That was an ass-whoopin'.
Three up
-
Jake Arrieta picks up where he left off at the end of the regular season. What blister? Arrieta hung clown shoes on the best player in the league.
Jake Arrieta's curveball is filthy https://t.co/DJftmTjFjs
— Baseball Bros (@BaseballBros) April 5, 2016
- Montero hammered a two run homer in the fifth inning that probably put the game out of reach, not to mention likely causing minor burns from its bow shock to whatever fans were in the area it landed. He and Rizzo tied for the best position player WPA on the night
-
It didn't mean much game situation-wise, but it was great to see Szczur get a bases clearing
tripledouble late in the game. Not that the Cubs need a morale boost or anything, but when even your 25th guy is torching the other team it has to make you feel good.
Three down
- Not quite the best night for Ben Zobrist, who began his Cubs career with a strikeout with a runner on third and less than two outs, followed by a double play and a TOOTBLAN to erase his first hit as a Cub. He's clearly a traditionalist.
- Heyward also started off slowish before notching his first hit with a double in the seventh. Eh. Hard to split hairs here in what was a beatdown.
-
Gordo gonna Gordo
That was strikeout No. 10 by Cubs tonight, with 8 outs to go.
— Gordon Wittenmyer (@GDubCub) April 5, 2016
Tomorrow: Lester v Heaney
Comments
Bases-clearing double.
Reunredisunrediscredited.
ceruleanQuote Reply
cerulean,
Hey, it felt like a triple. Don’t discredit my feelings with your stupid biased facts.
berseliusQuote Reply
That was a fun one to watch early this morning.
GBA is one of the worst. songs. every. Somehow, Tony Bennett made it listenable for the only time ever at some recent ballgame at AT&T Park.
Suburban kidQuote Reply
http://mlb.nbcsports.com/2016/04/05/cubs-theo-epstein-close-to-a-contract-extension/
berseliusQuote Reply
When it is finally final ‘twil be the most gif-worthy of all Cub moves. Gotta keep him.
Smokestack LightningQuote Reply
why can’t more Cubs games happen right now
Suburban kidQuote Reply
Suburban kid,
Sting must be really into baseball.
Suburban kidQuote Reply
This is a very cool site:
https://www.reddit.com/r/NPB/wiki/stats
Kind of love looking at NPB stats. Dayan Viciedo! Kosuke Fukudome! Brian Bogusevic! Kyuji Fujikawa! Hiroki Kuroda!
mylesQuote Reply
Suburban kid,
I habitually run for the head and then the beer line during the middle of the 7th just in case it’s a GBA game.
uncle daveQuote Reply
aisle424Quote Reply
Still can’t get over how badass last night’s win was. Richards was filthy early, looked like it was going to come down to the bullpens late… and then the Cubs said nah, and decided to make him work ten times harder for every single out. 41 pitches later and the game was over.
It’s one thing when an opposing pitcher doesn’t have shit and your team rightly crushes him, another entirely when your opponent is a very good pitcher, probably had close to his best stuff, and it still doesn’t matter.
Smokestack LightningQuote Reply
The Cubs scored in the first inning, so the game was decided as early as practically possible. Booooooooooooooooooooooring.
umbraQuote Reply
Smokestack Lightning,
He had nasty stuff but he wasn’t locating it well enough to make the Cubs think about taking pitches. Some of his breaking shit was way out of the zone. But yeah, the lineup didn’t help him out at all. It was fantastic to watch.
aisle424Quote Reply
I thought Richards got through he first few innings because the Cubs batters expanded their zones too much, which is pretty easy to do against a guy like Richards. Still, I didn’t think Richards had his best stuff and the Cubs took advantage of it.
Was the 4th inning the longest inning in which there wasn’t a mound visit from anyone? Richards threw 6 straight balls at one point and with the game still close, at the very least the catcher has to go out to talk to his pitcher.
dmick89Quote Reply
It feels like they won 90-0 yesterday
berseliusQuote Reply
What inning did Nagy go out? He went out in one of those early innings to calm Richards down.
I thought Arrieta looked a little shaky in that first inning. Looked like he couldn’t locate his FB that well. But he got into a groove. I thought that first time through the order, the entire Cubs team was trying to win the game with their AB. But they started working the counts and getting better ABs. I was a little annoyed they still seem to have a problem getting a runner scored from 2B with no outs but it’s the first game so I’ll take a wait and see approach to see if they get better.
MuckerQuote Reply
Ok, I think everyone needs to take a brief time out at this stage and regroup later.
Suburban kidQuote Reply
It’s kind of crazy though the Cubs struck out 12 times and scored 9 runs. This offense is going to be unreal.
MuckerQuote Reply
It was 27.3% of their PA, where the league average this year is 24.4%. Lots of strikeouts are inevitable when you get to the plate so often!
mylesQuote Reply
I thought he looked a bit rusty for the first three innings. He got outs but too many were lineouts or deep-ish flies. The last few innings he seemed to be getting his groundouts and strikeouts, though.
Rizzo the RatQuote Reply
Richards looked vulnerable all game, I thought. Cubs seemingly had several 0-2 counts go to 3-2, and they probably could have walked on 4 pitches a few times. Not effectively wild, just wild.
mylesQuote Reply
You are all wrong and stupid. Richards looked very good early, and then this amazing fucking lineup destroyed his will to pitch and to live.
Smokestack LightningQuote Reply
I liked the part where Arrieta struck out Mike Trout twice.
PerkinsQuote Reply
We are not wrong.
dmick89Quote Reply
dmick89,
The quote box is saying I said that, which is weird.
PerkinsQuote Reply
Perkins,
Weird. I fixed it.
dmick89Quote Reply
It could go either way
berseliusQuote Reply
To day’s base ball squadron vs LHP Heaney
Fowler
Heyward
Bryant
Rizzo
Zobrist
Soler (DH)
Russell
Szczur
Ross
berseliusQuote Reply
I’m kind of surprised that Schwarber isn’t even given a chance to hit lefties before the platoon starts.
dmick89Quote Reply
I have to think he’s still a better bat than Szczur, and it’s not like he’ll come in as a defensive replacement. I guess it’s no worse than having Lester and Ross in an NL park.
PerkinsQuote Reply
Schwarber can be an offensive replacement if they are behind or a pinch hitter.
It’s a pretty Joe move.
Suburban kidQuote Reply
dmick89,
Gotta ride that hot hand, my frent.
berseliusQuote Reply
Yeah, but there probably shouldn’t be a single game this season that the Cubs play in an American League park that Kyle Schwarber isn’t in the lineup if he’s healthy. It’s hard to imagine that Szczur increases the odds of the Cubs winning this game and if he in fact does, we have greatly overrated Kyle Schwarber. I think there’s a good chance that we (and almost all Cubs fans) have overrated Schwarber, but almost no chance at all that Szczur is a net positive over Schwarber vs. lefties.
It may be a Joe move, but it’s almost certainly a bad move. I’m a huge fan of Joe Maddon, but like everyone, he gets things wrong and I just don’t see how this benefits the Cubs.
I think berselius is probably right that it’s about the hot hand, which makes it an even worse decision.
It’s almost like the Cubs are trying to make it more difficult to win games when Jon Lester takes the mound.
dmick89Quote Reply
Heaney seems to be really tough on lefties so it makes sense to get righty-loaded…
http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/split.cgi?id=heanean01&year=2015&t=p
Rice CubeQuote Reply
New Shit
http://obstructedview.net/4516-cubs-angels/
And I seriously, 100-percent think Joe put Szczur into today because he had a bet with Matt about Villanova winning the NCAA tournament.
mylesQuote Reply