raw

For all the amazing wins this season, only 1 walk-off victory is disappointing. Let's change that. Or just put up a horsefeathers the closer inning now.

Well, that was coming for a while. Now beat these horsefeathering punks.

I'd rather Rizzo be the 1 LHH in the lineup and Ross get the start behind the plate. Best pitcher pitching should mean best defense playing. I hate basing matchups on splits when you're taking out an elite player playing elite baseball the last 7 days, who's also an elite defender.

Hasn't happened at all this year. If you take that to the 1st 3 games of a series, it happened vs. the Nationals.

this is kind of silly. the cubs are going to be favored in every game short of maybe a hammel vs kershaw type matchup where a good team has a great starter going against one of our lesser ones, but they can potentially lose literally any game, and it wouldn't be unlikely enough to be considered at all shocking. this is baseball. You act like I was speaking in absolute fact. I posted that knowing full well that the Cubs could lose any game on any given day. The point is and was, the Cubs just haven't lost with any consistency against anyone, and especially against anyone that isn't a really good pitcher who has a really good game against them. And the paragraph you didn't include in your quote, included me saying that the Cubs have a good chance of winning (because they don't see any really good pitchers that seem capable of really good games) unless their own starter implodes.

How is this possible?

It's at the point now, where I look at the schedule and have a hard time finding games the Cubs could potentially lose. Obviously, they have 5 of the best starters and the best offense on earth right now, so it's not like I'm looking for a non-favorable pitching matchup or a better scoring offense. But at this point, the Cubs only basically lose if they face a pitcher with the potential to dominate, actually dominates, and does so longer or as well as the Cubs' starter. Their last losses have come against starters who at least have some history of putting together at least the occasional dominant performance. Kazmir, Wainwright, Bumgarner, Cole, and apparently Pomeranz has that ability now. Bradley yesterday was probably the best chance I see for a guy to dominate the Cubs hitters (and he did) until they see Scherzer on the 13th. And obviously, the Cubs destroyed him a few weeks ago. So, basically the Cubs should continue to win a lot of games unless their starters implode. This is pretty much how I imagined this team when I saw how it was constructed. Run-of-the-mill pitchers do not have success against them. And fortunately, the league is full of those types of guys.

They signed Nate Chandler, OT formerly of the Panthers.

No Utley, Gonzalez or Puig (not that he's any good anymore), the Cubs should win this game almost easily.

Montero would probably still be considered the starter for all intents and purposes. I'm going to assume he'd be Lester's personal C plus a lot more. I think they'll bring Contreras along slowly and there will be close to a 50-50 split behind the plate until either A) Contreras' bat proves too good to keep out of the lineup 1/2 the time or B) Conteras' defensive abilities catch up to his bat. Exactly this....It's not unprecedented for a young C to take over the starting role at 26 after mentoring under a vet. I still would like/prefer Contreras to get some playing time this year as next year should not be his first extended look in the majors if he's getting the [expletive] #2 catching job behind a 34 YO Montero (unless the FO is supremely confident in him, maybe they are). It should not be impossible to pull off considering he's 4th on the depth chart I assume behind a 33 YO with a bad back, a retiring 39 year old, and Tim Fedsomething. Again guessing, but I think the Montero injury came too early for Contreras to be called up. With June coming up, I'd imagine as soon as the team is willing to cut ties with Federowicz....if there is another DL stint for either catcher, then Contreras would be called up. Cubs are carrying 3 catchers for 2 1/2 weeks now. If Contreras has to come up due to injury, carrying a 3rd catcher when everyone is healthy wouldn't be a big deal considering the 3rd guy can actually hit. Or even better, if they want Conteras to get reps every day, they can send him back down for a month to month and a half at most (say injury happens mid June, he's up til the break, and back up in Sept).

W/o Rizzo 1-0 W/o Bryant 1-0 W/o Zobrist 2-1 (1-0 loss to Padres) W/o Fowler 2-1 (loss to Padres day before 1-0 loss) W/o Heyward 7-3 (3 straight losses in SF and STL)

Montero would probably still be considered the starter for all intents and purposes. I'm going to assume he'd be Lester's personal C plus a lot more. I think they'll bring Contreras along slowly and there will be close to a 50-50 split behind the plate until either A) Contreras' bat proves too good to keep out of the lineup 1/2 the time or B) Conteras' defensive abilities catch up to his bat.

Lord, Puig is terrible.

So, their only hit was a misplayed popup?

I hate the doubleswitch to make the pitcher's spot come up earlier. Would have rather wasted Federowicz for an AB and then switch in Szczur.

Travis Wood seems to pitch better when the Cubs are more desperate. If the Cubs were down 2-0, I'm sure he would have given up 4 more.

Sounds about right. Based on ERAs, only Blanton and a lefty have been decent. And Blanton is still Joe Blanton when all is said and done.

Just got home. horsefeathers what ya'll think. These uniforms are dope.

Wood actually has huge reverse splits this year. But over the course of his career, has fared as expected for a LHP.

Really looking forward to this series. This is a potential playoff matchup if the Dodgers can step it up a little bit. No Kershaw in this series, but I was interested to see the red hot Cubs offense against one of the league's best. But the rest of the Dodgers staff can strike out a ton of people, doesn't give up very many dongs or walk many, and has the lowest BAA the Cubs offense will see this year unless there's a team scrimmage. So, the Cubs bats may have a hard time putting up the demoralizing big innings, where they get multiple walks, a few hits and a huge dong, that have killed so many of their opponents.

Yep. I prefer to make fun of him watching dongs fly over his head.

Wait, why were the Mariners only allowed to challenge one out when Clint Hurdle was allowed to challenge two different outs on a potential DP against the Cubs earlier this season? Doesn't look like that was true. The ump pointed to both bases and called them out after the review. And the guy at 3B wasn't removed from base before the review, which would have made sense if they could only challenge 1 and chose to challenge at 2B.

Eickoff is pretty run of the mill. He has shutout 2 teams for 7 innings each, but they happen to be the worst 2 offenses in the NL (Padres, Braves). In 6 of his 9 starts, he has given up at least 3 runs in 6 innings. He gets a lot of balls put in play against him, and has been a little lucky with BABIP against, especially for a guy who doesn't particularly get a lot of ground balls. He doesn't walk many, but he'll succumb to the dong at times. With the Cubs looking like they're heating up and hitting for more power, and with the wind blowing out, I'd expect a decent offensive showing. If Hendricks pitches like he has most of this year and most of his career at Wrigley, the Cubs should win this game.

wrong shaq I could swear it said Shaq Lawson when I read it. My bad. What's the odds that 2 professional football players would be involved in the same accident in different cars, without knowing each other?

Not really a "heckle", but I was heard once before by a player. In spring training, I think it was Angel Echevarria, hit a towering HR. So when he comes out to play LF defensively in the next inning, I yell "hey, that was 800 feet" and he turns around and gives me a smile and a thumbs up. I guess the funniest heckle I've heard was this guy at the Pirates game in the LF corner heckling Soriano when he was with the Cubs. He kept prefacing everything he said with "I'm just throwing it out there....." Stuff like, "I'm just throwing it out there.....your mother is a whore". At one point, Soriano was laughing a little. Game was also a laugher in the Cubs favor, IIRC.