squally1313

1-0 count, let me try and pull a change up on the outside corner at the knees, surely this will lead to positive results.

I'LL TAKE IT

Point: Guerra doesn't really have much of a platoon split. Counterpoint: Almora since the ASB against RHP (51 PAs): 128/180/149 (which, yes, Happ is OPSing 623 against RHP in the same time frame, but still)

Zobrist KB Rizzo Baez Schwarber Contreras Heyward Pitcher Happ/Bote

Taking by far your biggest slugging guy and batting him behind the pitcher and Russell.

Soooo back to right handed Jason Heyward then? He had a horrid June (lack of power, obviously, but also a sky high K rate), but in his ten July games he was still putting up a .787 OPS, even without showing any power (1 HR, 2 2Bs). Assuming any sort of health improvement from the time off, that's still a valuable hitter for this team going forward this year. Not ideal, but he can definitely help.

Let's just keep things together through today and the Pittsburgh series. 9 games against Detroit, Cincy, and the Mets should help after that. If these struggles continue through there, even if we continue to mask them, the schedule gets a little tricky after that (one game @ Atlanta, @ Philly, @ Milwaukee, @ Washington)

Yeah, I posted that and then looked at the Fangraphs odds, which is weirdly down on the Red Sox. Has them playing the rest of the year at a .585 clip, which is way below the Astros (.635), Indians (.632), Yankees (.626), and Dodgers (.597). Have them essentially on par with the Nationals (.581). We're at .569. They've got the Astros as the WS favorites at 23.7%, Red Sox at 15.3%, Cubs at 10.2%.

We're going to make the playoffs (which a majority of teams don't), and we're probably going to lose in the playoffs, because that's what most teams do. The Red Sox might be the best team in history, and I'd give them like a 20% chance to win, and definitely less than 50% to make it to the World Series, which seems to somehow be the expectations around here now.

Someone (Duke) tell me this is sustainable

That seems to be a more debatable point now that the season is hinged on critical injuries and a truly terrible starting rotation. You could also use those words to describe Milwaukee. I'll take the 2 game lead and the superior talent elsewhere.

I get the 'anything can happen' mentality, and trust me, I'd much rather be 15 games up. But right now Fangraphs has us at 96% to make the playoffs. For as much as we've 'sucked' in the second half, the Brewers have made up all of a half game in 3 weeks. There's far more evidence that says we should be start playing better than there is for pretty much every other team we'd have to worry about. It's not locked up, but we'd be the favorites if everyone was starting from the same spot. Giving us a head start makes it even more likely.

This is probably getting too cute in trying to figure out what happened to Lester, but I feel like there were at least 5-7 starts he made in April/May/June where he had to follow Chatwood (who was sometimes following Darvish during his four innings a start stretch) and he took the mound knowing the bullpen was shot and it was on him to throw as long as he could. At this point in his career, he's someone who needs to be on a quick hook all season so that he's got bullets left come September and October. Instead, he went through a 6 game stretch where he threw 104/90/107/104/102/119 pitches. There's a debate on much we needed it at the time, but this was probably Lester's most taxing first half by far. He got by on some luck and just him being BDJ, but we're seeing the effects of it now. Of course, it could just be that he's old and pitching is dumb.

not that I recall hitting the ball hard is bad because you'll almost certainly hit it at someone better to hit dribblers nobody can field, imo Yep, just following along and watching highlights, only one I've seen is the liner that Schwarber caught in left.

Save us Jav

I'd rather some combination of Zobrist, Heyward and/or Baez bat in front of Rizzo instead of Russell/pitcher Yeah, Baez ostensibly SHOULD be able to hack it as a middle of the order guy, but he's such a weird baseball freak that who knows. Give me Heyward-Zobrist-Rizzo-Baez 1-2-3-4 more often than not. Zobrist Contreras Rizzo Baez Happ Bote Russell Pitcher Heyward

3-4 in games starters went under 5 innings, but were 3-1 going in to the WS by my count (4-4 and 4-1 if you include Drone Boys bloody finger game). And those last 3 WS games vs us they went under 5 IP the SP were going on short rest, I believe. They weren't in the DS/CS games. horsefeathers, I don't think the Cubs have 3 starters right now that even stack up to the 2016 Indians, and I think their bullpen would end up easily as cooked at minimum if they tried to bullpen it for a deep run this season. Hendricks is likely their best option, and he's essentially 2016 Bauer. Yeeeeeesh. The Cubs basically need Yu to come back as Classic Yu. We obviously don't have a Corey Kluber, but Tomlin was and always has been hot garbage, and this was back when Bauer was trying to pitch with 3.5 fingers. It's obviously past the point of worrisome that none of Lester/Hendricks/Quintana has shown much sign of a rebound to career norms and we're coming up on the middle of August, but I'd take the best two of those three and Yu to line up against the Indians three. The difference in bullpens is obviously that they had an Andrew Miller who could go multiple innings and dominate (he pitched the second most innings in the playoffs for Cleveland), whereas we have 3-5 guys who would probably be considered better than anyone else Cleveland had in the bullpen. It's going to fall on Maddon to press the right buttons multiple times in a game if we're going to need 4-5 innings out of the bullpen. Given his history....that's pretty concerning.

2016 Cleveland 69.1 starter innings at a 3.12 ERA 64.2 reliever innings at a 2.23 ERA For comparison 2016 Cubs 93.1 starter innings at a 2.60 ERA 61.2 reliever innings at a 3.94 ERA

No, it'd be like if you got one free pizza a day for a whole summer, but the deal came with a clear warning that on average 4 out of every 10 pizzas are going to suck, and then the pizza sucked one night and you all are like 'this entire deal sucks'.

So I just saw that. Geez, this year just sucks for him. Probably done for the season. I hope he gets traded somewhere nice where he doesn't have to hear about his "lack of hustle" and all this other nonsensical crap. His bones lack integrity I would guess his bones are about the only part of him that Cardinals fans like.

I'm going to choose to stay optimistic here and say that they're getting Bote used to a pinch hit/late inning role because KB will be back soon, and that's the role he's going to play through October.

Just your standard victory over a bottom feeder.

Not totally on him here. . Seeing eye single, getting really squeezed, and then a ball that should be caught. Obviously not a 'good' outing, but could definitely see him getting out of this. Yeah but he didnt start out the inning attacking hitters with a 3 run lead, lots of nibbling which put him at the mercy of the ump. Lead off single was an on 0-1 count. Next Ab went like this: [tweet] [/tweet]

Not totally on him here. . Seeing eye single, getting really squeezed, and then a ball that should be caught. Obviously not a 'good' outing, but could definitely see him getting out of this.