OSS: Cubs outplay the Cardinals, lose anyway.
Three up
- The Cubs biggest play of the day by WPA was Ben Zobrist‘s seeing-eye single up the middle in the ninth, making it first and third with one out and Rizzo coming to the plate. Zobrist had a great day at the plate in general, going 3-4 with a walk and a run scored.
- The Cubs other top performer at the plate was Miguel Montero, who went 2-3 with a walk. He drove in the first run of the Cubs rally in the fourth that felt like it should have gone on a lot longer.
- John Lackey had a great start all the way up to his second to last batter. He mowed down his former teammates early in the game, including striking out five in a row at one point. He got himself into a mess in the third but managed to work out of bases clogged and one out with just a sacrifice fly against him. I even saw him close his mouth once.
Three down
- Yet another Cardinals pinch hit home run, this time by Matt Adams, who lost his job to the likes of Brandon Moss going into the season but somehow has five homers.
- The Cubs rally in the ninth was killed by a great play by Matt Carpenter, who caught the flare hit off Rizzo’s fists mere inches from the bag to double off Fowler, who had run on contact.
- Soler has seemingly been making adjustments over the past few days and has been hot, but it’s pretty tough to adjust to having balls 6 inches inside called strikes.
Next up: Hammel v Wacha, 6:10 PM (??) CT
Comments
I could do with fewer of these games. That game sucked.
dmick89Quote Reply
So, unless the offensive slump worsens further, Contreras has no role on this team (inferring from Rogers’ reporting of Hoyer’s comments on 3Catcher-gate).
SKQuote Reply
SK,
In other words, if the Cubs are winning, it won’t matter if Ross, Montero and Feddy aren’t hitting for shit.
SKQuote Reply
Welington Castillo is having a pretty good year.
Rizzo the RatQuote Reply
Hoping this isn’t just the beginning of The Curse of Gerrit Cole.
SKQuote Reply
SK,
Lo came the bearded one bearing his slow moving pitches on a sack made from the dead and cursed three times the young bears did he. “Forever thou wilst hit not a pitcher who is not very good and partial success only will you have against the ones whose hands throw the left side from.” And cold did settle across the ancient realm of W’riggley.
joshQuote Reply
SK,
Any time Rizzo struggles the Cubs are going to have a much more difficult chance of winning the game. The same goes for Bryant. The Cubs need those two to be healthy and productive. So far they have been, but both have also been a little streaky. I expect things will even out a bit in the near future.
dmick89Quote Reply
dmick89,
I expect things will get worse at an accelerated pace, culminating in not only the end of the season, but the end of the Cubs baseball team and indeed baseball itself.
joshQuote Reply
I wish Theo would stop fucking around with catchers. Ross has been pretty good. But get Fedex the fuck outta here. He’s not going to get another start as long as Montero stays healthy and he provides no value as a pinch hitter or late game replacement.
It’d be nice to bring up Vogelbach strictly as a pinch hitter ala the days of Daryl Ward and Randall Simon. With a typical line up, the bench is Szczur, La Stella, Ross/Montero, Fedex, Baez. The only one of that group I’d like to see pinch hit in a high leverage situation would be La Stella.
JonKneeVQuote Reply
new shit: http://obstructedview.net/cubs-minor-league-update-5-24-16/
dmick89Quote Reply