Cubs (Imanaga) vs Cardinals (Gray): 8/10/25, 6:10pm

[Derwood]

I’ve convinced myself that had they made the correct call on Berti’s steal that he would have been gunned down at home on Nico’s single. Sh!t luck is sh!t luck and it will always find you

[cl smooth]

[Brian707]

2 hours ago, 17 Seconds said:

this season is going perfectly for the Ricketts. the cubs will probably sneak into the playoffs AND tucker is having a disappointing enough year that a lot of people already don't want to sign him. they're probably thrilled.

PTR:

 

[Rcal10]

For all the gloom and doom about the Cubs getting caught and missing the playoffs, I have to ask, who is charging after them? Maybe SD can pass them for first wild card team. But who else? The Mets who are 1-9 in their last ten? The charging (5-5 in their last 10) Reds? There is really no other threat unless people honestly think the Cardinals or Giants can catch the Cubs. Cubs are the same 5-5 in their last 10 that the Reds are. News flash…. The Reds aren’t charging.
I am not happy with the way the Cubs are playing, but the truth is even continuing this aggravating pace of .500 through the rest of the season will get the Cubs securely in the playoffs. Where I am pretty sure, at some point they will lose so everyone can say “I told you so”.                                         Being negative is just an easy and lazy narrative to take. Considering only 1 team wins the WS, being negative all the time will eventually allow you to say “I told you so”. The only time that doesn’t happen is if they win it all. Which 29/30 teams do not do.

[CubUgly]

5 minutes ago, Rcal10 said:

For all the gloom and doom about the Cubs getting caught and missing the playoffs, I have to ask, who is charging after them? Maybe SD can pass them for first wild card team. But who else? The Mets who are 1-9 in their last ten? The charging (5-5 in their last 10) Reds? There is really no other threat unless people honestly think the Cardinals or Giants can catch the Cubs. Cubs are the same 5-5 in their last 10 that the Reds are. News flash…. The Reds aren’t charging.
I am not happy with the way the Cubs are playing, but the truth is even continuing this aggravating pace of .500 through the rest of the season will get the Cubs securely in the playoffs. Where I am pretty sure, at some point they will lose so everyone can say “I told you so”.                                         Being negative is just an easy and lazy narrative to take. Considering only 1 team wins the WS, being negative all the time will eventually allow you to say “I told you so”. The only time that doesn’t happen is if they win it all. Which 29/30 teams do not do.

It's amazing how all the teams with the better records are playing bad ball at the same time right now, never seen anything like it.

And at least they limited the screen time for the child ump, I heard the social media outcry was so severe ESPN got the memo. 

[Soul]

1 hour ago, 17 Seconds said:

the WC lead is 6 games (7 in the loss column) , 4.5 is the distance ahead of the mets

That’s my bad

[NorthsideAvenger]

1 hour ago, CubinNY said:

It's designed to be an 80ish win team. 

Not good enough to be an actual contender, not bad enough to get a top pick.

[Geographyhater8888]

1 hour ago, Rcal10 said:

For all the gloom and doom about the Cubs getting caught and missing the playoffs, I have to ask, who is charging after them? Maybe SD can pass them for first wild card team. But who else? The Mets who are 1-9 in their last ten? The charging (5-5 in their last 10) Reds? There is really no other threat unless people honestly think the Cardinals or Giants can catch the Cubs. Cubs are the same 5-5 in their last 10 that the Reds are. News flash…. The Reds aren’t charging.
I am not happy with the way the Cubs are playing, but the truth is even continuing this aggravating pace of .500 through the rest of the season will get the Cubs securely in the playoffs. Where I am pretty sure, at some point they will lose so everyone can say “I told you so”.                                         Being negative is just an easy and lazy narrative to take. Considering only 1 team wins the WS, being negative all the time will eventually allow you to say “I told you so”. The only time that doesn’t happen is if they win it all. Which 29/30 teams do not do.

It’s not about being negative, we’ve pivoted from World Series contenders to just get in the playoffs and anything can happen. The bar is getting lower and lower. As it stands barring catastrophe the Cubs will be seeded in the playoffs but until they pass the eye test and Tucker is the big star bat who can pick up a slumping offense, they’re not that much different of a team from the last couple years. Better, but by how much if Tuckers finger is still ailing him?
 

Will PCA Seiya and Busch find their home run stroke and their OPSs will start to climb back up or at least stagnate from nose diving since the all star break and all go on a heater in unison back to their breakout year paces, or will it continue to dip? We’re seeing a regression to the mean and Tucker hasn’t been able to pick up the slack until proven wrong.  

it’s healthy to question their capability of making a deep playoff run. They’ll have to slug and hit if they have any chance of going far. It’s not negativity for the sake of it. 

Edited August 11, 2025 by Geographyhater8888

[Soul]

If Tucker's finger is really the thing causing him to go from great to not-so-great, why not just rest him.  He's not doing any good at the plate right now.  We need him to be there in September in a big way.  It just doesn't make sense to me.  Maybe something else is going on in addition to the finger, I don't know.  I just know this isn't who he is as a hitter.

Edited August 11, 2025 by Soul

[UMFan83]

18 minutes ago, Soul said:

If Tucker's finger is really the thing causing him to go from great to not-so-great, why not just rest him.  He's not doing any good at the plate right now.  We need him to be there in September in a big way.  It just doesn't make sense to me.  Maybe something else is going on in addition to the finger, I don't know.  I just know this isn't who he is as a hitter.

I am not sure.  I mentioned just as speculation what if it's one of those things where he can get surgery or play on it at less than 100%.  Surgery would cost put him on the shelf 6-8 weeks but playing through it still gives us a guy getting on base 38% of the time.  Perhaps they thought he could play through it and be fine, but he's struggling and now its too late in the season to have surgery.

Of course this is all just speculation, his bat speed has gone way down starting July 1st but he injured his finger June 1st and had one of this better months.  Maybe he played on it and hurt it worse at some point?  Or maybe the finger isn't an issue at all and he's just in a bad funk.

[Rex Buckingham]

31 minutes ago, UMFan83 said:

I am not sure.  I mentioned just as speculation what if it's one of those things where he can get surgery or play on it at less than 100%.  Surgery would cost put him on the shelf 6-8 weeks but playing through it still gives us a guy getting on base 38% of the time.  Perhaps they thought he could play through it and be fine, but he's struggling and now its too late in the season to have surgery.

Of course this is all just speculation, his bat speed has gone way down starting July 1st but he injured his finger June 1st and had one of this better months.  Maybe he played on it and hurt it worse at some point?  Or maybe the finger isn't an issue at all and he's just in a bad funk.

I think part of Tucker's struggles are the fact that everyone else is tanking and they just don't have to pitch him the same way. With Seiya and PCA especially struggling, there's nobody behind him teams are worried about, so his OBP is holding steady but his slugging has gone in the tank because anecdotally, it seems like pitchers don't have to challenge him in the zone most of the time right now

[Wilson A2000]

1 hour ago, Soul said:

If Tucker's finger is really the thing causing him to go from great to not-so-great, why not just rest him.  He's not doing any good at the plate right now.  We need him to be there in September in a big way.  It just doesn't make sense to me.  Maybe something else is going on in addition to the finger, I don't know.  I just know this isn't who he is as a hitter.

The Cubs have let players try to work through injuries before and it’s bitten them. Tucker’s first month with his injured fire was a great month for him, so who knows what to think?

[ToolDRT]

13 hours ago, UMFan83 said:

But you shouldn't fear that because it's going to happen either way.  This is the way Tom wants to run his team and he's doubled down on Jed as the executor of his team building style.  Hawkins, his equally conservative GM, will probably get an extension too.

The Cubs will surely finish over .500 for the 3rd year in a row and have most of the pieces on this year's team set up for next season, except Tucker (and conveniently 2 of the Cubs top 3 hitting prospects play OF).  I highly doubt at this point Tom sees the Cubs collapse, miss the playoffs and decide that all the sudden he's going to be a poor mans Steve Cohen, nor will Jed be on board with team building in that way because he's been a part of a Tom Ricketts led Cubs team that suddenly turned off the money faucet in the middle of a contention period and won't let himself get burned again like he and Theo did.

Oh, I disagree with none of this. But I also can’t help but long for the days when I thought we had one of the better ownership groups in baseball and a PBO that didn’t need his hand held during his entire tenure. I know this won’t change. Hope (however small and credulous it is) is really all I have left as I simply did not think we’d be in this position again so soon. 
 

To clarify ahead of time, my doom and gloom isn’t about this season or the stretch the team is in right now. It’s about us being a big market team and the people in charge seemingly hating that fact. 

[UMFan83]

12 minutes ago, ToolDRT said:

Oh, I disagree with none of this. But I also can’t help but long for the days when I thought we had one of the better ownership groups in baseball and a PBO that didn’t need his hand held during his entire tenure. I know this won’t change. Hope (however small and credulous it is) is really all I have left as I simply did not think we’d be in this position again so soon. 
 

To clarify ahead of time, my doom and gloom isn’t about this season or the stretch the team is in right now. It’s about us being a big market team and the people in charge seemingly hating that fact. 

No I completely hear you.  I'm in the same boat.  The worst thing is, out of the 4 major Chicago owners the Ricketts are maybe 1st or 2nd in terms of best ownerships.  But they still suck and it's pretty clear that they aren't going anywhere anytime soon and not going to change how they operate.  But at the very least they put us in a better position to be decent year over year than Reinsdorfs teams and probably the McCaskeys.

[Brian707]

Yeah the Cubs are going to the playoffs as a WC. really no way the Reds catch them, and also would require the Mets and Padres to both pass them too. I hope they get the #1 WC to get a best of 3 home series then put the Vaunted Brewers away in the NLDS. That would be awesome, especially if their hot streak runs until the end of the season. A 93 win Cubs team takes out a 103 win Brewers team.

[BKHoo]

Wow I did not realize how truly awful Tucker has been since 7/1.  Ouch. 

[Geographyhater8888]

22 minutes ago, ToolDRT said:

Oh, I disagree with none of this. But I also can’t help but long for the days when I thought we had one of the better ownership groups in baseball and a PBO that didn’t need his hand held during his entire tenure. I know this won’t change. Hope (however small and credulous it is) is really all I have left as I simply did not think we’d be in this position again so soon. 
 

To clarify ahead of time, my doom and gloom isn’t about this season or the stretch the team is in right now. It’s about us being a big market team and the people in charge seemingly hating that fact. 

Ricketts are competent. They just haven’t put in the effort to build a true winner since the Epstein days and even that was half assed with a lot of medium length safe free agent signings. The Heyward deal was a big splash but they also had the financial flexibility because of a young core on pre arb cheap contracts. And Max Scherzer would’ve been preferred over both Heyward and Lackey but that’s more on Theo.
 

I’m confident the Cubs will be a “contender” for the foreseeable future, just on par with Reinsdorfs mid 2000’s whitesox with the hope of a fluky 2005 flash in the pan championship, because it won’t be with the help of a big name free agent winning a World Series MVP like Corey Seager or a Freddie Freeman. Etc With 6 playoff seeds he’s even less incentivized to go all in.

Edited August 11, 2025 by Geographyhater8888

[Backtobanks]

2 minutes ago, Geographyhater8888 said:

Ricketts are competent. They just haven’t put in the effort to build a true winner since the Epstein days and even that was half assed with a lot of medium length safe free agent signings. The Hayward deal was a big splash but they also had the financial flexibility because of a young g core on pre arb cheap contracts. 
 

I’m confident the Cubs will be a “contender” for the foreseeable future, just on par with Reinsdorfs mid 2000’s whitesox with the hope of a fluky 2005 flash in the pan championship, because it won’t be with the help of a big name free agent winning a World Series MVP like Corey Seager or a Freddie Freeman. Etc With 6 playoff seeds he’s even less incentivized to go all in.

At least we can continue getting a Participation Award.

[Geographyhater8888]

2 minutes ago, Backtobanks said:

At least we can continue getting a Participation Award.

Doesn’t help either when your competition is Jerry’s whitesox, 83-88 wins to keep Marquee subscribers content and money grows on the Wrigley Ivy. To be fair, Tom’s  a little strapped after purchasing that soccer team. 

[Irrelevant Dude]

12 minutes ago, UMFan83 said:

The worst thing is, out of the 4 major Chicago owners the Ricketts are maybe 1st or 2nd in terms of best ownerships.

They have the resources to be #1 easily, so the fact that there can be a debate between 1-3 is an indictment in itself.  And there is light at the end of the tunnel for the White Sox.  It is going to take awhile, but it isn't out of the question that within 10 years, the White Sox have a better ownership group than the Cubs.

Even if the Ricketts family eventually sells the team, the value and assets involved all but assures we are going to get another Ricketts-like entity or worse.  The chances of getting a fully invested owner whose primary goal each season isn't maximizing revenue are slim to none.

[soccer10k]

20 minutes ago, BKHoo said:

Wow I did not realize how truly awful Tucker has been since 7/1.  Ouch. 

What are you talking about? He’s hitting .258 with a ..587 SLG in that span. Oh wait, that’s his SLG and OPS.

Yeah, .194/.329/.258 slash line with 1 HR in that span. That’s really rough.

[Jason Ross]

To be fair to Tucker, most of the "awful" has been from August 1st - August 10th. His July wRC+ was a 107. 

[UMFan83]

From September 18-September 25th we play 7 straight games against the Reds and Mets (right before ending the season against the Cardinals).  Really hope those aren't meaningful outside of seeding.

[We Got The Whole 9]

Tucker has a 0 wRC+ when he goes oppo. For the season. And pitchers are bombarding him with non-fatballs on the outer edge of the zone. He has not adjusted in the slightest, he's gotten notably worse. 

 

Busch and PCA are succumbing to this approach as well. 

Edited August 11, 2025 by We Got The Whole 9

[Geographyhater8888]

1 minute ago, We Got The Whole 9 said:

Tucker has a 0 wRC+ when he goes oppo. For the season. And pitchers are bombarding him with non-fatballs on the outer edge of the zone. He has not adjusted in the slightest, he's gotten notably worse. 

What were his previous season totals?