Bertz

OMG

Rizzo's slow, so I understand generally erring towards holding him, but Naquin was moving to his left and I don't believe has much of an arm.

HOLY HORSEFEATHERS I didn't think he had any chance

KB is now at the point in his slump where he's taking his horsefeathers at bats with him into the field. Cool.

Reds are up late and Brewers are up big, so all three teams chasing us are likely to be within a game of each other at night's end

How do we feel about facing the Cardinals, rivarly bragging rights aside? For some reason Flaherty, Hudson, Wainwright looks great on paper but doesn't really terrify me, especially if we can neutralize one of them with Darvish. The only hitter that truly scares me is Goldschmidt. They have other solid hitters but not ones that scare me. Of course they are probably saying the same thing about our lineup... I wouldn’t mind playing them at all. They aren’t that good and they will have played all these games here leading in to it. They likely have to be playing and trying hard through the final series too so it’s possible their rotation/bullpen can’t be entirely lined up and rested. I think I’d rank preferred opponents in round 1 as: 1. Giants 2. Cardinals 3. Rockies 4. Marlins 5. Mets 6. Phillies 7. Brewers (I don’t want to have to deal with their nonsense, despite them being the worst team listed here). 8. Reds (Bauer, Gray, Castillo in a 3 game series wouldn’t be fun). Yeah this looks right. Maybe quibble a bit with the exact order, but I think in a three game series those first four teams and those second four teams are very different levels of scary. Regular season the Cards are maybe the best of those 8 teams, but they have less top tier talent to leverage in a short series and will be at the end of their death march. They are clearly in the less scary tier IMO. The Marlins are surprisingly relevant in that first round. They suck, but Lopez and Sanchez is actually a pretty good 1-2 punch.

Yes, give me all the extra innings for the Cards and Brewers this week

Were we guaranteed to lose a tiebreaker if both teams won out? I think so. We're 4-6 against both the Cards and Brewers, and the first tiebreaker I believe is H2H record.

That loss finally puts the Cubs back in control of their own destiny

With 2 weeks of the season left: - The Cubs have 12 games - The Cards have at least 18 (2 extra against the Tigers if necessary) - The Brewers have 16 - The Reds have 14 If the Cubs go 6-6, in order to take division 1 from the Cubs: - The Cards have to to go 14-4 - The Brewers have to go 14-2 (and have a better in-division record) - The Reds have to go 14-0

Really enjoyed how animated JD got in the 9th. While there's a lot about this org that truly sucks the guys in the booth are so so so good

That first stop was a 3 and out, they were hardly gassed It’s not a question of gassed or not. They made the stop and went right back out there. That is deflating and entirely on the offense. They're adults, this is a super meatbally opinion

TOP is basically even right now, and the Bears gave up TDs on both sides of halftime (when they're plenty well rested). The offense sucks, but the defense can't blame them today. thr last thing I saw was the defense stop the lions in 2 minute offense then bears use 5 seconds to give it right back. That’s the game, and that’s all on offense. You can’t expect a defense to make back to back two minute stops. That first stop was a 3 and out, they were hardly gassed

A bad offense will make a good defense look mediocre and so on and so on. I can't wait for rust to be the excuse. TOP is basically even right now, and the Bears gave up TDs on both sides of halftime (when they're plenty well rested). The offense sucks, but the defense can't blame them today.

The first week or three have a lot of weird things happen every season; I'd expect that to be especially true this year with the abbreviated pre-season. If the defense is truly this mediocre though, we're looking at a top 5 pick.

Sharma with a very timely piece on the pen. Lotta good stuff, but this stood out re: Brailyn

So...this was potentially a dagger. Obviously the win is big, but also the Brewers' pen is in rough shape tommorow. Suter, Peralta, and Hader are all likely unavailable. Williams would be on day 3, so I'd assume Counsell will try to stay away from him. So Alec Mills, PLEASE do not suck tomorrow

That was like an Almora at bat from KB

I hate this, Suter seems to completely own our lineup

The Cubs Bullpen has been really good here in September: 44.1 IP, 34 H, 46 K, 17 BB, 2 HR, 45.7 GB%, 1.91 ERA, 2.55 FIP, 3.28 xFIP In fact, it's been good for going on a month now. Kimbrel's first scoreless appearance was on 8/14. If you look at the numbers for 8/14 to the present: 105 IP, 82 H, 133 K, 49 BB, 12 HR, 42.8 GB%, 3.51 ERA, 3.60 FIP, 3.60 xFIP Some of that has been garbage time, they're 14th in WPA despite vs 6th in WAR, but I feel like the unit is really falling into place. They need a THE GUY type before I really trust it as a unit, but overall I think it's turned into a solid group.

Ummm I feel like this FO wouldn't bring it up unless they were pretty sure it's happening?

I like this idea a lot. My hope for the playoff rotation has been that Chatwood and Q can get up to 3-4 innings by then, and we can do something like Q+Adbert and Chatwood+Mills. But I do wonder if Lester can get back to sitting ~92 if he's only going ~70 pitches. And I'd he's back to having an average fastball, how much of his performance does he claw back (my belief is that the heavy majority of pitcher decline is simply velocity).