Tryptamine

Adbert completely horsefeathers the sheets there

B is definitely San Diego, A is probably one of Detroit/Washington/Pirates and I'm not sure on C so I'll guess the Mets based on run differential, but I don't remember them being that far under .500 so I'm probably wrong.

Stay healthy, start 2024 in AAA with a shot at moving into the rotation 2 or so months into the season.

The 8th and 9th innings were the most nervous a Cub game has had me in probably 5 years.

From what I saw, everyone but Teven Jenkins is ready to go for week 1.

For a team that almost certainly has to get 2 starters next year, even if they picked up Kyle's option, losing Steele for anything more than a couple weeks would be really bad.

A chance to bury Cincy and Arizona coming up too

About the ugliest way you can take 2 of 3 from a division leader, but I'll take it every time. Now just don't give it back in Cincinnati.

I have so little faith in Happ here

I can't wait to hear the justification for taking Merryweather out at 14 pitches when you've already let him start a 2nd inning and he's cruising.

Good thing Merryweather was pulled.

Smyly and Taillon will still be on the cubs, sigh

I don't get why Dominique Robinson is still on the squad. He has shown basically no improvement so far.

Please win this game and then go to Cincy and bury their wildcard hopes. I hadn't realized the Cubs have a chance to really put big distance between themselves and most of the other WC contenders in the next couple weeks. 4 against the Reds, 3 against the Giants and 4 against the DBacks. 7-4 please and thanks.

If the Cubs realistically want a shot at the division, this is pretty close to a must win. They can't be 5 games back with 31 games to go and expect to make up that much ground unless something very unexpected happens. With that said, for general playoff purposes, there is far less pressure on this game now that the Cubs are a game and a half clear of Arizona and 2.5 clear of the Reds.

For some reason I thought waivers weren't a thing anymore after they pushed back the trade deadline.

I still don't think he's a starter on a good team, but he's definitely a solid back up infielder at this point and that carries a lot of value.

Huge win, they avoided the disaster scenario. Win tomorrow and I'm thrilled.

Surprised this isn't posted yet, but Bagent is your #2 after the Bears cut Peterman.

Most predictions I've seen have had the Bears with around the 10th pick and somehow the Carolina pick being around #12. Frankly I'd be surprised if Carolina had a better record than the Bears.

God I want this win. Packer fans are going to be absolutely insufferable, even more than than usual, if even Jordan Love beats the Bears.

I'm not suggesting anything, I just wouldn't be surprised if we found out it was some scenario like that. He's a different guy, so who knows how he handles his grievances.

There's not a single part of this rotation I have a ton of faith in come the playoffs. Steele is great, but he has already thrown 19 more innings this year than he has in any season before with likely another 6-7 starts to go before the playoffs. So you're talking somewhere between 50-60 innings more than a previous high before the playoffs. Hendricks has solid, but he's not the guy anymore that you feel supremely confident is going to go out and give you 7IP 1/2 ER. His K/9 is about as low as you'll see in baseball, making his margin for error razor thin Assad has been absolutely fantastic, but the peripherals are another story. They have him pinned for some major regression. His peripherals are so bad that despite throwing 79 innings of 2.96 ERA baseball, he's still at .4 fWAR. I mean there are guys who are FIP beaters, but not to this extent. Taillon is obviously not as terrible as he was the first half of the year, but even if we just focus on his performance since July 1st we're looking at a guy with a 4.26 ERA, 4.01 FIP 4.38 xFIP and 7.42 K/9. That's a solid back half of the rotation arm and that's about it. Stroman likely doesn't pitch again this year Wesneski is dominant against righties with a .193/.258/.311 line, unfortunately he makes every left he faces the equivalent of Ohtani. Lefties have posted a .312/.368/672 line. It would be great if Wicks could be the savior, but he's not really that kind of pitcher. He's a guy who is likely to be a solid mid rotation arm and it's not reasonable to expect him to come up and be a heavy contributor in a playoff race immediately.

Yes, but the talks about not being interested in extending him started before he began falling apart. I wouldn't be at all surprised if he decided that he didn't want a team that that didn't want him. I mean he isn't exactly known for being the best teammate which is why he had to settle for the 3 year deal the Cubs gave him in the first place.

If he can keep it to 3 or 4 runs over 6 innings, I'll be pretty thrilled.