Jason Ross

Damn. Great tag.

Great play.

My father is from Cleveland so I have a soft spot for them.

What a great time it would be for me to demonstrate what the edit feature was then

Much like this website having a quote feature, posts have an edit feature so that in the future, if you make a typo, you can just fix it instead.

Apple, Spotify, and Youtube! "North Side Baseball". Myself and @Mitch Widmeier do 90% of them, sometimes Matt Trueblood is on instead of me. We do weekly recaps, Minor League reports, and just shoot the horsefeathers. Right now we're joined by @Brock Beauchamp for live reactions after every playoff game.

I doubt they will fully be off limits, but with the 3-batter minimum it takes one PA to swing that into a very tired reliever. I'd imagine neither have more than a hitter in a critical spot in terms of "ideal usage" today. So either you don't use them or the Cubs will face guys who will at the very least be tired and if you can get them into a place where they have to face three hitters, the fatigue is going to set in. Morejon just went his season's high in usage last night. And while eh didn't throw a ton Tuesday, still threw. He's going to be running as close to on fumes as you'll see him.

I think he "Padres faced Kittredge the day before" stuff is super over rated. Yes, Tatis and Arraez saw Kittredge the day before. You know who saw Morejon and Miller and other relievers the day before? The Cubs lineup. No one here was saying "Man, we really have the advantage now!". Sure, Miller is a step above Kittredge, but Kittredge, especially since coming to Chicago (and some tweaks to his stuff and location) had been elite. He's posted a 1.87 xFIP, a 38% K%, and a .211 BABIP against. Speaking of Miller, he's literally the only RP who's had a better xFIP since the TDL in baseball. That's how good he's been. I don't think the single PA and a handful of pitches yesterday made those guys any better yesterday; in fact, both hits from those guys were on chase pitches out of the zone. If I told you Kittredge got Tatis to swing at a 95mph sinker in on the hands and got Arrez, on an 0-2 count to swing at a slider 3 inches below the zone, you'd probably expect better outcomes than two on and zero outs. Credit to both of the Padres hitters for getting those pitches, but it wasn't like he was bad, and I don't think the day before lead to those hits. Speaking on Cease; he's been a roller coaster this year but has been a great pitcher over his career most of the time. He was pretty great yesterday. Sadly, that's what players can do. The Cubs had some bad luck (they smoked three balls in the first inning, Michael Busch had what appeared to be an RBI single up the middle - .xBA over .700 - taken way) coupled with Cease who had his control. Tip your hat to that. You hope that the Cubs can do better, but yesterday was a little dash of early variance going the Padres' way instead of the Cubs' way, with a settled-in-Cease, a dominating bullpen and I think a bad call to let Shota face Machado. Cubs offense had an uphill battle all day and when things roll against you early it becomes hard to get it to swing the other way when you're facing roughly 5 innings from dominant arms.

It makes me feel better because we're not the outlier! (this year)

Thanks man! I really think our weekly podcast is good stuff. We're working on hard on optimizing youtube (shoutout to @Mitch Widmeier- he's working on our thumbnails and SEO hard right now). Live reacting to playoff games just feels like a natural progression of it all. And I think it helps me get my feelings and emotions out. There's so much Cubs content out there that anyone who's willing to read my articles or spend 45 minutes to me nerding out on data just warms my heart. Really. Not in a cheesy way. Like in "Im honored" way.

Considering I've locked in live-reactions on YouTube after every playoff game, the Yankees forcing us into an early slot makes me happy. It means I can get drunk post-pod if they lose. Getting drunk at 11pm at age 38 just doesn't hit like it used to.

Who's going to tell ESPN that Nico's ball down the RF line was actually the seventh hardest hit ball the Cubs had all day? And actually the lowest EV of Hoerner's day?

They'll have Estrada fresh off a break today. Beyond him, there is no one fresh out of the BP that is concerning. Michael King would be available (if he isn't going to start game 1 of the next series) but he's been hurt and terrible, with a 14.5 K% and a 10.8% BB% over his last 17.2 IP (that's the only sample since early May). They won't have a really reliable LHP outside of Wandy Peralta who has a .318 wOBA against LHH this year. Their bullpen will be tired, or kind of bad for most of tomorrow.

Machado. There was a close up him yelling horsefeathers year in one of the shots.

The Cubs straight up cannot catch a break today.

Mason Miller is literally throwing 103mph. What's embarrassing about striking out against this dude?

Miller coming back out. Get him to 30 pitches today too. There's an art in losing the right way. Maybe today isn't going to be a W, but you can set yourself up tomorrow as good as you can by exhausting this guy.

https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/savant-player/daniel-palencia-694037

And it'll put them in a weird spot. They either have to ride Darvish for 5 innings, and he's been bad, or they have to give innings to relievers who haven't pitched in 4+ days to eat the innings if they pull him early. Or they'll have to let Miller and Estrada go extra long on three-days rest. Regardless, the Padres are going to be in a worse spot pitching than the Cubs tomorrow because the Cubs were able to get useful innings in what seems like a losing effort from Colin Rea and hopefully Taylor Rogers. While the Padres used their horses in a loss.

They'll have a lot of money if they don't go the Tucker route. But there's still plenty of playoff baseball. So I'll worry about that when I need to!

It's impossible to hit against these guys. I remember saying "wow" at Joel Zumaya hitting 99mph and then his arm exploding.

I think Morejon will be barely available. Maybe a hitter. Season high in action for him today. Threw yesterday. He's mostly done. I would expect the rest will be available as normal, but given it's a third day, would expect them to be tired. They might throw as hard, but it will come at a cost. It could be a pitch or two that misses their spots. It could instead be wild. Or they might have a tick or two less. I don't think they'll turn into bums. But likely, they will be as hittable as they will have been all season.

He literally posted his career high xwOBA. His career wRC+ is 105 and he had a 116. Since 2021, his wRC+ is 117. He's fine. There's no signs he's done.

He's averaged 94mph on his fastball over the last month and the year on the whole. If he comes out firing 99-100mph, then he should be tested immediately for PED's or something.

I've been writing and podcasting with the site for over a year now, so I've switched to my actual name to make it all more coherent. Same guy! Same takes!