Stratos

Exactly. What order of failure do we want to watch?

At this point just start Berti and Turner and get them some work in.

Brujan claimed by Braves from Orioles.

Is Taillon, especially a somewhat rusty Taillon, better than Rea though? If it's a 5 game series vs Brewers I assume Rea is starting. He's our 4th best SP at this very moment. Brown is out if anyone. Wondering where Assad pitches though. Maybe in the pen for now? Gives Horton time to rest out of the rotation after the Brewers series?

Depends if you're throwing the curve correctly or not. Funny thing, my local little league has pitch counts now instead of just an inning limit for pitchers. I guess the coaches or some parent have to count now LOL.

Yeah some guys are just freaks and made out of steel. Nolan Ryan was an animal. And then there's Mike Soroka...

I'd imagine they'd want to use Horton to try to win the division and then take their chances in the playoffs even without him. He could get hurt at any moment anyways, so might as well use him until they decide to shut him down. This rotation is so frail. The last 2 months might be a sh*t show for the rotation. Id be happy with an average era these 2 months. Here's hoping Assad comes back ok, we need him if Horton and/or Boyd are shut down or there's another injury.

A ballclub from Milwaukee outperforming teams from LA, New York, Chicago etc is wild. It boggles the mind. The millions spent per win has extreme efficiency and they're consistent. They lose Burnes, Adames, Hader etc and just keep going. Just shows the extreme value that good young pre-FA players provide.

This is what the Cubs say. However, to be frank, the ability of teams to prevent pitching injuries these days is absolutely atrocious. The Cubs ability to prevent guys like Steele and Alzolay etc needing TJS shows they have no idea what they're doing on this front. I mean, they just traded for a guy with significantly dipping velo who got hurt 2 innings into his first appearance. An unexplained velo drop is often your body telling you something. In 2023 we watched the Cubs ride Alzolay, Merryweather, and Leiter Jr hard that summer because the FO didn't bother acquiring the quality pen arm(s) at the deadline needed to give those guys more rest between appearances. In 2025 the situation isn't much better given our trade deadline and SP situation. We also watched them put Steele on the IL last Aug with elbow issues then brought him back only a few weeks later to get his last 2 meaningless starts in even after being playoff eliminated instead of just shutting them down. ARE THEY STUPID??? So are they going to ride Boyd and Horton in a playoff hunt like they did those relievers simply because they want to win? Well Alzolay hit the IL in Sept 2023 and needed TJS shortly into the following season. I'm sorry Cubs but the cost/benefit for riding oft-injured pitchers is too steep to be doing that to these guys if this team plans to compete next year too. A bit of prevention & caution is a lot better than waiting for signs of fatigue or injury to pop up, which they seem to sometimes ignore anyways (e.g. Soroka, Steele).

Someone slip some cocaine and steroids in Tuckers coffee

A terrible time to slump with the Brewers playing out of their minds and having 2 series with them in a tight race.

Cubs still have 2 full weeks until the Brewers series, there's lots of time to get the bats going before then and have the pen settle down. It's a huge series and we'll see what the Cubs are made of. They lost the 1st game in Detroit earlier in the year when they were the 2 best teams in the MLB and both teams were clearly fighting to prove something. They completely fell apart in the first game of the last Brewers series. Screw sample size, they need to step up next Brewers series and show they're the better team.

Did the Brewers series break them or something?

Agree, I think the Cubs did their due diligence. But Hoyer went into the deadline needing a real SP piece for this team and he left with an oft-injured guy who had seen a recent significant velo drop with no idea why and no guarantees it would improve with only 2 months left in the season. Every SP traded besides Kelly was basically a pile of arse and the prices were ridiculous so its hard to get mad at Jed but it still sucks.

Here's a fun game called Willi Roulette where we guess what position Willi Castro is playing tonight. I says DH.

Nah, he stretched his stride to try to reach the bag quicker and just didn't make it. If he didn't do that it would have taken an extra step to get to the bag and probably still would have been out. He did everything he could, i can't hassle a guy for effort,

Looks like Cubs SP era in July was good for 2nd in NL. 3.19 ERA

Busch and Seiya have each hit around 50 wRC+ since the break and Tucker also hasn't been himself. This won't continue, it's just a perfect storm right now. Pen has also had some natural regression. Good thing is Shaw is hitting and Kelly is back to form, and Taillon/Assad/Amaya are on track. We just need to keep things in perspective while suffering through this patch.

You're right, they were 13-13 in June also. How annoying.

Here's Soroka yesterday (before the start) specifically being asked about the cause of the velo drop. He's also vague, and sounds like he says he's "been going through some stuff with internal med" and sounds like a couple of issues and he expected it to be fixable in the short-term. That could mean anything. Cubs knew about the issues pre-trade.

Counsell in the post-game presser below taking all the questions we'd want asked about Soroka. Will be an IL stint. Cubs knew his velo had taken a step backwards lately, and since the trade Soroka has been looking forward to the Cubs being able to try to help him get back on track with the velo. Seems maybe a little cagey about any pre-trade injuries.

Over the last month the Brewers have scored the most runs in the MLB and also allowed the fewest runs.

No Jed and the FO typically aren't this kind of incompetent i agree. Someone in the media still needs to ask Jed about the velo drop so we can confirm an explanation and know what's going on. I can see going from 94-95 to 91-93 intentionally but him dropping to 89 mph seems like something else going on and the injury points to that even more.

Hopefully mild shoulder reconstruction surgery.