OSS: Cubs bats break it open in the fifth. Three up: Jason Heyward had a solid day against his old team, racking up three hits and two clutch RBI singles in the early innings. He also purloined his first stolen base of the year. I’m guessing the events of the last week or two have been a nice reminder that …
What would you say….you do here?
While the Cubs position players have had a fantastic first half, returns have been less than great on the pitching front. With ~60% of the season in the books, Jon Lester leads the pitching staff with 1.0 fWAR. I’ll go into individual player recaps below, but one thing I’ve been wondering for a while is why there has been so …
Cubs 7, Padres 4
OSS: The Cubs head into the All-Star break on a sweep. Three up: The Cubs chased another bad starter early, which is what good teams do. Unlike yesterday’s home run barrage, the Cubs strung together a ton of singles and walks (and a HBP or two) and just two XBH to score seven runs. Javy Baez’s first inning RBI single …
Cubs 11, Padres 6
OSS: Everything’s coming up Milhouse. Three+ up: The Cubs offense took care of business against an opposing starting pitcher with a 7+ ERA. Schwarber, Baez, and Happ all went yard in this one, and at least this time Javy’s homer counted. Schwarber’s bomb was to the opposite field, which was also great to see. Baez also hit a two run …
Cubs 2, Giants 0
OSS: Aggressive Cubs baserunning is just enough to snag the inverted M. Three up: It was a scoreless and speedy affair most of the night, and the Cubs took the lead after Russell took third on a wild pitch and aggressively dashed home after an errant throw. Russell was on second to begin with thanks to even more aggressive baserunning …
Cubs 6, Reds 5
OSS: An Inverted M is an Inverted M. Three up: Who else but Javy Baez was involved in the most consequential play of the game (.411 WPA). Baez singled up the middle with runners on the corners in the seventh inning to tie the game at four…then Heyward flashed a bit of Javy on the basepaths and scored from first …
Cubs 11, Twins 10
OSS: Cubs finish off the sweep with a bit of late drama to close it out. Three up: Jon Lester hit his second career homer to get the Cubs eight run rally started in the second inning. He almost batted again in the inning, and a second homer in that spot would have been pretty much perfect for how crazy …
Cubs 14, Twins 9
OSS: Cubs hit 17 singles to outlast Twins in brutal heat. Three up: Almora, Zobrist, Bote, and Heyward all had big games by WPA on the back of a combined 10-14 with four walks. They were smart enough to make all of those hits singles, as running in this game was not a good idea given that four players, including …
Series Preview: Minnesota Twins (35-42) at Chicago Cubs (44-35)
As much of a disaster as that last road trip was, coming away with a split and an overall season series win over the Dodgers despite all the roster setbacks still found a way to thaw my cold cynical heart. The bats finally broke out, and we’ll see if that continues or if things sputter yet again over the next …