Cubs (Imanaga) vs Brewers (Ashby): 10/6/25, 8:08pm

[Cuzi]

1 minute ago, Max Power said:

When Tucker walks I’d like to see the Cubs take the approach the Yankees did after losing Soto. Pivot to bring in multiple legitimate, useful pieces.

Just not sure Jed has it in him to get it done.

The Yankees still have Aaron Judge.

[Irrelevant Dude]

1 minute ago, Max Power said:

When Tucker walks I’d like to see the Cubs take the approach the Yankees did after losing Soto. Pivot to bring in multiple legitimate, useful pieces.

I mean, you just described the Jed special.

[gflore34]

1 minute ago, Cuzi said:

He is playing injured, after all.

I'll take Tucker any given day. The idea the team is better without him is asinine. There's no reason for him not to get a retirement contract from the Cubs.

I agree the team is not better with Tucker but, the best indicator of future injury is past injury history.  He's shown he cannot be relied upon to actually play.

[Max Power]

1 minute ago, Irrelevant Dude said:

I mean, you just described the Jed special.

USEFUL pieces.

[mk49]

For the first two games, if Mo was the DH, instead of Tucker, it could've been better.  At least, it couldn't have been any worse.

[Stratos]

3 minutes ago, Dfan25 said:

It  would be Boyd again and the result isn’t likely to be much better than the 1st game and it would most likely be Peralta againts him 

No way Boyd and Shota can start again this series.  Needs to be Rea in Game 5 with Game 4 using Brown/Civale/pen or get Assad on the roster.

[Stratos]

8 minutes ago, Max Power said:

When Tucker walks I’d like to see the Cubs take the approach the Yankees did after losing Soto. Pivot to bring in multiple legitimate, useful pieces.

Just not sure Jed has it in him to get it done.

Bellinger should be a FA this winter lol.

[Dfan25]

4 minutes ago, Stratos said:

No way Boyd and Shota can start again this series.  Needs to be Rea in Game 5 with Game 4 using Brown/Civale/pen or get Assad on the roster.

😂😂 , weren’t you defending them starting Boyd in game 1  because it was a small sample against the brewers ? It was a small sample because he sucked both times against them .  That things went south wasn’t surprising at all . 
 

With that said they probably would have still lost . They can’t hit to save their lifes.

Edited October 7, 2025 by Dfan25

[gflore34]

If Quintana is going for game 3 I'd like to see Willi at 3b, I'd be willing to trade offense from anywhere for defense.

[chibears55]

32 minutes ago, Sosa21MVP said:

Say what you will about the pitching strategy and decision-making, but what gets me tonight is scoring 3 runs in the first inning and then getting blanked on 2 hits the final 8 innings on a bullpen day for the Brewers. The 7 runs on the 3 dongs is rough, but man fight back and make it a game!

Like I said, they just went through the motions after falling behind like they did.

 

[gflore34]

At this point don't know if I'm going to bother wasting time on game 3.  Maybe, I'll tune back in to watch the Dodgers finish off the Brewers.  At least, they beat the Padres and advanced one round which will be more than the Phillies can say.  Hell, the Phillies aren't even going to win a game in the 2025 post season.

Edited October 7, 2025 by gflore34

[Geographyhater8888]

4 f cking hits? We knew the pitching staff would limit them but the bats just continue to disappoint.

Edited October 7, 2025 by Geographyhater8888

[Cuzi]

1 hour ago, Stratos said:

Bellinger should be a FA this winter lol.

There's no pivot from Tucker other than pitching.

The position group is already locked in unless they do something outrageous and not only pivot from Tucker, but then follow it up by trading Nico Hoerner and moving Shaw to 2B and going after Bregman or something. Other than that you are just looking at bench/role players to fill out the lineup.

Should probably just....... sign Tucker.

[Geographyhater8888]

4 hours ago, Max Power said:

USEFUL pieces.

Cubs have enough “useful” pieces. That’s how they won 92 games. They need difference makers and lack true perennial all star talent on both sides of Diamond. Name a single cubs player who you could definitively say would be the best player on any of the other 11 playoff teams in 2025?

Johan Duran would be a useful piece by my standards. Don’t count on it.

Edited October 7, 2025 by Geographyhater8888

[Geographyhater8888]

4 hours ago, Cuzi said:

The Yankees still have Aaron Judge.

And they used Sotos leftover money to sign Fried and trade for Bellinger. Cubs roster on the other hand is sort of a jack of all trades and a master of none.

Edited October 7, 2025 by Geographyhater8888

[Geographyhater8888]

3 hours ago, Cuzi said:

There's no pivot from Tucker other than pitching.

The position group is already locked in unless they do something outrageous and not only pivot from Tucker, but then follow it up by trading Nico Hoerner and moving Shaw to 2B and going after Bregman or something. Other than that you are just looking at bench/role players to fill out the lineup.

Should probably just....... sign Tucker.

I’d bet they go Bellesteros to replace Suzuki at DH and move Seiya back to the outfield. With the expiring contracts after 2026 and the looming lockout I’m curious to see what direction the front office takes in terms of spending. 

Edited October 7, 2025 by Geographyhater8888

[Stratos]

3 hours ago, Dfan25 said:

😂😂 , weren’t you defending them starting Boyd in game 1  because it was a small sample against the brewers ? It was a small sample because he sucked both times against them .  That things went south wasn’t surprising at all . 
 

With that said they probably would have still lost . They can’t hit to save their lifes.

Sounds like something I'd say.  But Shota is a HR machine and Boyd got annihilated too.  I'd throw something else at the wall and see if it sticks.  Soft-tossing lefties ain't it apparently.

[UMFan83]

Seiya’s 3 run HR goes in Cubs NLDS lore with DeRosa’s HR and Soto’s HR as false hope HRs early in games we were blown out

[Banks-Williams]

Craig Counsel should be fired.  His decisions to pitch Boyd on game 1 with 3 days rest and to pitch Imanaga on game 2 with inoperative breaking balls have both been disasters.  These decisions will likely cost the franchise the NLDS.  Any one with any measurable degree of good judgement and attention skills knew the outcomes here.   

As I said before, a fully-rested Assad is better than a 3-day rested Boyd any day of the week and twice on Sundays.  With respect to Imanaga, his recent outings have all been terrible.  The media has been talking about it excessively, but even then Counsel still couldn’t see that there is something wrong with Imanaga.  The NDLS is NOT the time to experiment or assess your players.  Imanaga or Soroka should have been cut from the roster, not Assad.

The NLDS starting pitching rotation should have been Assad - Boyd - Rea - Taillion - Brown.  This way, the Brew would never see the same starter twice, and everyone would have been fully rested.  Counsel could even have given Brown game 2.

And Counsel never should have been playing the same position players thoughout July and August.  The men got too tired in the summer heat; it cost them first place.  Durocher made the same mistake in ‘69.  Counsel was too focused on himself, dying his hair and giving legions of meaningless interviews.

[Geographyhater8888]

1 hour ago, UMFan83 said:

Seiya’s 3 run HR goes in Cubs NLDS lore with DeRosa’s HR and Soto’s HR as false hope HRs early in games we were blown out

Does Hesters kick return count? If or when they’re swept on Wednesday that’ll be 6 of their last 8 playoff exits ending in a sweep and 5/6. They really go down in flames.

Edited October 7, 2025 by Geographyhater8888

[I owned a Suzuki]

1 hour ago, UMFan83 said:

Seiya’s 3 run HR goes in Cubs NLDS lore with DeRosa’s HR and Soto’s HR as false hope HRs early in games we were blown out

You forgot Kerry Woods

[Geographyhater8888]

Cubs 13 straight postseason games scoring 3 runs or less is an MLB record.

[Jason Ross]

2 hours ago, Banks-Williams said:

Craig Counsel should be fired.  His decisions to pitch Boyd on game 1 with 3 days rest and to pitch Imanaga on game 2 with inoperative breaking balls have both been disasters.  These decisions will likely cost the franchise the NLDS.  Any one with any measurable degree of good judgement and attention skills knew the outcomes here.   

As I said before, a fully-rested Assad is better than a 3-day rested Boyd any day of the week and twice on Sundays.  With respect to Imanaga, his recent outings have all been terrible.  The media has been talking about it excessively, but even then Counsel still couldn’t see that there is something wrong with Imanaga.  The NDLS is NOT the time to experiment or assess your players.  Imanaga or Soroka should have been cut from the roster, not Assad.

The NLDS starting pitching rotation should have been Assad - Boyd - Rea - Taillion - Brown.  This way, the Brew would never see the same starter twice, and everyone would have been fully rested.  Counsel could even have given Brown game 2.

And Counsel never should have been playing the same position players thoughout July and August.  The men got too tired in the summer heat; it cost them first place.  Durocher made the same mistake in ‘69.  Counsel was too focused on himself, dying his hair and giving legions of meaningless interviews.

We can be frustrated without being over reactionary. None of these are fireable offenses and you know that. 

Once again; Javier Assad is not a particularly good pitcher. His strikeout rate would have been the lowest of any qualified SP and his xFIP of 4.69 is bad. The Cubs didn't seem hom one of the 12 best Ps in the org and assuming they would have added Horton had he been healthy, is safe to rank him at least 14th. It's very easy to argue in favor of a pitcher who isn't even on the roster because we have no proof it would have gone bad. That said, he just isn't a good pitcher on paper. All you can do is use the information at your hand pre-start and the data on Assad is not pretty. 

On Imanaga; there also wasn't a clear better choice. Colin Rea just isn't a very good starter and that's about all of his choices. Imanaga had a really good run from July 30th through September 19th. Yes he had to non-great starts before tonight but bad starts happen. The HR bug is real, but he had mostly found ways to mitigate that (his ERA and xFIP were in line). He also pitched well on the year against Milwaukee. A perfectly defensible choice given his options. 

This is partially due to injuries. In a best laid world Justin Steele and Cade Horton would have also been healthy. While the Cubs had mid year time to fix the Steele thing, Horton cracked a rib the week before the playoffs. That is devastating. 

Frustrations are in order. It's very clear the Cubs left themselves and arm short; either a SP or a RP which would have more allowed the Cubs to do a bullpen game like the Brewers did. But Counsell's pitching choices have essentially ranged from "this bad choice or this other bad choice" and based on how we got to that point of the season, it's not really his fault his choices have been whittled down to that. Hoyer deserves blame for putting them in this spot. Bad luck on Horton left them in this bad spot. And the offense has struggled which has made the pitching issues the last two days worse. Counsell ain't perfect and while we can find fault in actions, nothing deserves "fire him immediately" posts. 

I'm just as frustrated as anyone. I stayed up past midnight to record our NSBB live reaction, a game that felt over by the 5th - I'm quite upset that the Cubs are pissing away my late nights with bad losses to the Brewers. But Counsell doesn't deserve to be canned because he picked one of the bad options in a pool of bad options.

[Sosa21MVP]

1 minute ago, Jason Ross said:

We can be frustrated without being over reactionary. None of these are fireable offenses and you know that. 

Once again; Javier Assad is not a particularly good pitcher. His strikeout rate would have been the lowest of any qualified SP and his xFIP of 4.69 is bad. The Cubs didn't seem hom one of the 12 best Ps in the org and assuming they would have added Horton had he been healthy, is safe to rank him at least 14th. It's very easy to argue in favor of a pitcher who isn't even on the roster because we have no proof it would have gone bad. That said, he just isn't a good pitcher on paper. All you can do is use the information at your hand pre-start and the data on Assad is not pretty. 

On Imanaga; there also wasn't a clear better choice. Colin Rea just isn't a very good starter and that's about all of his choices. Imanaga had a really good run from July 30th through September 19th. Yes he had to non-great starts before tonight but bad starts happen. The HR bug is real, but he had mostly found ways to mitigate that (his ERA and xFIP were in line). He also pitched well on the year against Milwaukee. A perfectly defensible choice given his options. 

This is partially due to injuries. In a best laid world Justin Steele and Cade Horton would have also been healthy. While the Cubs had mid year time to fix the Steele thing, Horton cracked a rib the week before the playoffs. That is devastating. 

Frustrations are in order. It's very clear the Cubs left themselves and arm short; either a SP or a RP which would have more allowed the Cubs to do a bullpen game like the Brewers did. But Counsell's pitching choices have essentially ranged from "this bad choice or this other bad choice" and based on how we got to that point of the season, it's not really his fault his choices have been whittled down to that. Hoyer deserves blame for putting them in this spot. Bad luck on Horton left them in this bad spot. And the offense has struggled which has made the pitching issues the last two days worse. Counsell ain't perfect and while we can find fault in actions, nothing deserves "fire him immediately" posts. 

I'm just as frustrated as anyone. I stayed up past midnight to record our NSBB live reaction, a game that felt over by the 5th. But Counsell doesn't deserve to be canned because he picked one of the bad options in a pool of bad options.

Are you really going to gloss over Counsell dying his hair? Disgusting behavior! The rest is whatever.

[Sosa21MVP]

I don't believe any of Counsell's decisions are made in a vacuum, there certainly has to be input from the analytics side. Brewers have just been flat out the better team in the first two games and I don't believe any other combination of pitcher sequencing would change the outcome very much.

Taillon is the current hot hand so there is hope for Game 3. The offense though, for the love of all that is holy please score more than 3 runs.