Aaron Kennelly

that twitter account hasn't tweeted since last fall and back then they sounded like a typically pathetic 80's obsessed fan crying for more day games and being paranoid about losses. Not sure how much of that is even related to Len.

Sure, but does he even care about or run differential!?

If only Willson Contreras was here, he might help prevent us from a 20-7 start.

Yeah, that lineup is ugly -- well, at least it is as ugly as you could make a lineup with this team. Oh well, we'll still win 7-2. I'm really pumped up for this game, though. I know after the last series we pretty much quelled all the talk about, "We'll see how they do when they play some good teams." And a loss here or there doesn't really matter with this team, except maybe from a historical perspective. But I really want to exert our dominance against everyone, especially the other top teams. So a split here is just not acceptable in my completely warped reality. Getting the first one would be a major step toward taking at least three.

Offensively, he's doing a lot of things well and it's being covered up by a .204 BABIP. Walks are up, strikeouts are down. He's still a dumpster fire defensively so he's not high on my list of guys I'm excited about, but he's at least got the vague raw potential to dong his bad defense away, and he definitely belongs on an MLB roster regardless. I didn't think the day would come, but it appears that Kyle is higher on Soler than I am.

On a similar note, the guy that we traded for Dexter and the guy that Dexter replaced this year, Valbuena and Coghlan, respectively, have both been worth -0.4 fWAR thus far this year.

I'm bumping this not only because of the homer, but also to let everyone know that Starlin is playing at a 2-win pace. Zobrist is above a 3.5-win pace. Starlin's also been worth -4 DRS and -1.6 UZR at second. That's for everyone (myself included) complaining about stupid Zobrist ruining our dream defense by playing second while Bryant has to play in the outfield. For the record, Zobrist has been worth 0 DRS and 0.9 UZR at second.

58% of us didn't think we would win over 100 games?

hehe... remember before the season started, when we thought we were only 100-win good and not 120-win good?

He had already used the entire bench and Adams is super duper slow. Makes sense. I turned in at the last second, and the guys on the Phillies feed made no such mention of that.

Matheny just had Carlos Martinez pinch run for Matt Adams. He was the potential winning run. Cards have the bases loaded with 1 out, and Piscotty gets an infield single, and Martinez is tagged out after over-running the bag at third. They won on the next batter anyway. But can someone explain pinch running with a pitcher, who apparently is such a poor base runner that he makes such a horrible TOOTBLAN?

Rizzo, Bryant, and Fowler are all playing at least at a 9-win pace.

Equal to the odds that we win the division.

Anthony Rizzo has a 1.039 OPS, despite a .225 BABIP.

Sean Rodriguez is a psychopath. And we are living in his head, rent free. Who starts jawing with the opposing bench in the middle of an AB? Embarrassing.

Let me just reiterate that Ron Coomer is the worst play-by-play man that has ever existed. Please don't let him do that anymore. I swear he doesn't realize that his listeners can't see what is happening on the field.

Let's start this series off right. Maybe get to +100 in run differential? That would be swell.

When I saw him in the Quad Cities last week, Kellogg was working 87-90. Might it have something to do with him only being on 4 days rest for the first time this year?

I don't think it was the stadium gun. The Wisconsin pitcher the night before was routinely 94-95 and the lefty on the mound last night for them was at 92-93 a lot. Unfortunately, I think that's the last time I will see South Bend this year, though. And, yes, Eloy looks much better than Soler in the field and on the bases. He's definitely more of an athlete.

I was at the South Bend game again last night. Kellogg is an interesting case. He was only sitting 84-87 with his fastball last night. But, he was still so damn effective. He gave up hardly any hard contact. A lot on the ground, a lot of weak contact. Several hitters were visibly frustrated and two different hitters even yelled at themselves, one after a ground out and another after a strikeout. He pounded the zone, got ahead early in the count and kept his fastball down. He did a great job of mixing in his off-speed stuff. And both his changeup and curveball looked really good. Both pitches generated a lot of swing and miss. He kept hitters off-balance, and they stood no chance against either of those pitches. The fastball certainly wasn't overpowering, but he does have a nice plane and must be getting some movement on it, because nobody really hit his fastball hard, either. He was able to hit 88 and 89 a couple times in the sixth inning with it. He knows how to pitch. And he has everything you would like to see in a pitcher: big frame; a smooth, effortless and repeatable delivery; great command and control. It's just... that velocity. We'll have to see how he holds up against tougher competition in higher levels. He's outclassing the guys he's facing right now, though. And, who knows, maybe the velo will tick up to 90 or so? Matt Rose's home run was a shot. He got all of it. Eloy is Soler. He hammers fastballs and looks really bad against breaking balls. When he hits it, he gets his money worth, though. His double was scorched. Dewees beat out an infield single. He didn't really show blazing speed on it, though. When he did impress was on Eloy's double, when he scored from first. Eloy's ball was a rocket and there wasn't much time between him hitting it and the left fielder playing it off the wall. Dewees was flying and taking optimal turns around the bases. He runs the bases really well. P.J. Higgins is a prospect. I like him a lot. He's got a really strong arm. He's a good receiver, too. He's got soft hands, nothing herky-jerky. He'll need some work on blocking balls. He had a little trouble with a couple. But, he did make a few nice stops. He'll need time to develop behind the plate, but I think he looked fine. And his arm will definitely work back there. Higgins is a very disciplined hitter, too. He's got a great eye and he waits for pitches he can do something with. There aren't any holes in his swing, either. I'm not sure how much power he'll hit for; it's more of a line drive swing. But he does hit the ball hard. He hit a double that one-hopped the wall in straight away center. It was launched over the center fielder's head. He hit a single, too, that was right at the shortstop, but it ate him up. It was a rocket and the shortstop really was just trying not to die, rather than make a play on it. Eddy Martinez is fast. There was a ball that got away from the catcher when Martinez was on third. It rolled only about, maybe, 15 feet, right up the first base line. I don't know how the hell Martinez scored on it, but he did. Couple that with his arm and good bat speed, maybe there's something. But if he can't play center, my expectations are tempered. Also the fact that he is clueless at the plate really tempers my expectations.

Zobrist in the outfield. http://i.imgur.com/lBYwEDm.gif

This is really bringing me back, circa July 2014, when we sucked but we had all those awesome prospects and everyone was like, "Where are all of these shortstops going to play!?" And the answer was, as its always been, wherever the hell we want to play them. That was one thing I dreamed on, even more than the dongs... "Oh my god, we are going to have Gold Glovers everywhere." This was before we realized that Schwarber was the King Dongsmith and our minds quickly shifted to all of the dongs. We've really come full circle since the Russell trade, though. After that trade, we had all these awesome shortstops that were gonna gobble up everything. We argued for days about which one had to move to third and which one to second. At the time, Bryant was irrefutably The Dongsmith. His future position was less clear. Some didn't think he could stick at third. Others thought it would be a waste to have him patrolling the outfield. It turns out, he can play third, and he if he has to play the outfield, he will be a badass out there too. And he's going to have a ton of value wherever he plays. But, we still agreed, it was great to dream on that defense we were going to trot out. But, things shifted from the thought of all these amazing defenders playing all over the field. For one, Starlin and Javy proceeded to suck. Eventually, it was like, oh, so trading for Russell was a great idea, because none of our other shortstops even deserve a spot on the roster. So it looked like Bryant was staying at third, by default, even though he showed himself well there anyway. And then Schwarber unleashed his mammoth dongs all over the National League. And we began to recognize the power of the dong was enough to overcome all. So now we are without our beloved dongsmith Schwarber temporarily. And, yet, we are back to where it all began: too many Gold Glovers and not enough positions to play them. Oh, boohoo, we are going to have to move our solidly above average third baseman out to the outfield so we can play one of the better shortstops in the league at third, where he is a whirling death machine with his glove and arm. The Castro/Zobrist swap complicates things a little. And Jorge sucks. But, oh yeah, we also have Jason Heyward now. Still, this thought should hold up: We are living what we dreamed about for years. We are there. It all happened. And it is even more glorious than we ever imagined.

The best part about this is that the team inflicting this pain is a team that they horsefeathering hate.

Time to sweep. I hate to look too far ahead, but let's just say we win tomorrow and have a 6-game lead. The Pirates head to St. Louis. We have a tough series with the Nats coming in, but... big deal. Then the Padres come to town. After that, the Pirates come into town, and are set up to face the same three guys we ran out this week. The Cardinals will spend their time on a tough West coast trip. What I am trying to say is, if we play up to our potential, we could have an astonishing lead by the 15th of May.