Jason Ross

Yeah, feel like that should be more on Nico than anything.

Swanson! Nice play. Hold them to 1. That's okay. We weren't going to win 1-0.

That'd be Ben Mac. He does color for the Orioles normally. He'll pop up a bunch during the CWS so I've heard him a bit.

ESPN K-Zone not necessarily replicating MLB.com Statcast zone very well: Strike-2 was close, but Statcast has it as a ball. Not blaming but probably worth to keep an eye on their K-Zone and wonky strikes.

Damn. Initial reaction from me was that Busch got that one.

I am. We're doing a live NSBB reaction to every playoff game. I'd rather do it happy.

Give me a Cubs 3-2 win tonight.

Extended innings in the playoffs are almost assuredly in lower leverage situations. If you think Soroka is a better arm than those two (I think he is, especially out of the pen) than he's likely going to be in small doses. This is not like the regular season where you're worried about saving guys, especially in this three game set (with off days after) where you're worried about pen preservation outside of preserving for tomorrow. If a SP is bad, it's likely that you're asking an arm to go multiple innings because you're losing. That's a far better situation to use Rea or Civale than Soroka. If you're going with an opener, the score will 100% be 0-0 and you'll 100% be facing Fernando Tatis and other good hitters. That's an important spot. Don't horsefeathers around go with an opener and then default to one of your low leverage guys. That's really bad planning.

Moises Ballesteros will be an interesting option off the bench, but a good reminder that Mo Baller was a 120 wRC+ hitter in Iowa and Tucker has been 20% better against significantly better pitching. Tucker is the right call. Not the rookie. Even if he's a little rusted, he's the right call.

They also have Rea and Civale. It's a three game set. If they need someone to eat 3 innings early, they have plenty of guys. If they need more than one game of someone eating that amount of innings, they are in trouble to begin with. It's fair to make an argument not to go with an opener as to not mess with Shota and his routine. But they will have plenty of options for innings eaters.

I'm not going to create hardline answers to things I couldn't possible know. But with the Cubs electing 12 pitchers over 13, guys like Rea and Civale are likely your "designated losers" to eat a few innings if a SP is struggling. There is no tomorrow if we blow games and there is no shaking things loose. If Taillon, Shota, or Boyd are struggling in the 3rd inning, regardless of how good they can be, you pull them. And then you turn to a Civale or a Rea and you say "I need two or three innings, go stop them while we get back into it". It's far better than using Theilbar, or Keller, or Kittredge in the fifth when you'd ideally want them in the final third. Or in a 4+ run loss, to not use them at all and get them tomorrow. Thus the "designated loser". They come in when you're losing to eat valuable innings and perform good enough to keep the game within reach (if possible) for your offense to scratch some across. I think in these oddball three game sets (that function as regular season sets despite them being in the playoffs), they're incredibly important. With no off days, you don't want Keller going three days in a row, for example, if you don't have to.

I'd go Soroka. I think he's the better of the two pitchers (when things are all 100% right). Civale has been more interesting than I thought he would be, but tomorrow, I'd pencil in Soroka for an inning and change depending on the lineup. Maybe 4 or 5 hitters, then Shota time.

I would guess he's going to be in a role I'm calling the "designated loser" (can't claim I coined it, I picked it up on a documentary on Will Ohman of all things...no one can claim I am anything but a baseball nerd). I would expect his roles will be to come in and eat innings in the event of the Cubs losing, but that those innings will remain meaningful in that he will be a good arm that you can trust to keep the game around the same score (giving your offense a chance at a comeback) or to save the more important arms for later. I don't think, especially in a short series that he'd be asked to do much more than that. But I also think that the designated loser is a more important role than the name suggests!

The Padres starting pitching is not particularly great. Cease has had a weird year; under the hood numbers look good, top line looks bad. Pivetta is a good pitcher, but has probably gotten some positive variance against LHP (sub 3.00 FIP, near 4.00 xFIP). Beyond those two, game three will be a pitcher who's recently returned from injury in King or Darvish. They're a team you can get to in the first 5 innings - they're a bottom 10 SP in almost any category. Yes, their bullpen is very good, but the Cubs are going to enter every game with an advantage at the first half of the game likely, and especially whenever they have a lefty on the mound. And it isn't like they can't put together a strong BP effort after that. Given that it's at Wrigley, I like the Cubs here. Nothing guaranteed but I do think they have the edge entering. Game 1 is very important. Since the playoff expansion the team who won Game 1 went on to win all 12 sets.

It's hard to say the Cubs are "awful" with pitching. They have frankly, done very well. Shota has outpitched his salary, the Cubs have found interesting BP options others ignored (Brad Keller, Caleb Theilbar, etc) and when everyone was freaking out about Boyd/Rea both were better than expected. The Cubs do need another horse in the rotation, but let's not undersell the team's ability to find pitchers, either by calling it awful.

I think there is a non-zero chance he could end up winning a spot in the Cubs rotation out of the gate, but it's almost assuredly a bad thing overall. It would likely mean that a pitcher the Cubs didn't want to be hurt is. And while I like Wiggins a lot, I do think there's progress to be made on the secondaries yet. Horton was a little further along, IMO, as a pitcher. His strike throwing gave him a leg up over a lot, and he's tinkered and changed even in the MLB, but he's capable of doing that with how many strikes he throws. Wiggins doesn't tend to throw as many strikes and the secondaries need some tinkering. Not a negative, he's just a young pitcher. I do think we'll 100% see him next year baring catastrophic injury, but don't think he'll be in the April plans.

They will carry as many arms as possible. This team loves flexibility with pitchers, has consistently ignored the 26th player on the roster under Counsell and in the playoffs the BP becomes even more stressed and used.

Yeah, I don't think Santana will be rostered. He will likely be on the taxi squad, capable of being placed on the roster if an injury were to occur. I don't think he will be on the actual roster

Yeah, this offseason is going to be interesting. We know that the team really seems to value flexibility and depth, shies away from trades they don't feel are of very equal value, and have really not flexed financial muscle on long term deals. They feel a little overloaded on ready-now prospects, a little underbaked on SP depth you can count on at the MLB level, and then you have the Tucker thing. On top of that, the roster cliff of 2026 looms. Ballesteros himself is in a unique spot because I think the team does not feel he's ready for catching duties at the MLB level today and how much he can really do to improve his stock there over the offseason is questionable. The bat is clearly MLB ready. The glove may or may not be.

The Padres have a bottom 5 or so SP group post-ASB. I know we get wrapped up in how the Cubs are going, but the Padres have not been some banner team in this aspect. They struggle through the first 5 or 6 innings. There really isn't much of a correlation between winning playoff series and momentum at the end of the year, either. Really, almost all of these series boil down to series of coinflips. It's not entirely luck based, but I think both fanbases will be relatively tepid on how their team has performed.

I think he's been good, but I'd stop short of calling him one of the best right now As a low-pull, low EV guy right now, I do think he will be exposed a little by really good pitching. The Padres will probably throw King, Cease, and Pivetta while also dropping one of the best BPs in baseball. He has a decent shot at making the roster as a backup to give the Cubs a fun, contact heavy option off the bench, but his current form doesn't fill me with a lot of confidence until he begins pulling the ball a bit more.

I wouldn't call that unfortunate. Kyle Tucker is a very good player, a top-15 hitter in baseball. Prior to his calf injury, he was absolutely on fire. He is equally as good against LHP and RHP. He has a 139 wRC+ on the season. Moises Ballesteros has 62 major league plate appearances. He had a 121 wRC+ against far worse pitching in Iowa. He also is looking far more like a platoon hitter, as his splits in Iowa were skewed very heavily in favor of RHP over LHP. Big Mo has had a few fun games. I like his outlook. Anyone upset that the Cubs will have Kyle Tucker in the lineup over a rookie is falling into a trap. Even if he's coming off an injury, the better bet here is clear. Don't fall into shiny new toy trap.

Probably. Even if he's struggling right now, he's a $13.5m AAV pitcher. That's really cheap comparatively. You don't need him to be a star at that number.

I think he's a streaky hitter. Most hitters have peaks and vallyes regardless of how good they are (Juan Soto is as generational as they come and he's prone to them as well, for example). But I think Pete runs with the winds of success and failure more than most. He's young, emotional, and when I see those things they tend to breed that. I'm not sure he's ever going to be a 115 wRC+ hitter on the year, though. Part of this is because of who he is; he's terrible against LHP, and I'm not sure that'll change. Unlike many platoon hitters, he's so wildly good defensively and on the bases that you can't just platoon him. What we would see with someone else who might only be decent defensively or play a less premium position is that a team would shield him; say, Michael Busch against LHP. But Pete gets dragged down. His 124 wRC+ against RHP is offset by a 60 wRC+ against LHP. He had the lowest wRC+ (as a left handed hitter) against LHP who had at least 180 PA's on the year...because of his defense. So those things together are going to create what we have. I think he's a great hitter against RHP. And defensively, he's too good to bench against lefties. So he'll probably have years where he's around a 105 wRC+ on the year, but I also don't think that numbers tells us a lot without all of the context.