bukie

An acid hot show....yeah, I don't want to know more.

The Cubs have beaten the Pirates this year: 10-8 in 12, 6-4 in 15, 7-3, 3-2, 13-1, 13-6, 7-4, 4-3, 12-3, 5-1, 8-5 and 12-3. The Cubs have lost to the Pirates this year: 7-6 on a McLouth HR off Marmol in the 9th, 5-4 in 14 after Wood blew a save in the 9th, 6-5 in 11 after Marmol blew a save in the 9th, and a 3-0 shutout by Karstens.

The Cubs have officially clinched a better record than the Padres. On August 25. 2 down, 13 to go.

I'm projecting this to October and frankly, I'm not looking forward to a tight game with Ted pitching to, say, Manny. By then, though, the Cubs would have a 3-0 series lead, at the least, and there's no way the Cubs would drop 3 in a row, 2 at home, with Dempster, Zambrano and Harden going. ;)

I'm not sure he can. He's a big flyball pitcher, and this park isn't exactly spacious.

That's quite a disparity between DPs. Of course, the underlying aspect of this is that the Cubs offense tends to be on base a lot more often than the opponents also. Not 3 times more on base, but more all the same.

Wasn't that also a Ted Lilly special?

LOL. But anyways, this game is already out of hand... I doubt the validity of this vast conspiracy. I figure the Pirates just wanted to give Karstens an extra day of rest, since he struggled his last time out. Didn't seem to work out for them, though. Hate to say this one's over already though. When the Nationals can put up a quick 6 spot, no game is really over.

But what's the Cubs record when they have at least 2 4-run innings? :)

I was waiting for the Fred stat of "The last time the Cubs scored 4 runs in an inning was 8/25/08 against the Pirates, in the 3rd inning of the ongoing game."

I know Tim Wakefield did in the 2003 ALCS, but he doesn't exactly tax his arm with his pitches. Becket pitched in 3 games of the 2003 NLCS, but didn't start game 7. Schilling started 3 games of the 2001 World Series.

Jason Bay fan?

Huh, I thought all sacrifice hits were counted. My mistake.

Well I understand the "purposeful out" thing... but regardless... not every time does a player go up there TRYING to Sac Fly... Purposeful or not, it's still an out. I think an RBI should be awarded and that's it. That's why it still counts against the players OBP, because he was not necessarily trying to make an out. SacBunts, however, do not count against OBP as in most cases the coaches are taking the PA away from the batter by telling him to make an out. Sac bunts also count against OBP, as they are also a plate appearance.

Since it is considered a purposeful out to benefit the team, the player is not credited with an at-bat. Similar to the sac bunt in that thought. It still counts as a plate appearance, and thus will count against a player's OBP.

The Cubs ended the 1984 season 96-65. This may have been answered in a thread or two already today, though.

You can't count the Mets because they've only played the Cubs twice this season. I can, did, and will continue to count them!

He's been working on a splitter since the Cubs drafted him as a strikeout pitch. Since he's gotten the hang of it, he's been really good. Remember, Samardzija's only been a full-time pitcher for about 2 years.

It all gets balanced out by Atlanta, the Mets and the entire NL West laying down for the Cubs and getting up for other teams.

24 for a playoff spot. 28 for the division. 24 is the Stl number -- I think the 2nd place NL East team (Phils or Mets) has an excellent chance of passing the Cards before a clinch date, so 24 is a little misleading. It's lower than 24 for the Phils, so 24 is accurate for the time being.

The good news is that after Villanueva, the Brewers are out of quality relievers. The bad news is that the Pirates have been out of quality relievers since Capps pitched.

It helps that the Brewers are among the league leaders in IP by starters (meaning their bullpen has thrown fewer innings than just about everyone else), but I agree that it seems to be pretty unsustainable. There's something to be said about winning close games, but 24 of their 74 wins being by 1 run is pretty ridiculous. And maybe I'm being a bit of a homer here (and feel free to call me out on it if this is silly), but I don't think the Brewers' bullpen is as bad as it's been made out to be. Everyone looks at Gagne's problems and thinks it's indicative of the entire bullpen struggling, but the bullpen ERA is right around league average. ESPN.com has their current team ERA ("as reliever" split) at 3.88, good enough for 6th in the NL. The Cubs are 5th at 3.86. Again, it probably helps that they pitch so few innings lately, but they're far from atrocious. Shouse and Torres are exceptional this year, and Riske is a bit above average, which makes 3 guys the Brewers can count on out of the pen. With Sheets/CC going 7+ each time out, the seedy back-end of the pen (Gagne, Mota, Villanueva, McClung, Turnbow...who I think is gone now anyway) doesn't come up too often, which helps. On the Cubs' end of the bullpen, the poor pitchers have slowly been weeded out over the year (Hart, Eyre, Fox), leaving the current pen with an exceptional 6 pitchers (Wood, Marmol, Gaudin -- if it's OK that I toss out yesterday's performance as an anomaly since someone had to get outs, Samardzija, Cotts, Marshall) and one below average pitcher that should be in the back end of the bullpen, but throws strikes, so Lou keeps tossing him out there. Never mind that the strikes are belt high and 85 and are hit either off the wall or onto the street, they're strikes. Maybe I'm being a homer here, but I'm holding out hope that one of three things happens with that last spot. One, Howry figures out how to paint the corners again. Two, Wuertz finds the strike zone consistently enough in Iowa that Lou sees how good of a pitcher he actually is. Three, Angel Guzman's arm holds up for a month of pitching. That happens, the bullpen suddenly becomes amazing, despite being awful enough during May/June to put the overall numbers at average. EDIT: I apparently didn't notice Stetter was reassigned to AAA about a month back. Why?

24-11 in 1-run games with that bullpen is some Houdini-esque trickery. And though the Pythagorean estimates are just a simple tool, they would suggest that the gap between the Cubs and the rest is more likely to continue to grow than it is to shrink.

That sentence is structured oddly. Are you saying he's hitting with a .143 OPS against the Nats, or do the Nats have a .143 OPS against Harden?

The Cubs have officially clinched a better record than the Nats, whom they lead by 33.5 games with 33 to play. One down, 14 to go.