soccer10k

Silly pricing ($100+ face to get in the stadium) + less than a week's notice + weeknight The price was definitely what stopped me from going to the opener in SF.

Not to mention that we've still have 10 home games against them and only 3 more in St. Louis.

You shoot Richard into the sun.

Cubs made us sweat it out but pulled out the victory. They'll go for the series win against Strasburg, who has been excellent this year, but not as dominant as his perfect 10-0 record. That, and the Nats' 12-1 record in his starts, is also due to their offense putting up 6.85 runs per game in his starts. He's not going to be perfect all year, this is as good of a game as any to hand Strasburg his first loss.

Plus off day on Thursday if Rondon is needed tomorrow.

Cubs had a rough one today but I expect them to bounce back in this one. Gio's been a solid pitcher this year and while it took a few innings, the Cubs touched him up for 5 runs in 5 2/3 innings. Do that again and end this losing streak at 1, Cubs.

Time for a Javy slam to cap it off.

Well it had been an inning or so since the last error.

LOL Cubs.

Lackey's a weirdo just attempting to tell a funny story.

Never seen some random dude on the bench get sent off before.

One of the draft's a couple years ago Harold said pretty much every college guy picked early could be in the majors later that season. It was hilarious.

England was very Spurs-like today.

Don't worry, bukie, mojo and I are coming up. Everything will be fine. Sorry, UMFan, had to exclude you since you and Lackey killed Schwarber.

Is there no downtrend that you're not willing to completely ignore? Yeah it's amazing that they've put together a 41-18 record, but that's because the SP has masked a lot of the glaring problems. I'm actually more worried about the pitching sustaining a strand rate that is higher than what we mocked the Cardinals for last year than I am the offense which has used up all of the fantastic depth they had in March. But in the grand scheme of things my biggest worries are like a 3 on a 1-10 scale. Yes they've gone like 17-12 since their 24-6 start. But 17-12 is still like 96 win pace over the course of a season. And this is a down stretch for this team relatively speaking And that 17-12 stretch is brought down by the 4-8 run they had. Since the walkoff loss to the Cards, they're 12-4 with 2 1-run losses, the Dodger game which was 0-0 going into the 8th and tonight. Just like the 4-8 stretch, they're not getting blown out which means there's no need to worry or panic.

Guys just don't get longer suspensions than that. According to this site it's the second longest suspension since 2009 (non-PED or illegal substance category). Ian Kennedy got 10 games a few years ago. If he does it again, I'm sure they'll go higher, since they already went up from the 7-game one he got last year.

With Nadal already out of Wimbledon, it got me thinking... More likely to win another Slam, Nadal or Federer? I could go either way but I think I'd bet Roger. He's made 3 finals and 2 semis since Nadal last made a semi (2014 French). I definitely see the argument for Nadal in that his ceiling on clay is higher than any for Roger but the injuries are too much for me. The difference is Roger basically loses to Novak now (last three majors he lost to Djokovic) so if he can get lucky and have someone else knock Novak out, he could sneak in and get one.

Ventura got 9 games, Machado got 4. Good to see MLB didn't go light on Ventura.

rany's article is cool, but the interviewer in this ep asks questions like: what positions might the cubs target in the draft to upgrade their team? do you think the cubs are actually better off that schwarber got hurt since they got to upgrade their defense with soler? She also called Kyle Hendricks "Hendrick". Didn't seem like she knew much about the Cubs other than that they're awesome. The Schwarber angle is one that didn't annoy me, but it should've been phrased more like 'did the Cubs get hurt a lot less by the Schwarber injury than we thought they would' rather than implying we're actually better off without him, which is ludicrous. I just hate how that since Schwarber made a couple bad plays in the NLCS against the Mets, everyone thinks he's the worst defender in the history of baseball. That's not to say he's good defensively but people (like the girl who hosted that podcast) make it seem like the Cubs upgraded their defense with Soler playing more often. Neither one is good defensively. The difference is Schwarber's actually shown the ability to hit. Schwarber's been worth more by either B-R or Fangraphs in 278 PAs as Soler has been in 653 PAs. Losing Schwarber absolutely hurt if for no other reason than we wouldn't have had to deal with Tim Federowicz at all this year. And if they're going to focus on Schwarber's bad couple plays in the NLCS, the least they could do is mention that he hit 5 dongs in 9 games also.

Loved it. Only one quibble: Someone should tell him that Fred is still alive.

They've had 1 loss by more than 5 runs this year and even that one was a 9-5 game after the top of the seventh against a terrible Reds bullpen. They've had only 2 other losses by more than 3 runs, and one of those (the Dodgers) was 0-0 going into the eighth inning. The other one the Rockies led the whole way and the Cubs never really threatened. So there's been 2 games where the Cubs didn't really have a chance to win in the last couple innings. To add on, since I just started to listen to the Rany pod, the Cubs have 1 loss by 3 runs which means of their 17 losses, 13 have been either by 1 or 2 runs. So, as Rany said, there have only been 4 games where the Cubs haven't had the tying run on deck in the ninth inning.

They've had 1 loss by more than 5 runs this year and even that one was a 9-5 game after the top of the seventh against a terrible Reds bullpen. They've had only 2 other losses by more than 3 runs, and one of those (the Dodgers) was 0-0 going into the eighth inning. The other one the Rockies led the whole way and the Cubs never really threatened. So there's been 2 games where the Cubs didn't really have a chance to win in the last couple innings.

Yeah, unless a loss was so bad it killed my dad or something it's basically instantly forgotten. I was at the game on Sunday and I have to keep reminding myself they actually lost. Same here. Even that 4-8 stretch I didn't really care because they went 1-8 in games decided by 3 or fewer runs (1-7 by 2 or fewer) and I knew that wasn't going to continue. Normally when fans don't get bothered by losses, it's because the team is terrible. It's so rare to have a team that's so certain to win it's division that a few losses really don't matter. Fangraphs has the Cubs at 97.4 to win the division, next best is Washington at 67.0. BP is 97.4 and Cleveland is second at 69.9. 538 has the Cubs at only a 93% chance to win the division. Washington is at 65.

To hurt my fantasy team.