Bertz

I think if the team finishes this week strong, let's say 3-2, the division is over. As CW11 posted, it already takes something like 15 of 20 for another team to catch us, and it becomes even tougher if we take care of business in the H2H games. It can happen, it's basically exactly what happened in 2018, but it's long odds made even longer by the H2Hs between the Brewers and Cards. I mentioned this in the GT last night but I think the big thing is staying ahead of the Braves. The #2 seed in the NL is going to get one of the Marlins, Giants, or Rockies. The #3 seed is going to get the Phillies or the 2nd place team in the Central. The Phillies especially are scary, as Nola and Wheeler is probably the best 1-2 punch in the NL.

Win 3 of the next 5 and the division is basically in the bag, barring some nonsense where the Cards or Brewers end the season on like a 15-2 run. The big thing is passing the Braves. The number 2 seed in the NL is likely going to get one of the Giants/Rockies/Marlins. The 3 seed is looking at the Phillies or Cards. That's a massive difference.

Get ready to lose 1-0

Cards are losing game 1 late and game 2 is a pretty lopsided pitching matchup in the Twins' favor. Would really love tonight to figure out Mahle and/or have Mills figure out how to miss bats

While there are real problems with the offense, they've also been BABIPed fairly hard the last month or so. Looks like they're getting it all back in one game.

i honestly don't care at all about the playoffs. first of all, we all know they aren't going to win. and even if they do, they'll have done it while going 31-29 or some horsefeathers, and it will never mean anything. the only thing they could have done this year that would have actually meant something to me would have been to buck all the stupid trends and play good baseball for 60 games. i didn't have any real hope for this until the stupid 13-3 start tricked me into thinking things were different. The rest of the NL sucks/is average, get lucky and hope someone bounces the Dodgers early and we have a shot. They very likely lose round 1 or 2 but whatever. This is a weird season, but they still will be playing playoff baseball and that’s exciting enough for me whatever the format and regular season record. Yup. Padres are legit now too, though still way worse than the Dodgers. Every other contender is in the same boat as us or worse. The Braves rotation is basically Fried and pray for rain. The Phillies' rotation is similar to ours but the bullpen is still trash even post reinforcements. The Mets have been ravaged by injuries and opt-outs. We know what's wrong with all the Central teams. No reason to pack it in, when for as historically great as the Dodgers are it's still fairly likely they get crapshooted before we would even face them I am pretty pessimistic about going for it next year, but that's obviously a thing you don't worry about 'til November.

2016 is the last year that Lester had an above average fastball by velocity. That year he threw hard pitches (4 seam, sinker, cutter) 82% of the time. This year, down more than 3 MPH from that heyday, he's still throwing "hard" stuff 74% of the time. To be fair he has substantially cut down on his 4 seamers, but IMO he really needs to embrace his offspeed stuff if he's going to have any chance at being a decent starter going forward.

That sucked, but forcing them to burn Gallegos is big. Woodford and Reyes also probably can't go after last night

Jason Adam might be a thing. He's been impressive since his most recent recall

That was about as good as the first inning of a five game series could possibly go

Sharma had floated Brailyn coming up yesterday and then retweeted himself about an hour ago... Edit: Annnd nevermind

The Last Comic Standing guy?

Considering I took the over on 10.5 for this game I wouldn't hate it... Also, while that was a BS last strike, that was still probably Kimbrel's most efficient outing as a Cub?

LOL what the horsefesthers was that

13/17 before today, so 13/18 now. Break even is I believe 2/3 so it hasn't really helped or hurt them that much Edit: Forgot there were 2 CS today, but 13/19 still doesn't tell a different story

Yeah Riddle plays infield defense like Ian Happ with offense like Albert Almora

Magic number down to 25. Take at least 6 in this upcoming 11 game stretch against the Cards/Reds/Brewers and it's basically over.

Yeah this is pretty bad news for Saturday, where we were going to need Alzolay anyway, but otherwise I'm not especially worried about this in the near term. We do need to figure who else is going to be in the October rotation besides Yu and Kyle, so this obviously sucks as we get fewer looks.

Ah, the second part of this tweet is likely it:

This is a bit of a weird one, Musgrove is not a reverse split guy as far as I can tell?

The team has been unlucky with balls in play as well. They're 24th in BABIP at .274 despite being 4th in average exit velocity, 3rd in hard hit %, 5th in barrel%. The swing and miss is probably going to keep them from being elite offensively, but they should probably end up more in the 5-10 range rather than their current middle of the road production.

!!!!

was he? i think maybe the cubs were so good that it just took us a while to realize joe is just a typical baseball manager I would say he definitely wasn’t bad in the beginning. Not saying he was good necessarily though. I think he was good initially. The problem is that the half dozen things he did that we're innovative became table stakes over the course of his tenure. So then he just ended up a mediocre manager with a massive ego preventing him from learning from his mistakes (because he can't admit to making one).