Dodgers (Sasaki) vs Cubs (Steele): 3/19/25, 5:10am

[Rcal10]

2 hours ago, I owned a Suzuki said:

I don't know why I thought they would each have a home game. I hope Ricketts is getting PAID for this

He did get paid. As the home team the Cubs get the gate. And unlike games in the states, this is not shared with the rest of baseball. Doesn’t count towards their revenues. That is why he wanted to be the home team in both games. He couldn’t care less about losing 2 home games and having to play in a park where the Cubs were obviously not the home team in the eyes of the fans. He couldn’t care less if they lost. This was great for Ricketts because he gets the money without sharing. 

[Brian707]

14 minutes ago, Rcal10 said:

 This was great for Ricketts because he gets the money without sharing. 

Spot on.

 

Did anyone honestly think the Cubs would be anything but 0-2 after these two games?

[Illiterate Scholar]

It's baseball and they won the season series against the Dodgers last year, So yeah I had some hope.

[Irrelevant Dude]

23 minutes ago, Rcal10 said:

He did get paid. As the home team the Cubs get the gate.

AND he was able to raise per game ticket prices for Season Ticket Holders while disguising the increase behind 2 fewer games in the package.

[chibears55]

3 hours ago, GoCubsGo1978 said:

Did the Cubs really waste two home games by playing in Tokyo?  

No, Dodgers probably beat them easily at WF too.  

[chibears55]

1 hour ago, UMFan83 said:

Still have $20m to spend right?  Right??

Yep, it's still kinda ST

Spend some of that money on bullpen arms

 

[Bertz]

19 minutes ago, Illiterate Scholar said:

It's baseball and they won the season series against the Dodgers last year, So yeah I had some hope.

It is very rare that a baseball game is more than 70/30 in any direction.

[chibears55]

Only thing that sucks is that when everyone else in the Division starts up, the Cubs are already 2 losses back and their schedule in April is rough. 😵‍💫😵‍💫😵‍💫

[squally1313]

1 hour ago, Rcal10 said:

He did get paid. As the home team the Cubs get the gate. And unlike games in the states, this is not shared with the rest of baseball. Doesn’t count towards their revenues. That is why he wanted to be the home team in both games. He couldn’t care less about losing 2 home games and having to play in a park where the Cubs were obviously not the home team in the eyes of the fans. He couldn’t care less if they lost. This was great for Ricketts because he gets the money without sharing. 

To be fair, they were the 'road team' in London. Not sure how much say the owners had. 

[UMFan83]

4 minutes ago, squally1313 said:

To be fair, they were the 'road team' in London. Not sure how much say the owners had. 

I don't know why they don't just split them 1 home game each.  Is there any logical reason that they wouldn't?

That's what I thought this was.  I didn't realize we only have 79 games at Wrigley this year now.  Did the Cubs do the same thing the Bears did last year and keep season ticket prices the same, but you're really paying more because you're buying 2 less games?  Definitely seems like a Grifter Tom thing to do.

Edited March 19, 2025 by UMFan83

[Irrelevant Dude]

20 minutes ago, UMFan83 said:

That's what I thought this was.  I didn't realize we only have 79 games at Wrigley this year now.  Did the Cubs do the same thing the Bears did last year and keep season ticket prices the same, but you're really paying more because you're buying 2 less games?  Definitely seems like a Grifter Tom thing to do.

Yep, pretty much.  I think it ended up being a very small increase in total, but a slightly larger increase when you consider you're actually paying for 2 less games.

[Irrelevant Dude]

23 minutes ago, UMFan83 said:

I don't know why they don't just split them 1 home game each.  Is there any logical reason that they wouldn't?

I would guess it is because the Cubs are only going to play 2 series against the Dodgers, 1 home and 1 away.  So if you split the international games, then where do you play the domestic series?

[Brian707]

Cubs play Dodgers twice at Wrigley and 3 times in LA. 

 

If they would have split it, it would have been 3 at Wrigley and 2 at LA. I haven't looked, but its easier to do a 2 game series during the week as opposed to Fri-Sun(I think that is when the games in LA are)

Anyway that's the only logic I have that would make Grifter Tom look less of a money grabber.

Edited March 19, 2025 by Brian707

[CubinNY]

I agree with the criticism about these games counting, but it's only two games and the Dodgers. The thing that is going to hurt the Cubs the most is the new(ish) schedule where they don't play teams in the division as much as they used to play them. 

They have to tread water for the first six weeks or they are going to put themselves in a real bind. 

 

[squally1313]

1 minute ago, CubinNY said:

I agree with the criticism about these games counting, but it's only two games and the Dodgers. The thing that is going to hurt the Cubs the most is the new(ish) schedule where they don't play teams in the division as much as they used to play them. 

They have to tread water for the first six weeks or they are going to put themselves in a real bind. 

 

It really is insane how tough the schedule is for the first six weeks and then how drastically it drops off after that. We go from

@ Ari, @ Athletics, v SD, v Texas, @ LAD, @ SD, v Ari, v LAD, v Phil, @ Pitt, @ Mil, v SF, @ NYM

to

v Miami, v CWS, @ Miami, @ Cincy, v Colorado, v Cincy, @ Wash

I saw some tweet yesterday that our March/April is the hardest month any team has in baseball, and our May is the easiest, and overall we're like 22nd in schedule strength. 

[Bertz]

2 minutes ago, squally1313 said:

It really is insane how tough the schedule is for the first six weeks and then how drastically it drops off after that. We go from

@ Ari, @ Athletics, v SD, v Texas, @ LAD, @ SD, v Ari, v LAD, v Phil, @ Pitt, @ Mil, v SF, @ NYM

to

v Miami, v CWS, @ Miami, @ Cincy, v Colorado, v Cincy, @ Wash

I saw some tweet yesterday that our March/April is the hardest month any team has in baseball, and our May is the easiest, and overall we're like 22nd in schedule strength. 

I included multiple games under .500 on May 1st and 5+ games over on June 1st in my bold predictions post but honestly it's just a thing I expect to happen

Even the teams that aren't that scary I expect to be rough.  Like we're lined up to likely get deGrom vs. Texas, Pittsburgh will surely make sure we get Skenes/Jones.  It's brutal.

The saving grace is the off days.  The team has at least one off day (usually Thursday) every week until June.  A benefit of this Dodgers series is we do get more off days in the "real" season, in addition to the already lax travel schedule the team already has.  It's stuff that's hard to quantify but likely shows up during the grind.

[Tryptamine]

Cub pitchers giving up 15 walks in 18 innings is pretty damn awful, not to mention Cub hitters striking out 21 times in the same 18 innings. Small sample size, but man that was all kinds of bad.

[Connor McConnor]

5 hours ago, KCCub said:

I can't get over how ugly Matt Shaw's swing is.

Not what I wanted to see when I first turned on the TV that early in the morning.   That 2nd AB today was ugly indeed.   

[Jason Ross]

"Sloppy" is how I would describe these two games - but I think that's what we should have expected. Any other year, and these two games are played at Sloan Park. Hell, the Cubs are headed back there to resume Spring Training as is. The pitchers are still working themselves into form while the hitters are refining processes. If these two games happened in June, they'd have been a small sample size to begin with, then you add in that these are two games in which they were supposed to be practicing and gearing up, and they were literally half-way across the world?

Bummer they lost, but the way they looked is kind of what I thought we'd see. I'm going to try to take very little away from these games other than considering them as a bit of an oddity. 

[WhyCantWeWin]

Maybe they were out partying too late? Trying to find a reason for them losing as badly as they did despite the Dodgers missing 2 of the best players in the league from their lineup. 

[Jason Ross]

1 minute ago, WhyCantWeWin said:

Maybe they were out partying too late? Trying to find a reason for them losing as badly as they did despite the Dodgers missing 2 of the best players in the league from their lineup. 

I think the easy answer is "it's still spring training" for these guys. April can already be a bit of a transition period for players, and the Cubs were playing a game that counted weeks before they normally would on another continent. Weird situation. 

I'd have liked for them to look a bit sharper, but I won't blame them for not, either. 

[Rcal10]

3 hours ago, squally1313 said:

To be fair, they were the 'road team' in London. Not sure how much say the owners had. 

Each team was the home team one game in London. Each team lost 1 game from their home schedule. 

[JHBulls]

0-2 in Japan sucks. Putting Japan in the rearview mirror is good. 

[Dfan25]

Didn’t understand why Tucker swung at a 3-0 pitch with no outs , nobody on and down by multiple runs in the 7th inning I think it was  .
 

PCA did the same thing on a 2-0 count in the 8th . Both were really bad pitches out of the strike zone , but whatever . 

0-2 and now they have to get on a plane 13 hours , back to Arizona and play fake baseball for 5 days . The schedule in April is brutal as it has been pointed out already 

[Bertz]

If we're reading too hard into two games, here's some of the stuff that stood out to me. 

Things I liked:

- Most of the pitchers' stuff was where we expect it to be.  Big picture this is probably the thing all 30 teams care most about until ~May, so box thus far checked 

- The bottom half of the order did their jobs.  The catchers hit well, Swanson looks healthy, Berti did a good job in the 9 hole.  My #1 worry for this team is that the bottom half of the order is a mess, so this was a tiny sign that worry is overblown

Things I didn't like:

- Pressly looked broken this morning.  He was fine on Friday, and it is mid March, so it's not a 5 alarm fire.  But that was a concerning outing

- It wasn't one of the real games but Taillon’s velo was down after he spent the offseason trying to claw some back.  Steele's velo was also down this AM, though it kind of sank as the game went on so I think he was gassed.  Hopefully an adrenaline thing, might also tie back to his flu two weeks back.  Might be worth lining him up as the #5 coming out of ST, that way he would have almost two weeks before having to pitch in a game that counts

- Busch and Shaw looked BAD.  Shaw's making his debut in a high pressure environment, so I am pretty understanding there.  Busch I'm hoping it was just the steady diet of splitters giving him fits, but chalk it up as instance #59432 of Spring Training not carrying over to games that count