Aaron Kennelly

We also got back a guy who ended up being our starting catcher for a month while putting up a .257/.368/.432 line. And Wilson could come back next year and be good -- like he has been the rest of his career. Obviously it hasn't worked out great, since Wilson suddenly became horrible. But I'm not quite ready to write it off as a bad trade.

Yeah, I really want back that fat teenager who hit .217/.323/.348 in low-A after we traded him.

I don't know blowing a 5 game lead with 22 left qualifies as some degree of a collapse. But we haven't blown anything yet. We've lost some games off our lead.

Didn't the '69 Cubs blow like a 12-game lead and finish 10 games back? So far, this team performed below expectations for most of the season and then were swept in one series on a weekend in early September. There's been no collapse yet. We're still in first. And there isn't much of a collapse to have when you've never been up more than 5 games all year.

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Cubs: We're going to blow a 5-game lead with three weeks left. Dodgers: Hold my Dodger Dog.

Well, that's that. The Vaunted Brewers are a team of destiny. Immune from the Duke Curse. Truly impressive, considering I nearly killed a guy two hours after posting my last front page article.

Seriously. How could anyone give a horsefeathers about the horsefeathering Brewers? They're the Cardinals. Get your priorities together, people.

Nah.

It's looking rougher for the guy who has been saying since May that the Brewers were going to win the division, considering they still trail the Cubs. http://www.reactiongifs.com/r/Fc9elLu.gif

It's looking rougher for the guy who has been saying since May that the Brewers were going to win the division, considering they still trail the Cubs. It doesn't look quite as ridiculous as the vaunted posters on here thought. I don't know what to tell you. I've had numerous discussions with you about this. The Brewers do suck. They are a .500ish team that played above their heads for half a season. The Cubs played well below their potential for half a season. We trailed by 5.5 games at the break. When it got to that point, I conceded that it was going to be a tight race. How could it not be, if we had to make up 5.5 games with only a few months left? Things haven't gone well for us. And we let the Brewers and the Cardinals hang around for far too long, despite them being inferior opponents. Not much we can do to change that now.

god hates duke for vaunting the cubs all season while simultaneously pretending the brewers were vaunted Yeah, Duker is looking rough on this one right now. Because with 19 games left, we are two games ahead of them. Which means either they aren't the garbage team he has stressed all year that they are, or we aren't quite as #wearegood as he thinks. That said, let's hope the Cubs win the division and his ultimate prediction will still shine through. It's looking rougher for the guy who has been saying since May that the Brewers were going to win the division, considering they still trail the Cubs.

A more optimistic person would say that the Cardinals better win today or they will be 4 back with 19 games left. But that person is not me. We are doomed.

Javy is having none of your horsefeathers, BABIP gods.

Even though I implore you all to completely ignore this game, I'll be a gracious game thread starter and present you with today's losing lineup. [tweet] [/tweet]

Good idea. More people need to know about the impending doom. http://www.northsidebaseball.com/articles/cubs-articles/56-9-10-game-preview

The Cubs no longer exist. They are now the Cobs. And they are in free fall. They still lead the division by three games, but that won't last. We know where this is going. The only saving grace is that this is the last game against the Brewers for a couple weeks, so the lead might last a few days longer. But it won't last for long. The Brewers have come into Wrigley and pummeled the Cobs and completely shut down an already inept Cobs offense. Kyle Schwarber was our best hitter yesterday, which tells you quite a lot. The Brewers will be throwing a guy that looks a lot like Kyle Hendricks against the original Kyle Hendricks, who is now a shell of his former self. The Cobs stand no chance in this one. I haven't seen either of the last two games and I'd recommend you all skip out on this one. I spent yesterday on a golf course for a bachelor party, and it was liberating to not even care about the Cobs. If you have the opportunity, I'd recommend you do the same. Or just drink. But ignore this group of gutless, choking dogs. It will do wonders for your health.

I also don't understand some of you guys hating this team. Some people need some perspective. This team won 200 games and a World Series in the last two years, and they are sitting 3 games up with a chance to win another World Series this year. If you hate them, when are you ever going to enjoy baseball again?

This horsefeathers should not ever happen We caught them on a weekend when some of our bats are slumping and we still have 2 starters injured -- 1 being one of our three best players. We also sent our 5th and 6th best starters against their top 2. This shouldn't have been unexpected. Just win today and no sweat. Also this is baseball and this stuff happens all the time.

No we don't agree. You are just wrong here. It's silly that you care this much about it. It really is. It shouldn't have your attention at all. It means nothing. Absolutely nothing. He's had 54 PA in high leverage situations. He has a 20.4% BB% and a 20.4% K% in those situations. He's taking the same good ABs. And he's made poor contact on 30 balls in play in high leverage situations. 30 balls in play. You can't tell anything from that. At all. It is completely fluky and means nothing. Please just give it up.

Also, I think we definitely got in on the action last year. KB was driving the ball harder and getting more in the air and it won him an MVP. Dexter started hitting for more power after he came here and has continued to do so after leaving. Willson, as I mentioned in the previous post, got a lot of help. David Ross certainly benefited. And Addison Russell really dipped into that well in the second-half last year.

If things continue like they have in the second-half, though, and guys aren't World Series Hungover or Duke Cursed, then the juiced ball should be very good for us. We've got a lot of guys in that upper middle class of power that swing for the fences and should see a big boost from a juiced ball.

I feel like the juiced ball craze somehow missed the Cubs. Other than Happ and maybe Contreras, everyone's power production is about where I would have expected it this season. Now show a bunch of stats that make me look very wrong. I, generally, agree very much with this. I think a lot of Cubs have missed out on it so far. Even a guy like Rizzo, who is getting ready to surpass his career high in HR. He's at 18.1% HR/FB, which is above his career average. The year before the juiced ball entered the equation, though, he had a 18.8% HR/FB, in 2014. It was also 18.1% in 2012. His HR/FB dropped off big time in 2015, though. And it has went up in each of the next two years. So I might just be off here. It's possible he's simply traded power for contact. And he's definitely doing that with 2 strikes, so I'm willing to admit that I might be way off here. But Rizzo is in the juicy upper middle class of raw power (exit velocity). And that's the group that stands to benefit the most from the juiced ball. He isn't hitting a bunch of 480-feet bombs that don't need any help, like Judge. But he hits a ton of balls really hard and far that have a chance of leaving the park. And he puts the ball in play a lot. I really think he's got a home run explosion coming one of these years if the ball stays juiced. More than this, though... KB has had a weird year and isn't hitting for power like he should. And Schwarber's year has been all fucked up. As has Addison Russell's, who is also in that middle class of power, like Rizzo, that should see a homer spike. It's just been a bad year for a bunch of guys. And we started off so slow that it's hard for us to get our overall numbers back in line. I think we've definitely seen the benefits of the juiced ball effect in the second half, though -- perhaps more than any team in the second-half. On the plus side, there is Happ, who is basically the poster boy for the juiced ball era. He, like several I've mentioned, is in that upper middle class of power. And he's definitely seen the effect. He hits a lot of fly balls. And he gets the ball up in the air with that elevated swing path. And he hits a lot of them far. And he's had a number that have just gotten out. He's thriving in this era. I think Willson was seeing some benefits, like you mention. But that was before he got super hot and started hitting 450-foot shots every other day. He's a little different, in that I think he definitely benefited a ton last year and early on this year. Then he turned a corner and turned into a legit, dong-mashing superstar.

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