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

[Soul]

This ump…..

[Rex Buckingham]

Thanks CB!

[Wilson A2000]

Bucknor needs to retire or be fired. He’s going to get challenged to death next year.

[JHBulls]

One thing I’ll say about Angel Hernandez is that he genuinely looked like he gave zero fucks whenever he made a bad call. CB on the other hand looks genuinely perplexed. 

Edited August 5, 2025 by JHBulls

[Jason Ross]

Right shoulder discomfort. Not great.

[DYMNO]

Right shoulder discomfort. Yay. 

[Guest]

shoulder discomfort for Soroda

[BobbyD3]

If the velo drop was unintentional, we might have just found the culprit.

[DYMNO]

Suzuki missing meatballs and Jed failing to add to the SP depth. I’m pumped. (And irrationally upset and pessimistic. My apologies.)

[Derwood]

Nice trade, Jed

[Rcal10]

Any chance the trade can be voided if the Nationals gave us damaged goods? Doesn’t help now, but we get the prospects back.

[Irrelevant Dude]

Nice job Jed.  Could you have foreseen the injury?  No.  Do you deserve it for your half-assed approach to the trade deadline?  Absolutely.

[KCCub]

Did WSH say “no take backs”? In all seriousness, if the velo being down the past few starts is a result of his shoulder and not arm slot changes/shape, that’s pretty rough. Everyone was questioning the drop in velo, so the Cubs had to be assured he was all good right? Right??

[Wilson A2000]

Glad Jed went after the “value” pitcher whose velocity had been dropping. There’s a reason why the other GMs don’t think he’s any good.

[squally1313]

eight dimensional chess from Jed to trade for injured goods to force the Ben Brown renaissance 

[chibears55]

They got dealt damaged good 🙄🙄

So much for getting any pitching help at the deadline, back to 5 they needed to improve on.

[Derwood]

Cubs medical evaluation system might need to be revised

[UMFan83]

4 minutes ago, Rcal10 said:

Any chance the trade can be voided if the Nationals gave us damaged goods? Doesn’t help now, but we get the prospects back.

People on twitter are saying he was having arm issues before getting traded. No idea if that’s true but if so wtf are you doing Jed?

[Jason Ross]

1 minute ago, KCCub said:

Did WSH say “no take backs”? In all seriousness, if the velo being down the past few starts is a result of his shoulder and not arm slot changes/shape, that’s pretty rough. Everyone was questioning the drop in velo, so the Cubs had to be assured he was all good right? Right??

Here's the positive outlook here:

Everything that he did with the velo drop seemed to have intention. It'd have been one thing if we just saw a velo drop, but he made mechanical changes that were directly tied to what you'd expect would drop velo and increase shape. He also pitched in a very particular way that highlighted that shape change.

One of the things he did was raise his arm slot. Raising the arm slot creates heavier load in the shoulder, where as dropping the arm slow moves the load more towards the elbow/forearm. With a change in armslot it could great extra soreness in the shoulder area that Michael is feeling a bit. If it's just that, it'd be a short stint and he'd be right back. 

The negative look is that he was feeling the shoulder issues and he changed his mechanics because he was feeling it. This caused him to leave his fastball up in the zone more. But I assume at that point, the Cubs would have had plenty of access to medicals and a physical would have revealed this. 

[Soul]

4 minutes ago, KCCub said:

Did WSH say “no take backs”? In all seriousness, if the velo being down the past few starts is a result of his shoulder and not arm slot changes/shape, that’s pretty rough. Everyone was questioning the drop in velo, so the Cubs had to be assured he was all good right? Right??

Of course not.

[chibears55]

3 minutes ago, Rcal10 said:

Any chance the trade can be voided if the Nationals gave us damaged goods? Doesn’t help now, but we get the prospects back.

Wondering the same thing, also, dont they do some short of physical after the trade.

[Dfan25]

Velo down and shoulder discomfort . Yup , Hoyer traded for 2 innings of Soroka .  They couldn’t even get Charlie Morton . Absolutely pathetic 

[BigSlick]

What the hell kind of Ball 1 is this 

[Jason Ross]

Just now, Dfan25 said:

Velo down and shoulder discomfort . Yup , Hoyer traded for 2 innings of Soroka .  They couldn’t even get Charlie Morton . Absolutely pathetic 

Charlie Morton has been horrible since mid-June. I'm not sure we wanted him. 

[Geographyhater8888]

WTF Dansby!!!