UMFan83

Another schedule oddity: The Bears will not reach a point where they have played more NFC teams than AFC teams until Week 12. Their first 3 games and 4 of their first 6 are against the AFC.

Wow that's a name I havent thought about in a long time

Thank you for listening

Please don’t horsefeathers do this.

This is getting incredible with Assad. A couple of weeks ago I was thinking he could end up in the ASG discussion but my sights are much higher now

Just got back from my kids baseball game to see we're winning, awesome. But I still have scars from the series last September so I don't want to put the game on and have it potentially ruin my night lol.... I know I'm weird.

Definitely a bit odd. All the late divisional games, the multiple stretches where we don't have a home game for a month, the two 3 game road trips. All in all though its a fine schedule. I actually like this year's more than the last 2 where we played approximately 65% of our home games in December/January both seasons during years where the last 6 weeks of each season were relatively meaningless.

Edit: The below is completely based on the link Brian included above this post. If that information is inaccurate then disregard because I'm seeing people report Bears/Vikings on MNF Week 15 even though that link is saying Raiders/Falcons is MNF I realize there might be primetime games where the game is leaked but the fact that it is primetime has not been leaked, but these are the Bears "special" games so far Week 2 at Houston (SNF) Week 6 vs Jacksonville (London) Week 13 at Detroit (Thanksgiving) Week 17 vs Seattle (TNF) The weeks that there aren't leaked Bears games are Week 7, 8, 9 and 14. Week 7 is likely a bye so looking at 8, 9 and 14 Week 8: All primetime games leaked Week 9: SNF and TNF are leaked, but MNF is not Week 14: TNF is leaked, SNF and MNF are not You'd think the Bears would get more than 2 primetime games (unless NFL is counting London and Thanksgiving as primetime but to me they're not really) and you'd think they would have at least 1 game on MNF so I'm guessing that Week 9 or 14 is a MNF game, possibly at San Francisco or Washington (only other non leaked game is at Arizona). Possibilities for SNF based on no leaked game yet: Week 3: Bears at Colts Week 4: Rams at Bears Week 5: Panthers at Bears Week 14: Bears Unannounced Week 16: Lions at Bears Possibilities for MNF based on no leaked game yet: Week 1 (second game): Titans at Bears Week 3: Bears at Colts Week 9: Bears unannounced Week 12: Vikings at Bears Week 14: Bears unannounced Week 16: Lions at Bears

If this is accurate and the other stuff being reported is accurate the Bears won’t play their first divisional game until Week 11 which seems really odd, but not totally unbelievable. All 6 division games condensed within the last 8 weeks of the season. Week 11 - GB (Home) Week 12 - MIN (Home) Week 13 - DET (Away - Thanksgiving) Week 15 - MIN (Away - Rumored) Week 16 - DET (Home) Week 18 - GB (Away) Other thing that stood out was we will go from October 6 to November 10 (give or take a few days for potential Thurs or Mon games) without a game at Soldier Field. Another slightly shorter gap between November 24 to December 22 without a game. Home games seem grouped together for whatever reason.

They made Len wear a sport coat on the air

I mentioned last week that so far the season felt like 2023 with the Cubs starting out playing well both Aprils followed by some tough injuries, bad bullpen play and struggling offense causing a rougher May. I think most realize that similar does not equal exactly the same, and 6-7 in May considering all the headwinds is not that bad. But similar to last year, to me it feels like there's a gear that we're not yet hitting for whatever reason. Last year's team found that gear and played like a 103 win team for basically half the season (49-28 in 77 game stretch). I'd like to think this team is equipped to do something similar. But can't help but feel similar vibes/ebbs and flows this year as last year even if they aren't an identical comparison.

So this is what it looks like when the starting pitchers don’t all pitch like 1999 Pedro Martinez (plus play an Uber elite team)

So basically Happ throughout his career is an All-Star caliber hitter against the NL Central and a sub-replacement level hitter against every other team. To break this down, here are his career OPS numbers against every team. Grouping the AL as one since outside of the White Sox he probably doesn't have enough PAs for the split to be meaningful but in the interest of fairness he has solid OPS splits against the A's, Twins and Guardians. Reds (396 PA) - 1.048 Pirates (385 PA) - .977 Cardinals (352 PA) - .928 Marlins (129 PA) - .791 Nationals (128 PA) - .767 Brewers (350 PA) - .766 AL Teams (585 PA) - .733 Rockies (111 PA) - .718 Dodgers (110 PA) - .664 Braves (115 PA) - .652 DBacks (122 PA) - 642 White Sox (108 PA) - .601 Giants (118 PA) - .584 Padres (158 PA) - .574 Mets (138 PA) - .544 Phillies (103 PA) - .532

If he’s been so good, why was he DFA’d? Roster crunch in Seattle? Not criticizing the move, just curious

Found my new coping misery porn statistic. If you are rolling your eyes right now feel free to skip this post 😁 Anyways, over the past 13 games, there have been 7 instances of a Cubs starter leaving the game with a lead or tied, and the Cubs pen blowing the game in their very first inning of work. 4/30 @ NYM - 1-1 when the starter left, 1-4 after the next inning (Alzolay) 5/2 @ NYM - 5-2 when the starter left, 5-5 after the next inning (Thompson) 5/3 vs MIL - 1-0 when the starter left, 1-3 after the next inning (Alzolay) 5/6 vs SD - 0-0 when the starter left, 0-6 after the next inning (Lovelady) 5/11 @ PIT - 8-6 when the starter left, 8-9 after the next inning (Thompson) 5/12 @ PIT - 2-1 when the starter left, 2-2 after the next inning (Lovelady) 5/13 @ ATL - 0-0 when the starter left, 0-2 after the next inning (Wesneski) Does not count but another notable game during that span was 5/4 vs. MIL when the starter left with a 5-0 lead, and it was 5-4 after the first bullpen inning (Thompson)

Amazing incredible 12 pitch walk to make it 1st and 2nd and 0 outs. 2 pitches later the game is over. Holy hell

Holy horsefeathers Happ. That’s not going to silence the people calling for your head

Morel died to take that walk. Hope it’s not like a fractured toe

It’s crazy how often the pen comes in and immediately gives up runs to blow a lead or tie after the starter pitches great

Welp 4 innings from the pen needed. How many of them can be from Ben Brown?

When did Cuas go down?

Also just watching the replay of the game, what the hell is it with all the outs on the bases (Bellinger in the 10th)? Many of these are somewhat explainable in a vacuum, albeit still a mistake (for example Bellinger expected a play at the plate and instead it was cut off) but when you put them all together you have a team that leads the league in outs on the bases (20), and 4 more outs than any other team in baseball outside of the Nationals (who have 19). What do you chalk up all these outs to? Just bad luck? I don’t know if you can blame managing for many of the outs, you can maybe criticize all the outs at home on contact plays (though again individually most of them are the right call), but Bellinger for instance is pretty consistently rated as an above average baserunner in his career. He’s no Anthony Rizzo by any means.

It’s crazy it seems like a large majority of the games lately are tight throughout. 10 of our last 14 games have been decided by 1 or 2 runs. Feels like there just aren’t a ton of situations where he can pitch in a very low leverage situation like he did on Friday.

I wasn't able to watch today and wasn't able to really follow most of the game until the end. Obviously I see Kyle's numbers which seem very encouraging and hopefully at least temporarily calms down the talk of firing him into the sun, but did he actually look as good as his numbers suggest? I'm watching the expanded highlights now, looks like a few hard hit balls early but the HR was pretty ridiculous and he seemed to have good command of his fastball. Encouraging? Also holy horsefeathers watching the highlights, this must have been a super annoying game with all the ridiculous defensive plays from the Pirates to prevent runs from scoring, plus a couple of Pirates beating IF singles out by inches, one leading to a run scored. And Neris once again is Rod Beck incarnate, managing to get 1 pitch from losing the game but getting out of it. I eventually got behind guys like Beck and Borowski and felt some level of comfort in their pitching despite consistently getting into trouble, but I'm nowhere close to feeling that way about Neris despite him managing to get out of nearly every jam he's created.

Lopez is going for the Braves right? That's the probable I saw yesterday at least. If so, he's have a spectacular year so far in his first 6 starts CWS - 6 IP, 4 H, 2 BB, 1 ER NYM - 6 IP, 3 H, 3 BB, 0 ER HOU - 6 IP, 4 H, 1 BB, 0 ER MIA - 7 IP, 3 H, 2 BB, 1 ER SEA - 5 IP, 6 H, 2 BB, 3 ER BOS - 5.1 IP, 6 H, 4 BB, 1 ER Overall - 35.1 IP, 1.53 ERA, 1.13 WHIP Very odd as he hasn't started regularly since 2020 and made 68 relief appearances last year but the Braves have some sort of devil magic going on lately so whatever.