Braves (Elder) vs Cubs (Horton): 9/3/25, 6:40pm

[Stratos]

Im done with Ben Brown for the 2025 season.  Time to try anyone else.

[Stratos]

Shaw has become a glove god at 3B.

This infield is fantastic.  One of the best I've ever seen as Cubs.

Edited September 4, 2025 by Stratos

[Geographyhater8888]

2 hours ago, Stratos said:

Im done with Ben Brown for the 2025 season.  Time to try anyone else.

I wonder CC will end up trying out Civale as a 2 inning guy. He’s obviously content with a wild card spot and will keep his quality arms fresh at the expense of wins but I’m sick of the Ben brown experiment.

Edited September 4, 2025 by Geographyhater8888

[Papa Cub]

2 hours ago, javy knows my name said:

I'm not your buddy, guy

The only tolerable way to read this guy's posts in the Terrence and Philip voice

Fella, you LITERALLY highjacked a comment between myself and another fan on here LOL. I find that sad and strange because you had zero to do with my comment. Good to see I got in your head at least 🤦‍♂️ - I also see you feel the need to comment though, so maybe we are closer than you think 🤔 

Keep reading it in whatever voice you choose since you feel the need to comment fella (figured since you didn’t like “buddy” and all) 🤷‍♂️

Edited September 4, 2025 by Papa Cub

[Papa Cub]

1 hour ago, Stratos said:

Im done with Ben Brown for the 2025 season.  Time to try anyone else.

This post just makes sense - you Stratos, are a logical and sensible person. Some others on here…..not so much. They prefer the torture of watching Ben Brown nosedive the team into oblivion 

Edited September 4, 2025 by Papa Cub

[javy knows my name]

16 minutes ago, Papa Cub said:

Fella, you LITERALLY highjacked a comment between myself and another fan on here LOL. I find that sad and strange because you had zero to do with my comment. Good to see I got in your head at least 🤦‍♂️ - I also see you feel the need to comment though, so maybe we are closer than you think 🤔 

Keep reading it in whatever voice you choose since you feel the need to comment fella (figured since you didn’t like “buddy” and all) 🤷‍♂️

I couldn't have asked for a better response 

[Geographyhater8888]

9 hours ago, BigSlick said:

I let out a laugh when I looked up the Brewers score. They actually appear to be significantly better against good teams than they are against bad teams. They’re simply unbeatable against teams over .500, but a human, occasionally beatable team against bad teams.

They’re 45-32 vs teams vs above 500 teams while the Cubs are 37-40. 

[BigbadB]

I've grown tired of watching bats miss balls game after game after game. Doesn't matter who is throwing, they just can't make good contact. I watched until Kim hit the homer last night and knew that game was over at that point. I'll hope for playoff magic, but I'm not counting on them learning to make contact with the ball by then. 

 

[We Got The Whole 9]

2 hours ago, BigbadB said:

I've grown tired of watching bats miss balls game after game after game. Doesn't matter who is throwing, they just can't make good contact. I watched until Kim hit the homer last night and knew that game was over at that point. I'll hope for playoff magic, but I'm not counting on them learning to make contact with the ball by then. 

 

They struck out 9 times last night. Even just focusing on the 2nd half in which they've been a below average offense, they have the 9th best K rate in the league, 7th highest contact rate. Theyre making plenty of contact. The problem is theyre not pulling the ball in the air with authority as frequently. Thats really what it boils down to. The hitters are making a lot of mid contact up the middle and in the alleys. The gb% has gone up a mere 2 points. They've gone from the best in the league to 10th, which is notable but not disastrous. 

 

The hard pulled airball contact has dropped off a cliff. Guys are not getting the barrel out as quickly as they were in the 1st half. In particular we went from being excellent vs sinkers and cutters in the 1st half to really struggling with them in the 2nd half, and all year we have not been good against 4 seams.

 

1st half/2nd half

 

Cutters - 17.6 (2nd)/ -7.5 (29th)

Sinkers - 11.6 (3rd)/ -9.6 (23rd)

4 seams - -6.5 (14th)/ -16.3 (26th)

 

It's puzzling how you go from smashing those 2 pitch types to being completely neutralized by them over a fortnight. 

[Bertz]

56 minutes ago, We Got The Whole 9 said:

They struck out 9 times last night. Even just focusing on the 2nd half in which they've been a below average offense, they have the 9th best K rate in the league, 7th highest contact rate. Theyre making plenty of contact. The problem is theyre not pulling the ball in the air with authority as frequently. Thats really what it boils down to. The hitters are making a lot of mid contact up the middle and in the alleys. The gb% has gone up a mere 2 points. They've gone from the best in the league to 10th, which is notable but not disastrous. 

 

The hard pulled airball contact has dropped off a cliff. Guys are not getting the barrel out as quickly as they were in the 1st half. In particular we went from being excellent vs sinkers and cutters in the 1st half to really struggling with them in the 2nd half, and all year we have not been good against 4 seams.

 

1st half/2nd half

 

Cutters - 17.6 (2nd)/ -7.5 (29th)

Sinkers - 11.6 (3rd)/ -9.6 (23rd)

4 seams - -6.5 (14th)/ -16.3 (26th)

 

It's puzzling how you go from smashing those 2 pitch types to being completely neutralized by them over a fortnight. 

They're 2nd in the league in pulled flyball rate in the second half

https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/leaderboard/batted-ball?dateStart=2025-07-14&gameType=Regular&minSwings=q&minGroupSwings=1&seasonStart=2025&seasonEnd=2025&type=batting-team

And if you want to specify just hard contact, 12th in pulled barrels (since this is a custom query I don't have a good way to turn this into a rate)

https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/statcast_search?hfPT=&hfAB=&hfGT=R|&hfPR=&hfZ=&hfStadium=&hfBBL=&hfNewZones=&hfPull=Pull|&hfC=&hfSea=2025|&hfSit=&player_type=batter&hfOuts=&hfOpponent=&pitcher_throws=&batter_stands=&hfSA=6|&game_date_gt=2025-07-14&game_date_lt=&hfMo=&hfTeam=&home_road=&hfRO=&position=&hfInfield=&hfOutfield=&hfInn=&hfBBT=&hfFlag=&metric_1=&group_by=team&min_pitches=0&min_results=0&min_pas=0&sort_col=pitches&player_event_sort=api_p_release_speed&sort_order=desc&chk_stats_bip=on#results

[chibears55]

10 hours ago, Geographyhater8888 said:

I wonder CC will end up trying out Civale as a 2 inning guy. He’s obviously content with a wild card spot and will keep his quality arms fresh at the expense of wins but I’m sick of the Ben brown experiment.

Civale will likely be a pen guy in the playoffs and possibly Soroka too if he comes back healthy and effective. 

To me, I think a solid playoff bullpen consists of having a couple guys who can go 3+ innings if needed as managers tend to have a quicker hook with starters in the postseason nowadays as theyre only relied on to go 5 innings at most.

Imanaga Horton Boyd Taillon are likely the starters.

I can see Counsell possibly going with Assad, Civale, and Rea and/or Soroka as their long relievers.

Pomeranz and Theilbar as his lefties.

Kittredge, Keller, and Palencia as the late guys.

Rogers is a possibility if they face a team heavy with Lefties over Rea or Soroka 

Edited September 4, 2025 by chibears55

[We Got The Whole 9]

30 minutes ago, Bertz said:

They're 2nd in the league in pulled flyball rate in the second half

https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/leaderboard/batted-ball?dateStart=2025-07-14&gameType=Regular&minSwings=q&minGroupSwings=1&seasonStart=2025&seasonEnd=2025&type=batting-team

And if you want to specify just hard contact, 12th in pulled barrels (since this is a custom query I don't have a good way to turn this into a rate)

https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/statcast_search?hfPT=&hfAB=&hfGT=R|&hfPR=&hfZ=&hfStadium=&hfBBL=&hfNewZones=&hfPull=Pull|&hfC=&hfSea=2025|&hfSit=&player_type=batter&hfOuts=&hfOpponent=&pitcher_throws=&batter_stands=&hfSA=6|&game_date_gt=2025-07-14&game_date_lt=&hfMo=&hfTeam=&home_road=&hfRO=&position=&hfInfield=&hfOutfield=&hfInn=&hfBBT=&hfFlag=&metric_1=&group_by=team&min_pitches=0&min_results=0&min_pas=0&sort_col=pitches&player_event_sort=api_p_release_speed&sort_order=desc&chk_stats_bip=on#results

Im not surprised they're #2 in pulled flyball rate. The approach is the same. But theyre not hitting them hard as frequently as they were.