Cubs (Imanaga) vs Mariners (Miller): 08/23/26, 3:10 PM

[ILMindState]

3 hours ago, Andy said:

If Milwaukee gets the 1 seed then we would be playing them in the NLDS should we get there, not LA

Oops, thanks for clarifying. Well good thing they lost!

[Jason Ross]

51 minutes ago, Rcal10 said:

Civale really bailed them out yesterday. I know there was talk about him pitching differently as a Cub and him actually being very good. It may have been Bertz who showed some encouraging numbers about Civale. Can anyone who digs into those numbers tell me if he is actually performing well with his underlying numbers justifying what we are seeing or is he Fedde of last year and will soon fail? If he is this guy they have to keep him around. Wouldn’t  mind him taking Rea’s spot next year. Unfortunaly for the Assad fans, if Civale has underlying numbers to back what we are seeing we might not see Assad on the major league team again this year. At the very least, Cabrera will be back. Maybe he is the 14th pitcher when the rosters expand. But we might get Brown too. And now a guy like Thornton isn’t a sure cut either. He is doing well. IMO Rea would now be the first to go, assuming Civale is for real. 

Yes. He's pitching very well right now and he has not been getting, what seems, especially lucky. 20 IP and a 1.80 ERA, 2.78 xERA, 2.83 FIP, 3.92 xFIP. There is a split between the ERA and xData and we shouldn't expect a sub 2.00 ERA. But he is pitching like someone who belongs on an MLB roster.

Under the hood he's seen his K% jump, his walk rate drop, his barrel rate drop, his hard hit drop...so that checks out, too.

We're also seeing a change in pitch usage. Far more cutter and split finger. And go figure, both are pitches used to attack off-handed hitters. Guess who sucked with the A's against lefties? *hint, his name rhymes with Shmaron Shimale* His numbers against RHP weren't elite, but they were fine and they're pretty close to what he's doing now on the whole:

vs RHP:   22.2 K%, 4.4 BB%, 4.06 xFIP
With Cubs (overall): 22 K%, 6.1 BB%, 3.94 xFIP

It's his lefties splits that were terrible. The simple fix was always "IDK have you tried throwing the pitches that get lefties out? No? Try that and get back to me." and it's working. Frankly, it's a pretty easy fix. Fun fact, he did it last year when he was good with the Cub, too, so I have no idea why the A's decided to scrap that plan and go back to the old version. Here is his 2025 pitch usage for comparison:

We'll see how long it keeps up, if it can keep up. At some point someone's going to figure out he's throwing differently again and how they adjust to it has yet to be seen, really. But yeah, you can use him with confidence that won't implode like he was in Sacramento as of now. 

[Bertz]

We're actually at 33 IP of Civale doing this if you count last September.

I'd love to get him on the Rea deal this winter.  He's the goods out of the bullpen and I'm not entirely sure it wouldn't work in the rotation.  He's still a 5 pitch guy and the velo didn't jump a ton moving to the pen.

[Stratos]

Civale has that portly swagger.