Aaron_Kennelly

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.

Well, I've got some good news for you.

We've got them right where we want them.

lol

One of the weird things I've noticed about Butler is that he's changed how he pitches, but not how he was supposed to change. When he was a prospect, he used to pitch from a lower angle and he got a lot more drop on his pitches, as Eno Sarris showed when we traded for him: http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/eddie-butler-then-now-and-in-the-future/ The Rockies tried to change him and it really messed him up. When we got him, Bosio was supposed to get him back to his natural pitching motion. https://www.si.com/mlb/2017/02/21/chicago-cubs-chris-bosio-pitching-lab Essentially, this is what happened with Arrieta. That's why he was supposed to be Arrieta 2.0. His previous club was messing with him to fit their organizational preferences. Bosio would let him be himself and he'd go back to what made him good. Then, there was this note in a Fangraphs piece, when he was in Iowa: http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/sunday-notes-whitleys-cattle-cubs-butler-gausmans-analogy-yard-goats-more/ Going downhill is the exact opposite of what he was supposed to be doing. That's what the Rockies were having him do. He was supposed to be going back to his natural, lower release point. And if you look at his release points, he is going more downhill. His vertical release point is way up from where it was even in Colorado. He's pretty much straight-over-the-top now. http://www.brooksbaseball.net/velo.php?player=572750&b_hand=-1&time=year&minmax=ci&var=z0&s_type=2&startDate=03/30/2007&endDate=06/06/2017&gFilt=&pFilt=FA|SI|FC|SL|CU|CS|KN|CH|FS|SB If you look at it game-by-game, he was all over the place the last couple of years. He may have been going up from where he was when he was a prospect, but it was constantly fluctuating; nothing was repeatable. At least this year, it's been more stable. It seems like his delivery is more repeatable. And the gap between his release points on different pitches has shrunk. This delivery may help him to better disguise his off-speed stuff from his fastballs. http://www.brooksbaseball.net/velo.php?player=572750&b_hand=-1&gFilt=&pFilt=FA|SI|FC|SL|CU|CS|KN|CH|FS|SB&time=game&minmax=ci&var=z0&s_type=2&startDate=03/30/2007&endDate=06/06/2017 But, this isn't the Arrieta process. In fact, it's pretty much the exact opposite of it.

Yeah, ground balls are good. He should try to get more of them. *Crap, I forgot about the powers* Actually ground balls are bad. He should continue to do that.

Called it.

Yeah, ground balls are good. He should try to get more of them.

It's a recipe for sustained success; get them behind immediately so a lineup filled with struggling players presses even more. Add the bonus of battling just to have league average-quality defense, and VOILA: a treading water .500 team out of one that should be dominating fools. at this point let's just break out the fried chicken and beer They'd find a way to screw that up, too. KFC and Zima.

This whole team sucks. It is a bag of asses. It won't be long before Bryant and Rizzo join the others in suckitude.

Send Butler back to Iowa when Hendricks is back.

And Eric Sogard is OPS'ing 2.500 and they still suck. The Brewers are trash.

The Brewers suck. The whole division sucks. We've played pretty much the worst we could possibly play and we're 1 game out. The Brewers got a month of Barry Bondsian production out of a guy who strikes out every other AB now, and they are still a .500 team. They blow. And the talent disparity is still ridiculous, even if it's not as huge as we once thought it was. I'm not scared whatsoever by any team in our division. We'll be resting guys for a full week in September.

The Cubs are going to finish 10 games ahead of the Brewers.

Because one of our starters unexpectedly went on the DL and we had to spot start with one of our bullpen arms?

This is silly.

good start

Eloy is so good.

horsefeathers, man

By exit velocity, he did.

horsefeathering horsefeathers

[expletive] run.