Aaron_Kennelly

Freyr's coming in hot!

Hoover in; time to eat.

Seal Boy has yet to strike out this season, too.

Tommy LaStella: another person that is better than Jorge Soler at playing baseball.

Seal Boy!

I love this new sick burn that I've heard a few times now. "Ha! The Cubs aren't even home-grown! Theo is so bad that he didn't just luck into talent because of tanking. He actually went out and built a great club through a number of different avenues. What a horrible organization they have over there!"

Scratch Carlos Carrasco off the list. He was carried off the field today with an apparent leg injury, on a non-contact play covering first base.

Addi!

hahaha

Rizzo! Goodness.

First-half Hammel in full effect.

Dong again, Anthony.

J-Hey!

Have a day, Seal Boy.

Jay, you're not seriously making that catch.

I have no doubt, once you factor in defense and baserunning. I'm pretty confident Almora is currently better as well. I have no doubt, either. It was more a philosophical question.

Has it really gotten to the point that Jorge is worse than Javy?

horsefeathers yes!

Yay!

Seal Boy!

Try not to suck today.

And my favorite news: Almora. The walks are real. I am certain. It's been going on too long. He's on record as saying he worked hard at improving that aspect of his game. And he needed to be more patient. Badly. I think he made a sincere effort to change, and it is working. I am all in on him at this point. I'm not getting too excited about a couple homers. I honestly don't care too much about the power. If he hit 15-20 on the year, then I might be getting a little more excited. But, it's the PCL, and, so far, it's just a couple homers. I won't read anything into it, except it shows me that he's not making weak contact. That's where he got into the most trouble and why he fell off the face of the Earth. The contact ability has always been there. But he got exposed badly at the upper levels. It didn't matter that he put balls in play, because it wasn't working. The BABIP fell through the floor. And, if you know the guy is willing to get himself out by chasing junk and putting it weakly into play, then he just was useless offensively. He's not going to get good pitches to hit. And, even so, he doesn't have enough power to really harm you. So he's just an easy out. He's Darwin Barney. That's cute that you don't strike out, but you are still worthless. Maybe you'll luck into a single. But,with the way you hit, probably not. Now, it appears that he makes you pitch to him, and he makes you work. And maybe he lays off your junk. If so, well, maybe a little power surge is genuine. Maybe he is waiting for good pitches to drive. Maybe he is able to do a little more damage on his balls in play. And, even if not, at least he is going to get on base more often by upping his walk total from non-existent to at least average. I won't buy that he is just all of a sudden going to hit for more power. But, the power is still good to see. As is the batting average. This was a guy that was getting killed by his deflated BABIP. He thrived off of it when he was younger. It's the only thing he had going for him. He was a guy that could put the ball in play and hit his way on base. Then... he wasn't. It's easy to surmise that it was because he just wasn't hitting the bell well. So, seeing a higher BABIP, and a higher batting average, and a higher ISO... these are all good things. Those stats might be lying to me -- it is the PCL, after all. But, it is important that I see them improve. He has to improve them. And there is reason to believe he has. He already did in the second-half last year. Throw in what very well may be plus defense in CF, and, as I said, I'm all in. He's the guy I'll be most attentively watching this year. I'm thoroughly impressed with his transformation. And, frankly, I'm shocked that I'm all in. I wasn't even in when he was thought of more highly.

Really fun day on the farm. Apparently Happ decided to stop striking out and is only going to walk and dong now. He seems intent on proving me wrong and putting up a good year. I am starting to get down. The walks and power as a second baseman can definitely play. I was very cautious because of the lack of contact last year, at a low level, from a college guy. But I can look past it if he keeps getting on base and smacking the ball out of the park. Gleyber had a good night. He's walking a ton. That's fun. Now he needs to start putting the ball in play more. I know he 's never going to have a ton of power, but he knows how to hit. Just put the bat on the ball and he'll be a fine player. Dewees and Chesny Young keep rolling along. Very encouraging start for Stinnett. Hopefully he's righted the ship.

I didn't get to see the game, and was unable to follow along, save for a few score updates. I talked to my brother and he said it was an ugly, error-riddled game and all of our pitchers got rocked. From what he described, it wasn't pretty. And, mind you, this is without watching anything or seeing any highlights (or low-lights), but after getting home and first checking the box score, this looks like about the best 13-5 loss I could imagine. I'm sure it is a much more miserable outlook for those of you that had to endure this whole wretched game. But, let me, the uninitiated observer, shed some positive light on this game. Russell appeared to have a great night at the plate. Fowler stayed scorching hot. Heyward got on base three times and stole a base. We drew 8 walks and only struck out 8 times. Their pitchers threw 186 pitches. So the patient, disciplined offense was present again. Now, the pitching, which, obviously, is at fault in a game in which we gave up 13 runs... well, I ain't even mad. It appears that Lackey pitched alright. 1 BB and 5 K. He seems to have been getting along well until the 6th, and one dong did him in. As for Cahill, Richard, and Ramirez, there isn't much positive I can glean from their outings. But these are the three worst relievers in an 8-man pen. I mean, I would like to see better performances, but they are of but a handful of guys on the team that I really don't care about. Ramirez is a little different, because he could still be a good reliever and be a guy that has a future with this team if he ever regains his pre-injury stuff and the velo shoots back up. Probably not going to happen, though. And that's OK. It won't be the worst thing to befall this franchise if we lose a previously good middle reliever to attrition. As for Cahill and Richard... meh. Clayton Richard is just not very good. He did alright for us last year. No complaints. He didn't walk guys and kept the ball on the ground. He did a decent job in the swing-man role. He was a nice pitcher for us last year, and a good find off of the scrap heap. He also throws left-handed, so I get why he exists on this team. But, him being a sub-replacement level player this year wouldn't shock me. He costs hardly anything. We barely use him. And if he sucks, then we can either bring up another position player or find another lefty off of the scrap heap. Cahill I like. I thought he was on to something last year. The velocity was up once we put him in the pen. His stuff played up with the added velo. His repertoire and pitch usage were tailored for a short-burst, relief role. He was getting a lot more swing-and-misses. He looked downright nasty. But, still, like Richard, he is a veteran retread making little money that is only signed through the end of this year. And he also is at the bottom of the pecking order in this pen. He is easily replaceable. So, yeah, the only guys that were truly horrible were the three guys that affect us the least. We got done in by our bad pitchers being bad and some variance and sequencing bad luck. We were 3-14 with RISP. They were 6-9. We got our dong with nobody aboard. They got their big one with two guys aboard. The rest of the dongs that followed were certainly not conducive to winning, in any scenario. But, if Lackey doesn't give up that homer, the rest of the game plays out differently. Anyway, there's a little dose of optimism. And sorry about the novel.

If we win tonight, we'll already be 10 games over .500. http://i1213.photobucket.com/albums/cc474/justinchuffman/Animated%20Gifs/RonSwansonLaugh-small.gif