Reds (Lodolo) vs Cubs (Soroka): 8/4/25, 7:05pm

[Derwood]

44 minutes ago, Hot Sauce said:

Braves haven’t had it together at any one point all season.

Now's as good a time as any

[Derwood]

Soroka's breaking stuff has good movement.

[Eeyore]

Squeezed against McClain and gets a call vs. DeLa Cruz?

[sweetpeteman]

Just now, Eeyore said:

Squeezed against McClain and gets a call vs. DeLa Cruz?

Bucknor

[Jason Ross]

That slurve is nasty.

[chibears55]

Hmmmm 👀

[Tangled Up in Plaid]

Velocity is really bad if these are really 4SFB. Only going by statcast, can't watch.

[Ding Dong Johnson]

Gotta love that 91 mph heater!

 

[Jason Ross]

Just now, Jason Ross said:

That slurve is nasty.

To bring some data, he gets a whiff 38.1% of the time and has a 27.4% put away on it. 

[Jason Ross]

2 minutes ago, Tangled Up in Plaid said:

Velocity is really bad if these are really 4SFB. Only going by statcast, can't watch.

Matt wrote an article about it. The velocity drop is designed and isn't really a bug, it's a feature.

 

[Derwood]

Bucknor is going to be flipping a coin on every pitch all night. Get ready to be very annoyed

[Rcal10]

3 hours ago, chibears55 said:

Not sure but they could be playing less day home games in July and August then before.

Playing more night games then day games has alot to with it as the weather gets cooler at night, the wind shifts more.

 

Not sure if wind shifts to blowing in at night in Chicago. I haven’t seen anything that backs that up. But maybe🤷 However, that wouldn’t explain all the day games the Cubs have played, including each Orioles game, with the wind blowing in. 

[Soul]

It just feels like we are methodically facing each lefty on each team.

[PeanutPunch33]

3 hours ago, chibears55 said:

Maybe Assad will be held up until September when rosters expand, unless they plan on sending Brown down for him to return in August. 

Guessing Rea will go to pen when Taillon returns next week or so with Pomeranz likely DFA or IL.

I dont think theres any other pitcher to move off roster besides Brown and Pomeranz.

It has to be Brown that goes down. And tbh, he deserves it. Way too inconsistent. I do think he’d be good out of the pen though 

[Rcal10]

Soroka is going to have to be good today. I don’t see the Cubs getting more than 3 runs today. Lodoka is tough. 

[Jason Ross]

horsefeathers. He hung that one. 

[Soul]

2 minutes ago, Rcal10 said:

Soroka is going to have to be good today. I don’t see the Cubs getting more than 3 runs today. Lodoka is tough. 

Please be quiet .

[Soul]

Just now, Jason Ross said:

horsefeathers. He hung that one. 

And that fastball is not going to miss any bats.

[Eeyore]

Wind only blows in when the Cubs bat.

[Soul]

Just now, Eeyore said:

Wind only blows in when the Cubs bat.

🤨 

[Jason Ross]

4 minutes ago, Soul said:

And that fastball is not going to miss any bats.

Actually, it does! Don't focus on the velocity so much - I know we're conditioned to see 91 and think "uh oh!" but since his velocity dropped, he's gotten much better results on the fastball. Throwing 94-95 is cool to us, but his shape suffers at that velocity. By dropping the velo, allows for the earth to react to the baseball a bit more and create more shape.

Now, his issue with the fastball tonight has been placement - don't love him down at the knees with that thing. It's shaped and designed up in the zone. Think of him as a poor-mans Shota in that aspect. Shota throws 90-91 but it's the shape of the fastball (his is better than Michaels) and gets good whiff when he gets it up. Ideally Soroka would be on the upper third of the plate when he comes with the four-seam, not on the bottom third.

[Jason Ross]

CB Bucknor is the best advertisement for why the ABS challenge system is needed.

[Cubbies1996]

CB Buckner: Bad at his job

[sweetpeteman]

Well huh, Lodolo coming out. Just indicated to the dugout.

[Derwood]

Well that's a break