White Sox (Newcomb) vs Cubs (Holmes): 08/19/26, 1:20 PM

[Brock Beauchamp]

The Cubs give the ball to Holmes against Newcomb and the White Sox this afternoon at Wrigley Field.

[Brock Beauchamp]

	FRI	SAT	SUN	MON	TUE	TOT
Trent Thornton	0	7	5	0	0	12
Ryan Zeferjahn	27	0	0	24	0	51
Ryan Rolison	11	0	18	15	0	44
Javier Assad	0	0	0	0	40	40
Jacob Webb	13	0	0	22	14	49
David Peterson	0	0	0	22	0	22
Colin Rea	0	27	0	0	0	27
Caleb Thielbar	0	7	15	0	11	33
Aaron Civale	0	0	35	0	0	35

[squally1313]

This seems like even more of a bullpen game for the Sox unless I'm missing something. Newcomb can go multiple innings, faced 8 guys on Sunday, and is pretty good, but hasn't gone more than three innings all year. 

Brazoban has pitched two of the last three days, Richards the last two, Fedde is going to be down. Anthony Kay is next in line in their current four man rotation but he pitched Saturday so that would be short rest. Guessing it's Newcome for 2-3, Hicks for a couple, Hagen Smith for one or two, figure it out from there.

Cubs, as shown above, are in ok shape, ideally hoping for a lopsided game so that Rea or Civale can let the short relief guys get a night off. 

[cl smooth]

[Brian707]

Let's sweep these horsefeathers! Lopsided would be nice

Edited 1 hour ago by Brian707

[Tryptamine]

I'd love to see the Cubs sweep them and send them into a tailspin where they miss the playoffs, but the AL is so damn bad it seems impossible. 

[squally1313]

1 hour ago, squally1313 said:

Cubs, as shown above, are in ok shape, ideally hoping for a lopsided game so that Rea or Civale can let the short relief guys get a night off. 

I haven't seen any announcement but just noticed that Assad is the current scheduled starter for Saturday. Going on three days rest after last night is probably fine, but likely they're penciling in Rea or Civale for bulk duty that day too. 

[ILMindState]

3 minutes ago, Tryptamine said:

I'd love to see the Cubs sweep them and send them into a tailspin where they miss the playoffs, but the AL is so damn bad it seems impossible. 

The other teams in their division have had so many chances to catch the Sox but they are all just so bad. 

[Eeyore]

13 minutes ago, Tryptamine said:

I'd love to see the Cubs sweep them and send them into a tailspin where they miss the playoffs, but the AL is so damn bad it seems impossible. 

I only care about the White Sox when they play the Cubs. It's wonderful when the Cubs beat them. It's even better when they beat themselves. If they're not playing the Cubs, I couldn't care less about them. It makes lots of friends and family happy when they win so they can win all of the non-Cubs games for all that I care. 

[abuck1220]

how is the white sox pitching staff such a mess? did they play 4 doubleheaders last week or something? 

[bukie]

The Cubs have quietly caught the Braves in the standings now, so if they can keep playing well and catch the Brewers the bye is definitely in play (whereas if the Cubs caught the Brewers simply by the Brewers playing badly then ATL and LAD would get the byes and it wouldn't really matter).

In fact, there's a solid argument that the 4 best teams in baseball are all in the NL right now, and the Cubs aren't 4th.

The Rays have a good record but their underlying numbers aren't great, and the Yankees, Red Sox and Tigers actually have the best underlying numbers in the league. If the Tigers somehow can sneak into a playoff spot, they could be dangerous even without Skubal.

[Bertz]

2 minutes ago, abuck1220 said:

how is the white sox pitching staff such a mess? did they play 4 doubleheaders last week or something? 

It's not a great staff to begin with and Davis Martin, their de facto ace, went on the IL basically right at the start of a stretch of 16 straight without an off day.

[Derwood]

5 minutes ago, abuck1220 said:

how is the white sox pitching staff such a mess? did they play 4 doubleheaders last week or something? 

Well you see, their pitching staff is actually just three small children in a trench coat

[Rcal10]

40 minutes ago, squally1313 said:

I haven't seen any announcement but just noticed that Assad is the current scheduled starter for Saturday. Going on three days rest after last night is probably fine, but likely they're penciling in Rea or Civale for bulk duty that day too. 

Where are you seeing that. Yesterday I saw Peterson as the starter on Saturday. Today on ESPN it is listing TBD. I really don’t think Assad will start Saturday. But, who knows🤷

[squally1313]

Just now, Rcal10 said:

Where are you seeing that. Yesterday I saw Peterson as the starter on Saturday. Today on ESPN it is listing TBD. I really don’t think Assad will start Saturday. But, who knows🤷

Yeah I probably phrased that wrong. The upcoming schedule on Fangraphs has Assad but they're probably guessing like the rest of us. More generally the point was that someone is going to have to start that game, we've got 3-4 guys capable of going 50+ pitches, just need to keep one (or two) back.