Aaron Kennelly

It sucks to see Clifton's issues with control creeping up again. I was hopeful that he was making strides after last year.

He has a 4/1 K/BB and has given up like 1.5 hard hit balls through 5 innings. He deserves to have given up 0 runs. true but god forbid he's able to overcome a little adversity with no cespedes or conforto in the lineup. walks have been his biggest problem with the cubs and it really hurt him against 2 non-hitters The point is, he's pitched well and had a bunch of fluky hits and shitty defense that hurt him. Montgomery gave up hardly any hard contact, got a ton of grounders, kept the ball in the park, didn't walk guys, and got some swings and misses. He did everything you'd want him to do. Your post would be better received in a game started by John Lackey.

Fun fact: If you add up the exit velocity on all of the Mets' balls in play, it is still less than the exit velocity on Schwarber's dong.

Statcast is drunk... 98% hit probability. What? Is there a 425-feet-tall right fielder somewhere bringing that below 100%?

467 feet... is that far?

Good lord, that was smoked.

Matt Harvey is so horsefeathering terrible.

Matt Harvey is probably worse than John Lackey. Don't horsefeathers this up.

Something's afoot. I think you must have sold your soul to see some dongs on your birthday trip. http://i.imgur.com/8Z2UuTi.jpg

Why couldn't it have been Lackey?

What if I told you before the season that Heyward wasn't fixed and he was hitting cleanup, and that it wasn't such a stretch?

To be fair to Lackey, his approach seemed normal to me: throw 90 mph meatballs right down the pipe.

http://i.imgur.com/RTH4dVH.gif

I'm boycotting starting game threads until Lackey is DFA'd.

Javy's stats in extended spring training in 2012 are hilarious: JAVIER BAEZ (SS): 330/351/725 (26 GAMES - 94 PA) – 6 2B, 3 3B, 8 HR, 28 RBI, 19 R, 1 BB, 23 K, 2 HBP, 1 GIDP, 11 SB (1 CS)

That's one of the best extended spring training lines I've seen. Obviously, you can't take too much from it. But I think these stats at least give us a decent idea of what kind of hitter a guy is -- can he make contact, hit for power, etc. Sometimes you'll see some random 22-year-old post some good numbers down there, which obviously means nothing. But for an 18-year-old to do that in his first year stateside, that's very impressive. That K% is amazing. He's obviously got some bat-to-ball skills. However much stock you put into stats from AZL or Eugene, even, I think it's OK to assign some similar significance to these stats, if the sample size is large enough. It's hard to fake those kind of numbers. Sure, he's probably not going to Buster Posey every level as he goes up and faces tougher competition. But that line fills me with excitement.

On Sunday, the Cubs finished off a winning home stand and got back to .500, drawing within a game of the Brewers. Tonight, they'll get back above .500 and start off an unbeaten road trip that will put the Brewers in the rear view mirror. John Lackey will take the mound for the World Champs tonight. Lackey appears to be rounding into mid-season form after a bit of a slow start this season. While he compiled monthly ERAs above 5.0 in both April and May, his ERA in June is all the way down to 4.85 through two starts. John's been a bastion of consistency all year, though. He's pitched between 5 and 6 innings in 11 of his 12 starts. He's given up between 3 and 5 runs in 9 starts. And he's given up 1 or 2 homers in 9 starts, as well. You know what you are getting when Big John toes the rubber: 5 solid innings of 4-run ball, thanks to a gopher ball or two. Lackey will face Jacob deGrom. deGrom has suffered from a case of Cub-itis this year. He has some sparkling peripheral stats and an unsightly ERA, thanks to an astonishingly high HR/FB and a horrible BABIP. deGrom has given up 15 runs over his last two starts. And the bad news for him is that things are only going to get worse. These Cubbie bats are getting warmed up! I pointed out some encouraging stats from the offense in the last game thread, and I was right on the money with all of those observations. I'm not here to lead you astray. Let's break them down one-by-one. A pinch-hit dinger yesterday. Expect at least one more tonight. Another walk yesterday. He'll pick up several more tonight. Another run scored for Rizzo yesterday. He'll score again tonight, probably after donging himself in. In his one PA with RISP yesterday, he hit a 3-run bomb. A sharp seventh-inning single to right kept his OPS over .700 for another day. It's going to stay there. Another day without a K, after entering the game as a defensive replacement. Willson didn't get to play yesterday, so the RBIs will have to wait until tonight. Another walk for Javy yesterday -- against a righty, to boot. Still no throwing errors, and he chipped in a dong, too. He once again made contact on his only swing yesterday. He's becoming a contact-making machine. A pair of hits apiece for Jay and Montero, who both inch closer to Seal Boy in this gripping batting average race. Mets fans have been deluded into believing they are on the same level as the World Champions because they got lucky in some random series a couple years ago. They should feel lucky that they didn't have to face this guy, though: http://i.imgur.com/woNNYh9.jpg?1 This one will be a laugher. At least 10 runs for the red hot Cubbies.

The Brewers aren't going to win 75 games.

Damn, he's good.

Fly the W!

Don't worry, ninnies. Duke's taken control. I'll be starting game threads until the All-Star break.

Heyward is so good out there. The routes he takes to set up throws are fantastic.

Please, call me Duke.

Imagine booing the only living human beings to win a World Series for the Cubs.

The defending World Series Champions look to get back to .500 and ensure themselves of a winning home stand before heading off to New York. Jake Arrieta will take the mound. His xFIP, FIP, and ERA all rank among the top 3 of qualified Cubs' starters. Arrieta has been at his best lately. He's given up fewer than 3 runs in each of his last two outings, the first time he's done so in back-to-back starts since August 6 and August 12 of last year. He's also made 5 consecutive starts with at least 6 innings pitched and fewer than 5 runs allowed. He hasn't done that since finishing off the 2015 regular season with 20 such starts. He's a quarter of the way to matching that, and if you ask this poster, he's a cinch to match that impressive run. Arrieta's yet to walk more than 3 batters in a start this season. If he can do that once more, it'd be the first time in his career he's started out a season with 13 such starts. A lot has been made of Arrieta's reduced velocity this year, but did you know that his average curveball velocity was over 80 mph for the first time in 2017 in his last start? It's true. Arrieta will face Rockies' rookie Antonio Senzatela. Senzatela has acquitted himself well in his first crack at the majors, coming into the game with a 3.56 ERA. He hasn't faced this dynamo lineup yet, though. (*Edit* Scratch that. He has faced the Cubs, in a game the Rockies won 10-4. I didn't see that game, though, so it doesn't count.) There are a lot of good signs from the Cubs' offense in recent days. Kyle Schwarber has hit 3 home runs in his last 10 games. Kris Bryant is seeing the ball really well. He picked up a walk yesterday -- a feat none of his teammates were able to accomplish. Anthony Rizzo scored 2 runs the other day. Ben Zobrist only failed with runners in scoring position once yesterday. This is the latest into a season that Jason Heyward's had an OPS over .700 since 2015. Albert Almora hasn't struck out since June 6. Willson Contreras drove in a run yesterday. Javier Baez's unintentional walk rate in June is his highest monthly total this year. Addison Russell hasn't committed a throwing error since his domestic violence allegations came to light. Ian Happ made contact on the only pitch he saw yesterday. And Miguel Montero and Jon Jay are in an intense battle to overtake a minor leaguer, Tommy LaStella, for the team lead in batting average. The Rockies are probably feeling pretty good about themselves, what with their 41-23 record. But despite the three losses, there are signs that the Cubs have their number. Charlie Blackmon's struck out 5 times this series. While four Rockies had multiple hits yesterday, the other four position players had to settle for only 1 hit each. And only one of their two home runs landed on the street. And now they have to face this man: http://i.imgur.com/ZCQDDDh.jpg?1 Good luck.