Aaron_Kennelly

Holy hell, Javy.

He should get to 130+ including the playoffs this year would be my rough guess. Start tonight and let's say he gets 1 more (either for Lester next time thru the rotation or maybe he spots starts 1 more time towards the end of the year) that should put him around 115, then maybe 7-10 innings worth of relief appearances the rest of the year outside of the starts then another hopefully 10 or more in the playoffs if they use him in leverage spots and not just as the long guy. My ide;a role for Monty is roughly what he's been this year. Don't plan for him to be one of the 5 starters going in to the year but have him be first or 2nd man up when inevitable injuries/performance woes hit. I would like to see him be used as less of a long man at times and more in leverage 2-5+ out spots, ideally. I like that idea, too. I think there's a lot of value in having a guy like that. If he can give you 125 innings or whatever, and you use him in higher leverage spots out of the pen, you can get a ton of value there. And you don't have to worry so much about what kind of rotation depth you have at AAA. It's nice to be able to just plug him into the rotation whenever you need to do so. Now, that's a luxury. I'd want 5 starters that I trusted as much or more than him. If we have that, then I'm all for it. I'd be fine with him turning into a 30-start 200-inning starter, too. But, I'm not so upset about him not being that right now.

For the people on the "Start Montgomery" train, what's an acceptable amount of innings for him this year? He had 114.1 IP, including the regular season and playoffs last year. He's at 102.1 IP this year entering tonight. Seems like they've been able to increase his workload a decent amount, without overextending him. And he could be set up to give us 175 or so innings next year without much worry. I know there is a separate question about whether they've actually seen if he can be counted on as a starter, though.

Shut them down, Monty.

I would imagine he would. He said it wasn't a crap shoot this year like it normally was. He then said something like, "I'm not saying saying it's 90% likely, probably not 80% either, but it's definitely over 50%."

Going 8-5 over a 13 game stretch, regardless of the competition, is perfectly fine by me. There's nothing disappointing about that. That's playing at around a 100 win pace. I nearly drove off the road listening to Mully and Hanley whining about the 8-5 stretch and "only" gaining 1 game this morning on The Score. horsefeathering horrible takes. I could only listen for like 3 minutes before turning it off in a fit of rage. The last straw was when Jon Heyman said the Dodgers were more than 50% likely to win the World Series.

Yeah, they are awesome. Hopefully we'll get to see, like, 1,000 more of them.

There are some amazing Willson gifs, too. http://mlb.mlb.com/images/5/7/2/244354572/072517_contreras_stare_med_n11mz65o.gif http://mlb.mlb.com/images/6/0/4/246239604/080317_contreras_swing_med.gif http://mlb.mlb.com/images/8/8/0/225847880/042217_gif_contreras_bat_flip_med_gltjc28o.gif

Some oldies: http://mlb.mlb.com/images/8/2/6/197125826/082216_baez_tag_med_vup0ceme.gif http://mlb.mlb.com/images/6/3/4/199322634/090316_chc_baez_slide_safe_med_08m1m4re.gif http://mlb.mlb.com/images/9/7/4/195908974/081616_chc_javy_soler_wiffleball_bat_med_pt0oxxxg.gif

Sorry, I hadn't seen that gif before. It was from his homer against the Reds on the 17th -- the 13-10 game. I just found this page on the mlb website where you can search for gifs. http://m.mlb.com/gif-download-video-embed-hub Here is Javy's page if you want to spend countless hours watching Javy Being Javy: http://m.mlb.com/gif-download-video-embed-hub#tag=player_id%2C595879

http://mlb.mlb.com/images/1/6/0/249056160/081717_baez_hr_med.gif

Vaunted Dodgers.

It is not okay to use game threads/NSB as your personal dumping ground for all the irrational anxieties you can conjure up when things inevitably don't always go perfectly over the course of 162 games. Especially when that makes up most/all of the posts you make. At first I thought this somehow was directed at me, then I realized it was at the Cubs from from Cincinnati. I hope. Definitely not you. CincyCubsFan only shows up when things aren't going well, though. And there are others like him that do nothing but bitch and moan. And they only show up to lash out during losses. People complaining isn't a problem. Being pessimistic, also not a problem. Being a troll is another story.

hahahaha... nice defense, vaunted Brewers

It must suck more to be 2.5 back of a team that is clearly better than you. You had a whole month to make up ground, and you didn't and now there is only a month left. It's in both teams hands. They play seven games in September. It up to either of them to get it done. I mean, I guess I feel pretty good if I'm the vaunted Brewers. They didn't even try to get better at the deadline, they have a payroll that's less than $100 million then the team they are fighting with and the Duke of their board is probably laughing that we lost two of three to the Phillies. Let's see what happens. Would love for the Cubs to win the division. The Brewers suck and they aren't winning the division. Those head-to-head games are a lot more important for them, considering if they don't fare well in them, they are toast. Also, they've already blown a 5.5 game lead and trail a superior team by 2.5 games. But, sure... let's start start in with this horsefeathers again.

Much to the dismay of some posters in this thread, the Cardinals just lost.

That's where I'm at. Losing two of three to the Phillies certainly isn't ideal. But if someone had told me, at the break, that by late August, the Cubs would be three games up in the division, I'd have been ecstatic. Yeah, but it's still disappointing in a way. On August 1 we were 2.5 games ahead and on Aug. 27 we are 2. Considering we just played 13 games against last place teams and the vaunted Brewers went on a 10-game West Coast trip that some thought would be the end of them, that kind of sucks. It must suck more to be 2.5 back of a team that is clearly better than you. You had a whole month to make up ground, and you didn't and now there is only a month left.

Yeah, it would be a different story if these other teams were out here lighting the world on fire. But they keep tripping over their own dicks, too. It's frustrating that we haven't used that chance to pull away. But we're still very much the favorites. So it's not like it's the end of the world. Hope for a couple more losses today, and it's nothing more than another day marked off the calendar.

It's been a weird month, for sure. I said it a couple weeks ago, but we keep playing good baseball. And we're just not sequencing our runs well. We've had a ton of blowouts. And the offense has been really good the whole second half. But we keep losing a bunch of close games and it's made us muddle along for a few weeks. Part of the problem has been the bullpen blowing leads. And also Joe was managing drunk for a while. But, it's also just baseball. We've been a unlucky lately. We are still a really good team. And we'll be even better when we are at full strength. Luckily, the rest of the division sucks. And we've got a bit of a cushion, No worries.

It's almost like some people have never watched baseball in their lives. Jeez. Every little thing ever is the biggest event to ever happen. The season has been turned on its head 275 times this season.

lol

Giancarlo Stanton has hit 30 home runs since the last time the Cubs lost a game started by John Lackey. Also, the Dodgers only led their division by 1.5 games the last time the cubs lost a game started by Lackey.

The Cubs haven't lost a game started by Lackey since June.

Not to be forgotten amidst all the dongs, but Hendricks was fantastic again tonight. He has a 2.48 ERA since coming off the DL. His changeup has been really nasty lately. Last two games, hitters are 2-31 with 11 K's and 3 GIDP's against it. They whiffed on 16 of 32 swings at it tonight. Here are his whiff/swing each of the last two years on the changeup: 2015: 40.5% 2016: 38.6% And then this year pre- and post-DL stint: Pre-DL: 27.9% Post-DL: 39.3% He's looking like Somehow Greg Maddux Kyle.