Irrelevant Dude

That would take playing time away from Canario.

This photo from the Trib website really sums it all up.

On the opposite side of the spectrum, the one guy who didn't show negatively on the videos was Darnell Wright. Everyone else is screwing up, but he seems really solid. So that's only bright spot. Now the Bears just need 4 more of those guys.

I'm not even sure Claypool is the guy he dislikes most. You might have to flip a coin between him and Kmet.

I'm not going to claim to be football smart, but I have watched the first 2 weeks' QB School videos and that is almost as good as staying at a Holiday Inn Express last night. I came away from Sunday's game thinking that the poor QB performance was mostly on Fields and that he apparently was just never going to be the guy. Sure there has been bad playcalling and a bad supporting cast, but a true franchise QB should be able to overcome some of that. After watching that QB School video last night, I think the actual answer may be even worse. It appears the Bears have taken what started as a guy with a few flaws, haven't fixed those, and have simultaneously made his strengths worse. O'Sullivan pointing out plays where it looks like Fields has regressed in his ability to simply throw the ball was eye-opening. That raises the possibility that maybe the underlying problem is less on Fields himself. Maybe he could have been a good QB if he went somewhere else, but the Bears infrastructure is where QB prospects go to die. Has the lack of an adequate offensive line and WR targets (up until this season) completely broken or prevented the development of whatever internal clock and/or decision-making process that Fields needs to have in his head? Could any QB have developed successfully in this situation?

Nah, it's yesterday's gamethread. It was already dead.

I also worry that the offensive struggles are getting in his head now and impacting his defensive performance as well. It is entirely possibly that the defensive miscues are just an unfortunately timed outlier, but it sure seems like he it out of sorts in the field right now. Whether it is getting caught in between and letting the game's potential final out drop on Saturday, or trying to do to much and get a force out and second base that wasn't there on Sunday, he has been making some uncharacteristics mistakes lately.

I have less confidence in them making the February date than I do in the Cubs making the playoffs.

Gotta get Mastrobuoni an at bat

It's somewhat hard to believe the Cubs threw their 3 best starters (at the moment) in this series against 3 very ****** starters and are going to get swept.

Next time the Cubs lose several games and everyone blames it on "playing x games in x days", remember this series and how the Diamondbacks played at the tail end of a 17 game stretch.

I don't think I know that story. Or maybe I knew it and forgot. I agree though that what is being said behind the scenes could be completely different than what we are made privy to.

Dansby must be ready to go home.

This series just reinforces how much I hate Chase Field, dating back to being in the stands when Schwarber blew out his knee and now continuing into the Cubs playing like absolute crap.

That's the thing with baseball though. All the ra ra speeches in the world probably aren't going to get a team to suddenly start hitting the ball. When a team doesn't hit, they look dead. And this looks like a dead ass team right now.

I just caught an inning or two on the radio and Pat Hughes was discussing how the goal would be to get within 3 games of Milwaukee going into the final series. I applaud his optimism. 🤨

Probably not, but what good would it do anyway? I would say we're more likely to get Ross belittling a reporter over a legitimate question.

Surely they will be just enough for the Cubs to be on the fringe of the Wild Card race if everything breaks their way.

This feels like a confluence of many factors - poor hitting, great defense, and bad luck that every hard hit ball is at someone.

Fall doesn't start until next week, but I think we can officially declare that the Summer of Tauchman has already ended.

The difference between superhuman Bellinger and "pretty good" Bellinger is the difference between a good Cubs team and a "just ok" Cubs team.

Something the Cubs don't do.

Wasn't there time not too long ago where Wisdom was considered a solid defender at third?

I'll probably regret saying this, but the home plate umpire has been on his game with balls and strikes tonight.

They catch everything out there