Royals (Lugo) vs Cubs (Rea): 7/23/25, 1:20pm

[BigSlick]

I think the present teams are roughly equivalent (which is kind of obvious to say given they have virtually the same record) - the Cubs have a better offense, the Brewers have a better pitching staff. 
 

Probably, the Cubs pitching will improve as people come off the IL and people are acquired, and there’s really no commensurate improvement to be found in the Brewers, but who’s to say! Baseball is a dumb and evil sport.

 

[gflore34]

18 minutes ago, Rcal10 said:

This is also not correct. The Brewers are not better. They have a 1 game lead after being incredibly hot for a ridiculous amount of time. The Cubs will make moves, but as they are presently constructed the Brewers aren’t better than the Cubs. 

Indeed, the Brewers are not better, when you consider some of data, they don't hit they ball hard - 27th, they hit a bunch of GB's and their bullpen isn't exactly shut down impregnable it's truly remarkable what they've been able to do. Yes, they have a great rotation but, the other facets aren't indicative of .700 team.  I give them credit yet, what they've done is not sustainable.  Those other Brewer teams had far more pop and offensive firepower compared to this team, the lack of fire power, the dependence on getting multiple hits to score is eventually going to take a toll on this team.

[NorthsideAvenger]

6 minutes ago, gflore34 said:

Indeed, the Brewers are not better, when you consider some of data, they don't hit they ball hard - 27th, they hit a bunch of GB's and their bullpen isn't exactly shut down impregnable it's truly remarkable what they've been able to do. Yes, they have a great rotation but, the other facets aren't indicative of .700 team.  I give them credit yet, what they've done is not sustainable.  Those other Brewer teams had far more pop and offensive firepower compared to this team, the lack of fire power, the dependence on getting multiple hits to score is eventually going to take a toll on this team.

You don't want to be peaking in June/July like the Brewers are doing. I honestly believe August/September will not be fun for Milwaukee.

[Rcal10]

Just now, NorthsideAvenger said:

You don't want to be peaking in June/July like the Brewers are doing. I honestly believe August/September will not be fun for Milwaukee.

Seems there are just two types of people here. Those who overreact to the Brewers playing great the last 50 games and explaining how they are so much better than the Cubs that the Cubs have to make several moves to just compete. And then there are the ones that feel they need to disrespect the Brewers by suggesting they will fold late in the season.
Why can’t the Brewers be good, but the Cubs are very good too? I said it over a month ago. When the Cubs had a 5 game lead I said I still worry about the Brewers and only the Brewers in this division. That doesn’t mean I think they are a better team. I don’t. But I do respect them and realize they are a good team who will be tough to beat. 

[BigSlick]

I dunno why but I'm reminded of Ryan Braun and just how much I hated that guy for over a decade. Hate that dude. 

[chibears55]

2 hours ago, gflore34 said:

No need to let Lugo leave town, give a KC their choice of a few lottery tickets.

If he's who Hoyer wants, i hope he gets him by this weekend so he can make his next start against the Brewers next week instead of with the Royals.

[NorthsideAvenger]

1 hour ago, Rcal10 said:

Seems there are just two types of people here. Those who overreact to the Brewers playing great the last 50 games and explaining how they are so much better than the Cubs that the Cubs have to make several moves to just compete. And then there are the ones that feel they need to disrespect the Brewers by suggesting they will fold late in the season.
Why can’t the Brewers be good, but the Cubs are very good too? I said it over a month ago. When the Cubs had a 5 game lead I said I still worry about the Brewers and only the Brewers in this division. That doesn’t mean I think they are a better team. I don’t. But I do respect them and realize they are a good team who will be tough to beat. 

I don't disagree. I am simply waiting on that cold streak every team goes through or at least trying convince that Brewers will go through that cold spell.

With that said. I suspect the division lead will hot potato between thr Cubs and Brewers till the end of the season. Cubs need to be ready to kick the Brewers arse when it is time.

[gflore34]

As for today' and Monday' games even struggling offensive teams can hit bad pitching, that's exactly what that BS was terrible pitching by Cubs.  You could see Rea wasn't going to be effective today, he kept missing up, didn't throw first pitch strikes those are recipes for disaster.  I think Rea has one more effective start in him, seems like last year and this year are following similar patterns.  A few good starts, get rocked, follow that up with an effective start or two, rinse repeat. I think he'll be out of the rotation by mid-August at the latest, maybe, by the second week of August at the earliest.

[Dfan25]

31 minutes ago, NorthsideAvenger said:

I don't disagree. I am simply waiting on that cold streak every team goes through or at least trying convince that Brewers will go through that cold spell.

With that said. I suspect the division lead will hot potato between thr Cubs and Brewers till the end of the season. Cubs need to be ready to kick the Brewers arse when it is time.

They had a cold streak at the beginning of the season . The Cubs are more likely to get a cold streak , considering they haven’t loss 4 games in a  row yet . It is extremely  difficult to avoid a losing strak in a 162 game season .

 

 

[Dfan25]

They still have a pretty good lead over the Giants fue the last WC spot , just in case Milwaukee is just too much to handle .

[Stu]

3 hours ago, BigSlick said:

I dunno why but I'm reminded of Ryan Braun and just how much I hated that guy for over a decade. Hate that dude. 

It says a lot about the character of a man who’s making millions and blames his cheating on a Fed Ex driver making 20-something an hour

[Stratos]

8 hours ago, javy knows my name said:

Prefer Rea to even a healthy/non-rusty Assad big time

Given the pen has greatly overachieved and is likely to regress and may already be happening, I think we have a below-average pitching staff.  Factor in our very good defense who are obviously helping our pitchers and it becomes very apparent.

Rea, Assad, Taillon.  These are below average to average at best.   We need to do better.

This isn't a team built to win a WS, it's built to have a good shot to get into the playoffs and hope for the best.  That's all ownership cares about and we have to live with that.  This is a business and their goal is to make money, not to win.

 

[Geographyhater8888]

2 hours ago, Stratos said:

Given the pen has greatly overachieved and is likely to regress and may already be happening, I think we have a below-average pitching staff.  Factor in our very good defense who are obviously helping our pitchers and it becomes very apparent.

Rea, Assad, Taillon.  These are below average to average at best.   We need to do better.

This isn't a team built to win a WS, it's built to have a good shot to get into the playoffs and hope for the best.  That's all ownership cares about and we have to live with that.  This is a business and their goal is to make money, not to win.

 

They’re 9-2 in games started by either Shota or Boys and 6-12 in games started by the other 3-5 since June 17. They simply can’t keep the ball in park with the wind blowing out outside of Boyd and Shota on a consistent basis at an acceptable level .

You have 2 reliable arms, a couple of so so options and an automatic loss every 5 games since Taillon was placed on the IL. The low leverage arms can’t hold a deficit either.
 

way too many solo homers by the offense, I want Busch back in the 5 hole with runners on and added protection for Suzuki and PCA. It’s not panic time but that’s with the assumption they’ll upgrade at the deadline. 

Edited July 24, 2025 by Geographyhater8888

[Geographyhater8888]

7 hours ago, Dfan25 said:

They had a cold streak at the beginning of the season . The Cubs are more likely to get a cold streak , considering they haven’t loss 4 games in a  row yet . It is extremely  difficult to avoid a losing strak in a 162 game season .

 

 

 

7 hours ago, Dfan25 said:

They had a cold streak at the beginning of the season . The Cubs are more likely to get a cold streak , considering they haven’t loss 4 games in a  row yet . It is extremely  difficult to avoid a losing strak in a 162 game season .

 

 

Cubs haven’t really had a hot streak either. 5 games is their season high winning streak. They’re more of a Ferris wheel than a roller coaster ride. 
 

when you have a black hole and 2 meh arms outside of Boyd and Shota coupled with their struggles vs left handed pitchers spanning for 2 months it’s impossible to sustain long win streaks. The low leverage arms can’t exactly hold a deficit either and a majority of their losses have come via blowouts. 

When they upgrade at the deadline hopefully it minimizes any inevitable cold streak and they can sustain a winning streak past 5 games.

 

Edited July 24, 2025 by Geographyhater8888

[JunkyardWalrus]

7 hours ago, Stu said:

It says a lot about the character of a man who’s making millions and blames his cheating on a Fed Ex driver making 20-something an hour

Sounds presidential...

[javy knows my name]

6 hours ago, Stratos said:

This isn't a team built to win a WS, it's built to have a good shot to get into the playoffs and hope for the best.

These are the exact same thing 

[squally1313]

34 minutes ago, javy knows my name said:

These are the exact same thing 

Thank you. It's not like, fun to think about, because you want to play up the intensity and drama and whatever else of Playoff Baseball. But it's almost entirely the same game. The one difference you can point to is the additional days off, which lets you lean more on your good pitchers and avoid having to use your bad ones in leverage situations. But like...that's certainly not a uniquely bad thing for the Cubs. It's probably a good thing (see the stat above about Shota/Boyd starts v everyone else starts), but also everyone else gets to do that too, so it mostly balances out. Offense goes down because you face better pitchers more frequently, but that's true across the board. There isn't teams built for playoffs vs teams built for the regular season. There's just varying degrees of good teams playing a five game series of a game where winning 6 out of 10 times is considered elite. Roll the dice. 

[Derwood]

1 hour ago, javy knows my name said:

These are the exact same thing 

Right. The Dodgers and Astros have been in the "built for the WS" mode for 10 years, and while they've each made it to 4 WS, they've only won half the time. 2 titles in 10 years is nothing to be ashamed of, but being "built for it" doesn't guarantee anything.

[gflore34]

2 hours ago, javy knows my name said:

These are the exact same thing 

Almost the same idea as the NCAA, get into the tournament anything can happen.  Now, I know this idea isn't generally realistic for the lower seeds, maybe, 9/10/11-16 but, it certainly applies to seeds 1-8.  Additionally, baseball is one of the sports where chance, luck, play a big role.  If I'm not mistaken of the four major sports - baseball, basketball, football and hockey - chance/luck comes into the picture the most for baseball.

Edited July 24, 2025 by gflore34

[gflore34]

54 minutes ago, Derwood said:

Right. The Dodgers and Astros have been in the "built for the WS" mode for 10 years, and while they've each made it to 4 WS, they've only won half the time. 2 titles in 10 years is nothing to be ashamed of, but being "built for it" doesn't guarantee anything.

Too many examples of average to good teams getting into the playoffs and making it or winning the WS.

[NorthsideAvenger]

If an 83 win Cardinals team can it all....

 

[Stratos]

8 hours ago, Geographyhater8888 said:

They’re 9-2 in games started by either Shota or Boys and 6-12 in games started by the other 3-5 since June 17. They simply can’t keep the ball in park with the wind blowing out outside of Boyd and Shota on a consistent basis at an acceptable level .

You have 2 reliable arms, a couple of so so options and an automatic loss every 5 games since Taillon was placed on the IL. The low leverage arms can’t hold a deficit either.
 

way too many solo homers by the offense, I want Busch back in the 5 hole with runners on and added protection for Suzuki and PCA. It’s not panic time but that’s with the assumption they’ll upgrade at the deadline. 

We're still a good team but not quite as good as we've played in the first half given the pen luck and luck avoiding with position player injuries.