Braves (Ritchie) vs Cubs (Imanaga): 09/16/26, 6:40 PM

[ILMindState]

14 minutes ago, squally1313 said:

This is so tiring. Why can’t we score a lot of runs in the playoffs? Because the average amount of runs scored goes down? But not for the teams we’re going to play, apparently?

Not if they go up against our pitching. You need clutch pitching to win in the playoffs. There’s not 1 person in the pen you can trust to put into a high leverage situation with runners on base late in the game. There’s not even anyone you can trust to close out a game with a 3 run lead. You can’t realistically expect the Cubs to average 8 runs a game against the Brewers or Dodgers pitching staff. 

[PackLandVA]

46 minutes ago, Geographyhater8888 said:

I can’t remember the last time they had a 1-2-3 9th inning with a lead,

September 3 against Milwaukee and September 4 at Florida. And they were 1/10th of an inch (ABS) from three games in a row less than two weeks ago.

[PackLandVA]

Cubs "clinch" number is 6, right?

[bukie]

7 minutes ago, PackLandVA said:

Cubs "clinch" number is 6, right?

5, they win the tiebreaker with both Arizona and San Diego.

[Tangled Up in Plaid]

Diamondbacks currently losing 4-2 in the 5th, so it could be 4

Edited 6 hours ago by Tangled Up in Plaid

[bukie]

Cubs win today means they clinch a better record than the Cardinals.

[Rcal10]

51 minutes ago, ILMindState said:

Not if they go up against our pitching. You need clutch pitching to win in the playoffs. There’s not 1 person in the pen you can trust to put into a high leverage situation with runners on base late in the game. There’s not even anyone you can trust to close out a game with a 3 run lead. You can’t realistically expect the Cubs to average 8 runs a game against the Brewers or Dodgers pitching staff. 

Again, why do they have to score 8. Stop acting like they can’t win games. I agree I am not confident in the pen. But they can win. If they don’t it will most likely be the pen. But please stop acting like there is no way they can win in the playoffs. This isn’t just you. I am talking about all the people who know they can’t win.

[Funky-daddy]

Breggy having his 3rd best season by bWar and 4th best by fWar 

[soccer10k]

1 hour ago, squally1313 said:

This is so tiring. Why can’t we score a lot of runs in the playoffs? Because the average amount of runs scored goes down? But not for the teams we’re going to play, apparently?

I mean, generally speaking, the Cubs are going to face tougher pitching staffs in the playoffs than they have faced in the regular season, right? Meanwhile, the teams the Cubs play are going to face one of the worst, if not the worst, pitching staff. So yeah, if the Phillies (just to pick a team) scored X runs on average against all the other 29 teams, where they faced both good and bad pitchers, I'd expect them to average more runs when facing only bad pitchers.

[We Got The Whole 9]

AZ just lost on a caught stealing lol

[Tangled Up in Plaid]

Diamondbacks had the tying run on base in the 9th but he got thrown out trying to steal second for the final out. Magic number is 4.

[soccer10k]

DBacks lose so magic number down to 4 with 9 to play.

Cubs go 3-6, Arizona has to go 9-0 to pass us.

[Soul]

Yep, Marlins led all 3 games into the 9th inning and wound up taking two of them.  AZ now plays NYY, COL, and SD to finish the year.  I think their magic carpet ride is over.

Edited 5 hours ago by Soul

[Rcal10]

5 minutes ago, soccer10k said:

I mean, generally speaking, the Cubs are going to face tougher pitching staffs in the playoffs than they have faced in the regular season, right? Meanwhile, the teams the Cubs play are going to face one of the worst, if not the worst, pitching staff. So yeah, if the Phillies (just to pick a team) scored X runs on average against all the other 29 teams, where they faced both good and bad pitchers, I'd expect them to average more runs when facing only bad pitchers.

But the Phillies era was based on facing bad offensive teams and good offensive teams, wouldn’t it stand to reason if they only played the best team in baseball they would give up more runs? 
BTW, the Cubs defense actually turns the worst staff based on WAR to a middle of the pack pitching staff. Isn’t the most important thing run prevention? If the Cubs prevent runs because of a great defense covering for a poor staff, does it really matter, as long as they win? 

[NorthsideAvenger]

Caleb Williams and PCA both maturing in front of our eyes at the same time is something else.

Oh yeah, PCA is chasing down Schwarber for NL HR champ. 

Edited 4 hours ago by NorthsideAvenger

[soccer10k]

26 minutes ago, Rcal10 said:

But the Phillies era was based on facing bad offensive teams and good offensive teams, wouldn’t it stand to reason if they only played the best team in baseball they would give up more runs? 
BTW, the Cubs defense actually turns the worst staff based on WAR to a middle of the pack pitching staff. Isn’t the most important thing run prevention? If the Cubs prevent runs because of a great defense covering for a poor staff, does it really matter, as long as they win? 

The question was why do we expect the Cubs to score fewer runs in the playoffs than they did in the regular season while we expect our opponents to score more. And the answer is obvious.

Does that mean both of those things will happen? Of course not. That's not how small samples work. But we know our pitching staff is awful. And our opponents will only face that awful staff. Whereas the teams we're going to face in the playoffs don't have awful pitching. By fWAR, LA is 1, Phi is 2, Mil is 4, Atl is 10, SD is 15. B-R has all five teams in the top-12 (Cubs are 26th). FIP has the Cubs at 26th. SD is 19th while the other four are in the top-13. So unless we face SD, we're going to be facing a pitching staff that is better than the average pitching staff we faced all year.

EDIT: Our defense helps for sure, but there's no defense for bombs hit into the bleachers.

Edited 4 hours ago by soccer10k

[Gjfificifjdej]

1 hour ago, Rcal10 said:

But the Phillies era was based on facing bad offensive teams and good offensive teams, wouldn’t it stand to reason if they only played the best team in baseball they would give up more runs? 
BTW, the Cubs defense actually turns the worst staff based on WAR to a middle of the pack pitching staff. Isn’t the most important thing run prevention? If the Cubs prevent runs because of a great defense covering for a poor staff, does it really matter, as long as they win? 

Theres no way to defend against giving up Hiroshima bombs every other AB. 

[Geographyhater8888]

5 hours ago, Rcal10 said:

Again, why do they have to score 8. Stop acting like they can’t win games. I agree I am not confident in the pen. But they can win. If they don’t it will most likely be the pen. But please stop acting like there is no way they can win in the playoffs. This isn’t just you. I am talking about all the people who know they can’t win.

If you’re not confident in the pen, which is a massive problem in a playoff series when everyone trims the fat off of their pitching staff and increases the work load of their top arms, then how many runs do they need to score? 5? 6? 7? 
 

The pitching staff as is will be what we see in October for the most part and Counsell is still throwing darts hoping for something to stick. They can win, as long as they score lots and lots of runs.

Edited 3 minutes ago by Geographyhater8888

[Papa Cub]

6 hours ago, squally1313 said:

Speak for yourself. Our amazing offense was awesome, our incredible MVP was even more awesome. 
 

seriously, beating a good team 8-4 or 8-5 or whatever is basically the game plan for this team winning playoff games. 

Good point - I was just in bitch mode with the pitching woes.

Offense was great, and so was Shota