Aaron_Kennelly

And a bat flip!

Let's get some 6-pitch innings and finish off the no-no, Jake.

It's official: Schwarber is my favorite and always will be. He's a freak of nature.

So much for their bullpen of death.

horsefeathers yes! You beautiful, creepy weirdo!

150 buses?! What?!

"I'm having so much fun right now." http://www.chicagonow.com/cubs-den/files/2016/05/hendricks.jpg

Good interview.

Kyle Schwarber shall go down as the greatest hitter of all time.

No sweat.

Just get us through 5 or so with the lead. That means you have to do some damage, bats.

And then he loses his command immediately after I say that.

Hitting spots. Great velo. Crazy movement. I'm intrigued.

Dong time.

I've seen this story before. It doesn't end well for the opposing pitcher.

Hell yes! Let's do this!

Not only did he take Seal Boy's roster spot, but he should take his "3 a.m." nickname, too.

Kyle Schwarber suffered a catastrophic knee injury, missed essentially the whole season, and then showed up at the World Series and started taking walks and driving balls off the top of the wall, off of a Cy Young winner, who was pitching one of his best games ever. That actually happened.

Jake's going to be good tonight. And even if not, we are going to make mincemeat out of Bauer. Rizzo, Javy, and Schwarber homer. Cubs win big. And we'll have Cy Hendricks waiting at home for Game 3.

Yeah, Kluber was great. And this is not to say that the ump sucked, because he did. Stop calling balls strikes! But Kluber wasn't just hitting the corners. He was hitting just off the corner every time. That makes him almost unhittable when the ump is opening the zone like that. But I credit Kluber for not only hitting his spots, but knowing he was gonna get a little more and going out to the limits of what would be acceptable and painting there instead.

I can see it. And, like I said, I'm pretty much over the Miggy/Jake thing. But I think the difference here, in what you are saying, is negligible enough that I might lean to the other side. And that's mainly because we don't know much about the pitcher/catcher dynamic. There might be something real there, at least with some guys. And it's pretty much impossible for us to know if it exists, or to what extent. So I'm good with matching them up whenever the matchups make it not such a crazy idea.

Schwarber crushing a near dong off Corey friggin' Kluber with next to no live pitching experience over the last 5-6 months was better than I thought he'd do, and an exceptional sign for things to come. If he can crush a pitch that well off a guy who was pitching THAT good, then it bodes well for Schwarbs the rest of the series. Possibly more impressive was facing those two guys, with such nasty movement on their pitches, and being incredibly disciplined. and it wasn't like he was just up there taking. When the pitch actually was a strike, he was taking big, aggressive hacks. He was locked in, as far as recognizing pitches and attacking the good ones. He was just a little off on some pitches. But he did put a drive into that one. He's a freak.

I've vacillated on Miggy or Willson catching Jake practically every time Jake's started. One the hand, I see why Miggy is a good guy to have back there for him. He's pretty much the best framer in the league. Jake's a guy with a lot of movement on his stuff and he's had troubles hitting his spots. Miggy knows what he's doing back there and knows Jake and his stuff better than anyone. But, Jake's been unreliable, regardless of whatever we do to try to make him comfortable. You just can't designate a personal catcher to a guy pitching like a #4, because you might need to score some runs if he pitches like we've grown accustomed to seeing. And it's not like Willson is a train wreck or anything back there. He's graded out well with his framing. He's got a cannon for an arm. He's done a good job blocking pitches. He knows what he's doing back there, too. Hell, he caught and called an absolute gem from Kyle over the weekend in the biggest game of our lifetimes. So, I think I'd like to drop the idea of Jake being exclusive to Miggy. Where this game is a little different for me is because of the matchups. We have Schwarber back and can DH him. We have a hole in one of the corner outfield spots, thanks to Heyward being Heyward. So there is a spot there for Willson, if you still want to use him. And Bauer isn't overpowering or anything. He's had problems walking guys. Miggy always takes good ABs, even when he isn't hitting. He's disciplined and has a good eye. He's a decent bet to get on base, or even go deep, off Bauer. It's not like we are stuck using Miggy against Kershaw or something. I just think it's a good opportunity tomorrow to hope the Jake-Miggy connection pays off.

Contreras can play in the outfield, and against a RH starter there isn't much difference between Montero and Coghlan when you consider the defensive alignment needed for either to play. So do you think there's no real difference between Coghlan and Contreras in the outfield? I know tonight it didn't end up mattering at all (from what I can remember). Genuinely asking, not necessarily trying to dispute. And I guess long term picture, since you said 2017, when Schwarber comes back how would you want to play it? In 2017, Willson is going to be an All-Star. And he is going to catch whenever the hell he wants to catch. That's how I would play it. For now, I'm OK with it, especially since we have the DH at our disposal tomorrow to potentially get Schwarber and Willson in the lineup.

Meh. They can have this one. Kluber is great and was great tonight. Tip your cap like you did when Kershaw got us. Dong the hell out of the rest of their rotation, which is a joke. We're fine. All this did was eliminate the chance of us sweeping. Schwarber looked good. Miller was ultimately wasted. Time to tie it up and go to Wrigley.