soccer10k

Well at least they scored today! LOL. I knew it would take some time with a new manager and a ton of new players but it’s still pretty disappointing that they look so bad.

I would assume the Cubs would be the late game in that scenario. Braves and Yankees will be hosting so they won't be the late game. So if the Padres are hosting, your choices are either Padres-Cubs or Astros/Rangers-Rangers/Orioles/Jays.

181 Ks in 117 games is a pace for 250 over 162 games. Speaking of the strikeout record, Schwarber needs 12 Ks in the last 10 games to set the record.

I was a little annoyed yesterday that he didn’t try to steal in the 1st inning yesterday after he walked. Especially since Seiya ended up hitting into a DP on the third pitch anyway.

Someone can correct me if I’m not fully accurate, but I believe the pitching WAR removes defense. So the Cubs pitchers have a great defense behind them while the Phillies pitchers don’t. It doesn’t punish pitchers for having a bad defense behind them but it doesn’t credit them for having a good defense behind them.

You guys are doing the “well people are saying” thing now. Look hard enough (and sometimes you don’t have to look that hard) and you can find people who believe and say just about anything. I can only speak for myself, by my belief on the Cubs comes with the caveat of “baseball gonna baseball” sometimes. My belief is that with our pitching staff, even with how good the position players are, it’s going to be really hard to win 4 playoff rounds in a row. I don’t buy the pitching wins championships thing. But I think you need balance. You’re going to have to win games in different ways in the playoffs and overall, we have one way to win a game, which is to score a bunch of runs. Does that mean we can’t or won’t win a 1-0 or 2-1 game? Or that our pitching will give up 6 runs every game? Of course not. Want to discount the Phillies for the same reason? That’s fine! If the Phillies got brought up because of me, I just named the team we’re most likely to play in the WC round, not because I’m terrified of the Phillies.

The question was why do we expect the Cubs to score fewer runs in the playoffs than they did in the regular season while we expect our opponents to score more. And the answer is obvious. Does that mean both of those things will happen? Of course not. That's not how small samples work. But we know our pitching staff is awful. And our opponents will only face that awful staff. Whereas the teams we're going to face in the playoffs don't have awful pitching. By fWAR, LA is 1, Phi is 2, Mil is 4, Atl is 10, SD is 15. B-R has all five teams in the top-12 (Cubs are 26th). FIP has the Cubs at 26th. SD is 19th while the other four are in the top-13. So unless we face SD, we're going to be facing a pitching staff that is better than the average pitching staff we faced all year. EDIT: Our defense helps for sure, but there's no defense for bombs hit into the bleachers.

DBacks lose so magic number down to 4 with 9 to play. Cubs go 3-6, Arizona has to go 9-0 to pass us.

I mean, generally speaking, the Cubs are going to face tougher pitching staffs in the playoffs than they have faced in the regular season, right? Meanwhile, the teams the Cubs play are going to face one of the worst, if not the worst, pitching staff. So yeah, if the Phillies (just to pick a team) scored X runs on average against all the other 29 teams, where they faced both good and bad pitchers, I'd expect them to average more runs when facing only bad pitchers.

Bullpen trying to do bullpen things again. Cool.

DBacks lose. So the WC standings Cubs Phillies 0.5 GB Padres 1.5 GB DBacks 4 GB Cubs magic number for the playoffs is 6

Has a team ever hit the most home runs in a season and also allowed the most? Because the Cubs have given up the most so far (one ahead of the A's) and are one behind the Yankees for most homers hit.

What about not in 2019. The ball was super huiced that year and everyone hit a ton of home runs. EDIT: Statmuse says 258 by the 2021 Orioles. The four above them are all from 2019 and a fifth from 2019 is tied with the 2021 Orioles.

The Cubs couldn’t hold a 1 run lead?

At least 1 won't lose this week because Atl plays Car.