UMFan83

15-30 in their last 45 after they lose this one. That’s playing at a 54 win pace for almost 30% of the season

This topic is what really depresses me about this season. I don't feel like we're all that much closer to contending than we were at this time last year. We've added some talent but at the expense of a decent chunk of our payroll flexibility (assuming there's a cap to how the payroll we can operate at). There are promising prospects but none that look like superstar middle of the order bats. With Jed's conservative approach to building a team, there's not a great avenue to get a batter like that via FA either. What continues to frustrate me is not using our significant resource advantage to dominate this division. Being a big market doesn't automatically make you the best team every year but the metro population of Chicago dwarfs the other 4 cities in our division. Metro population of Chicago - 9.4 million Metro population of Cincinnati, St. Louis, Pittsburgh and Milwaukee COMBINED - 8.6 million Even if you consider the White Sox and split Chicago's population in half, the remainder is still more than double any other city in the division except St. Louis (4.7m for Chicago vs. 2.8m for St. Louis). Yet the Cubs have won roughly 21% of the NL Central titles since the division was created and have finished in 5th or 6th almost twice as many times (11 times) as they've finished in 1st (6 times). Again, having a financial advantage isn't going to guarantee you win every year, but when you have such a giant financial advantage, winning on average 1 out of every 5 years is really poor.

Another DE off the board. Haven't really heard much about Frank Clark/Bears so whatever, but Bears fans are freaking out on twitter of course lol

Haven’t really thought of the Bears as a possible destination for Cook and I think we’re set with our RBs but it looks like multiple betting sites have the Bears as the favorites to sign him if released. Not sure I’m buying it but who knows.

I’m beginning to think that the Cubs bullpen isn’t that good

and now its 6-4 Angels. Thanks Mervis

and we're tied.

And then a wild pitch scores a run, falling apart

Oh boy Mervis that was bad. Potential double play grounder botched by Mervis and gets no outs. Instead of inning over its bases loaded, 0 outs and the top of the Angels order. Edit: upon reply, DP would have been tough but still, come on dude you need to get an out there.

Yikes...

2nd and 3rd with 0 outs….already Amaya has popped up. Can’t wait to see how they blow the rest of this scoring opportunity edit: reverse jinx worked!

Fun Trout factoid: Coming into today Trout had a .520 OPS in 38 PA against the Cubs in his career. No other team has held Trout to an OPS under .819.

Didn’t realize that the Cubs have never played a game against Ohtani (pitcher or hitter) until today. Should be fun.

And its what everyone feared:

That was very clever in a cringy way, thus I decline to laugh.

ESPN did their first all-star projections and they listed Stroman and Dansby as the 2 Cubs all-stars selected and I think thats about right...you can make a case for Steele, Smyly, maybe Nico though he doesn't have sexy looking All-Star stats but still valuable, and if NL catchers are weak I could see Gomes getting a surprise nod. Anyways this has nothing to do with tonight's game, but wanted to post here so I get notifications when new posts are made in this thread lol.

What are the chances Brock is thinking "How was I able to make a Twins and Brewers board thrive but this stupid Cubs forum is dead?"

This seems a bit unfair

And Hendricks is getting hit

And recovered from an ACL tear in 8 months?

Not sure I'll thank the 1st place Brewers for sweeping a series (or the Pirates sweeping the Cardinals) but I guess its a little less humiliating to not be in last place.

Why is this series going through Monday? Weird

Actually gonna have to score runs to win this. Haven't done that much lately.

Good to see another team failing with 1st and 2nd and 0 outs in a key spot

A close game late, our specialty. I’m sure we’ll pull it out right