who goes down for Steele tonight

- It's clearly not Leiter, Almonte, or Neris short of a surprise injury

- Brown or Wesneski both got the below nod from Counsell for staying up.  Plus if they were going down you'd think it'd have happened over the weekend

- Palencia has looked phenomenal since his last callup, so not only should he not go down he needs to get higher leverage work

- Brewer and Lovelady are nothing special, but both are pitching well right now and it feels like the club can't take that for granted at the moment?  Also Brewer you'd lose permanently if you send him down

- Thompson's last two outings haven't been great, but are they really enough to ship him back to Iowa?

- Alzolay is an absolute mess right now, and can't be optioned to Iowa.  Do you phantom IL him to get him a week or two in the pitch lab and then a couple rehab outings to get back into the groove against real hitters?

Good question.

Even Brown might get bounced to keep him stretched.  Nobody on the bubble has been bad.

[squally1313]

Looking at the bullpen situation going into the series:

• Neris - 22 pitches on Saturday, one day of rest
• Leiter - 20 pitches on Saturday, one day of rest
• Almonte - 19 pitches yesterday, two days off prior to that
• Palencia - 12 pitches yesterday, two days off prior to that
• Adbert - 32 pitches on Friday, two days of rest but probably not in consideration for high leverage at the moment
• Brown - threw 89 on Thursday, so on three days rest, would imagine he's off limits today given bigger picture concerns, and then hopefully into a high leverage role behind Shota and Wes after that
• Lovelady - 15 pitches Friday, weekend off, could see some work here with Arraez as their leadoff hitter and Cronenworth as their 3 hitter (and Tatis between them at 2/25 against LHP this year)
• Brewer - 24 pitches Friday, weekend off, assume if he survives the roster movements he's in mop up duty
• Keegan - 16 pitches Saturday, one day of rest - not sure where he falls here in that you probably can't use him for too long if things go sideways, but probably not a high leverage guy either

Their bullpen is in pretty good shape, everyone besides Brito and Kolek should be available tonight, Suarez hasn't pitched since Wednesday. The Musgrove replacement looks very bad and homer-y and you'd really hope that even worst case scenario with the Darvish/Cease games, we can avoid a sweep with Shota against him. 

[Rcal10]

57 minutes ago, squally1313 said:

Looking at the bullpen situation going into the series:

• Neris - 22 pitches on Saturday, one day of rest
• Leiter - 20 pitches on Saturday, one day of rest
• Almonte - 19 pitches yesterday, two days off prior to that
• Palencia - 12 pitches yesterday, two days off prior to that
• Adbert - 32 pitches on Friday, two days of rest but probably not in consideration for high leverage at the moment
• Brown - threw 89 on Thursday, so on three days rest, would imagine he's off limits today given bigger picture concerns, and then hopefully into a high leverage role behind Shota and Wes after that
• Lovelady - 15 pitches Friday, weekend off, could see some work here with Arraez as their leadoff hitter and Cronenworth as their 3 hitter (and Tatis between them at 2/25 against LHP this year)
• Brewer - 24 pitches Friday, weekend off, assume if he survives the roster movements he's in mop up duty
• Keegan - 16 pitches Saturday, one day of rest - not sure where he falls here in that you probably can't use him for too long if things go sideways, but probably not a high leverage guy either

Their bullpen is in pretty good shape, everyone besides Brito and Kolek should be available tonight, Suarez hasn't pitched since Wednesday. The Musgrove replacement looks very bad and homer-y and you'd really hope that even worst case scenario with the Darvish/Cease games, we can avoid a sweep with Shota against him. 

I think Brown would be available today. Wouldn’t this be his throw day if he stayed in the rotation? I would guess he can give multiple innings today if they need it.

[squally1313]

32 minutes ago, Rcal10 said:

I think Brown would be available today. Wouldn’t this be his throw day if he stayed in the rotation? I would guess he can give multiple innings today if they need it.

I think in a five man rotation, normal rest time is four days, so would assume 'throw day' would have been yesterday in that hypothetical. Doubt that actually happened, but I would guess they would like to use him in a multi-inning role and would be hesitant to put him in that spot tonight without being fully recovered from a start. Would guess he's available in some sort of Cubs up 9-7 going into the 6th situation but would like to avoid him. 

Having said that, know Steele is limited and so maybe that is the plan for tonight. A little interesting in that in theory switching Shota and Steele in this series would have kept Brown on his normal schedule to piggyback Steele, while Shota would have still been on 4 days rest....but I guess that shows how much they value the ability to give Shota that extra day. 

[KCCub]

 

 

[Transmogrified Tiger]

Something I hadn't really thought about was how Madrigal's starts at 3B are significantly driven by the 2 lefty groundball SP, and despite being 40% of the opening day rotation they've only made 17% of the starts.  Interested to see if that ticks up as Steele and Wicks return, or if confidence in Morel's defense/lack of confidence in Madrigal's bat win out.  

[KCCub]

 

[WhyCantWeWin]

Woah did not expect Thompson to be sent down 

[Rcal10]

14 minutes ago, WhyCantWeWin said:

Woah did not expect Thompson to be sent down 

Him or brewer. Not a big deal. When Hendricks gets activated I would think Brewer would be next to go. 

[Bertz]

Would make me think best guess for Bellinger is Friday and Monday for Suzuki?

 

[Rcal10]

3 minutes ago, Bertz said:

Would make me think best guess for Bellinger is Friday and Monday for Suzuki?

 

That sounds about right. I guess Canario and PCA go down. I just met PCA this morning. I am staying at the Zachary Hotel, next to Wrigley. I was eating breakfast and he came down to the restaurant to meet his mom and sat right next to us. I just said hi and told him to keep it going. He said that you and he would try. 

[PeanutPunch33]

I've missed watching that Justin Steele pitch, with him back this rotation is as good as it gets

[JHBulls]

So good having Justin Steele back.