Bryants Disco Ball

If Carl could have stayed healthy, we'd have had one of our future starters already. That said, he's going to be our closer. That's important, too.

For 2+? 2+, 3+, whatever it takes.

Just put in Carl now.

I got no problem admitting I didn't see the Cubs scoring five runs this inning.

Let's not forget Kyle cost himself multiple runs by sucking tonight.

At least it wasn't a grand slam like the last time?

It's possible, especially if they get swept this weekend. But the Cardinals are very flawed and playing as crappy of late themselves. The Cubs are playing as badly as they possibly can with their roster. The Cardinals aren't playing much differently than their actual true talent level (like an 84-win team). Hell, they're significantly overachieving with their starting rotation (which is 30 points better than any in baseball at 3.22). Again, you get swept this weekend, and that's 4 games you have to make up on them. The gap in these teams' talent levels would probably be made up with that, where the Cubs would really need to kick it into gear the rest of the way to win the division. *Right now*, the Cubs should still be clear favorites because they have the much better roster, and usually that shows up over 162 games. But we're at least now at the point where's it not like "oh they'll be fine." They may very well not be, and need to start playing much better. But it's especially unlikely the Cubs keep sucking across the board for too much longer (hopefully before it's too late). This team is going to hit, and should play better defense. The starting rotation is a real problem and could stay that way, but we know they're going to add there (should the team not keep sinking). At what point, if at all, do the Brewers enter the equation?

Stupid question. Do they have the most at-bats because they have such a low average with RISP, where as the teams that have a good average don't have as many because they are driving them in? I really hope that makes sense. I'm an idiot and even worse when it comes to math.

I'm hoping this is more like 2015 and not like last year with J-Hey, where everyone waited for him to finally get going until at some point everyone realized it wasn't happening.

Also, I know they are using Wade in a specific way, but they really might want to give him an inning of work here and there. I can't imagine it's great to be going a week or more in between appearances.

Hot take sort of: The Cubs ain't winning this division. If one part of the team sucked, that's one thing. Every part sucks.

Wait. What? Didn't they score on that? Oh never mind. I stopped watching after the 4th. Didn't even see this play.

Wait. What? Didn't they score on that?

No chance. Maybe less than no chance.

I guess people can hold out hope that the Cubs are still going to win a horrible division. But it does mean the Cubs have to actually win games again at some point.

You mean this game, right? Because we ain't scoring for the rest of this game on the way to getting swept by the Padres.

Excellent play by Happ, only made excellent because the Cubs make everything difficult.

The Cubs suck.

That's exactly how we will score runs for now on.

Oh, wow. The Cubs really are looking to get into a brawl with Arrieta on the mound today.

Well that's just stupid. We WILL have a lead in a game again. But we will never again not give it right back the next half inning.

OK. Who willing to call an Ian Happ home run this inning? Obviously, calling a K would be easy.

I don't know. If we are going to get all meatball-y, I will still stick with the thinking this team pulled off the last great American sports story and partied and enjoyed the offseason so much (except for J-Hey) that they weren't able to flip the switch and start over so soon.

Well, of course we will. But it has nothing to do with his 5.61 ERA. It's because we get shut down by everyone.

Least favorite game of the year. We win, we still lost a series against the Padres and return home an average team that failed to build further separation from .500 that the 7-2 homestand had helped create. We lose, and well, we just got swept by one of the worst teams in baseball and really squandered our 7-2 homestand. However, we did win the World Series in 2016, and that still makes us the big winner.