Cubs 12, Reds 5

In Postgame by berselius187 Comments

OSS: Cubs win a game on the….road?

Three up

  1. Ian Happ is certainly making the most of his call up. He had his second four RBI game in a row, and already has three homers in his 13 games in the bigs.
  2. The Cubs other new acquisitions had big days, with Jonathan Lucroy going 3-5 with a double and two RBI, while Nick Castellanos went 3-4 with two solo home runs.
  3. Tyler Chatwood had another solid long relief outing, striking out six in three shutout innings. He’s actually been useful this season, though by fWAR he still grades out as replacement level. I guess that’s still a big step forward from last year.

Three down

  1. Cole Hamels just didn’t have it tonight, giving up eight hits and two walks in just three innings.
  2. The Cubs offense was rolling today, so Jason Heyward’s line of 1-5 looks a little meh by comparison. I like the idea of moving him to the leadoff spot but doing so against lefties is a little questionable.
  3. The Brewers and Cardinals couldn’t lose tonight.

Next up: Yu Darvish takes on Trevor Bauer and his drone fleet at 6:10 PM CT.

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Comments

  1. EnricoPallazzo

    andcounting,

    yeah i think i said that to myself in 2017 and then again in 2018. and i agree that that this year is even more pronounced. maybe hot/cold is normal and it just seems weird because we got so used to cold/cold for so long and then hot/hot in 2015/16…

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  2. andcounting

    EnricoPallazzo,

    Yeah, I mean, it’s the nature of baseball. But Happ, Schwarber, Heyward, and Baez are pretty exaggerated examples of players with extremely high highs and ridiculously bad lows. It’s like they pinball between Cooperstown and Iowa.

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  3. andcounting

    If the season were to end today, aside from being immensely relieved, how would you arrange the starting rotation? I’m not at all certain, but I might go…

    Cyle
    Yu
    Q
    Lester
    Cole
    and stick with a 5-man rotation with the best-rested starter on standby if someone falters. But I can’t really think of an approach that doesn’t sound as stupid as it does appealing.

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  4. dmick89

    andcounting,

    I’d definitely have Kyle and Hamels as the first two pitching in a series if it was me. They’ve been by far the most consistent in my opinion. Not sure who is the odd man out. Based on recent outings, Yu would probably go third followed by Quintana. I find it hard to believe that Lester isn’t going to be one of the four though considering his postseason success and how much Joe will undoubtedly talk about that. My guess is that Joe goes with Lester, Kyle, Hamels, Darvish with Quintana in the bullpen if the season ended today.

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  5. andcounting

    dmick89,

    I do think that’s the most likely option Joe will go with, Lester leading the way no matter what. My only hesitation on Hamels is based on him still coming off the injury. But based on how short the average start lasts, any playoff game is going to get pretty terrifying once the 6th inning rolls around.

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  6. dmick89

    andcounting,

    I just looked at how many times each starter has thrown 7 or more innings this season.

    Hamels: 8
    Lester: 3 (never exceeding 7 innings)
    Quintana: 6 (5 of those exactly 7 innings, the other at 7.1)
    Darvish: 2 (never exceeding 7)
    Hendricks: 9 (4 times 8+ including a complete game)

    Not saying this should determine anything, but I think it gives a fairly good picture of the most reliable starters this season. I’m actually surprised that Quintana has that many.

    All I know is this, Kyle is my game 1 starter. I don’t see that changing over the remainder of the season either and I’m someone who expected him to regress quite a bit this season. Another thing I’m wrong about. Hamels would go next and then you can really just put the names in a hat.

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  7. WaLi

    Who was that pitcher than came from the A’s (I think) that got everyone out on strikes but couldn’t last past 6 innings?

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  8. WaLi

    Rich Harden. Knew it was Rich H something but kept thinking Rich Hill who I knew it wasn’t (dying laughing)

    He pitched an average of 5.9 innings/game in ’08 and 5.4 innings/game in ’09. Reminds me of Yu lately who has 5.5 innings/game so far this year. Both had about 11 SO/9 too.

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  9. andcounting

    I don’t know what Barnhart’s framing stats look like, but his efforts at dragging his mitt back into the zone after catching a pitch are so exaggerated it seems baffling that they’d ever work. He moves his glove about 8 inches after catching the ball. If I saw that as an ump, I’d call it a ball every time.

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  10. Rizzo the Rat

    I always find it interesting when a catcher stands up as if he wants a high fastball and the hitter takes a pitch in the zone. I wonder if this is an intentional decoy

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  11. andcounting

    Why is it that hard to believe all the rich rapist presidents wanted Epstein dead? (Posted here for obvious Pizza Hut MILF tie-ins.)

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  12. Rizzo the Rat

    Sure, Almora can’t hit and shouldn’t be in the leadoff spot, but he almost made a couple of spectacular defensive plays.

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  13. dmick89

    Just figured I’d look ahead to the end of the season and the Cubs aren’t winning the division. They finish the season on the road so best they can hope for is a wild card. You can now spend the rest of the regular season doing other things. You’re welcome.

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  14. Smokestack Lightning

    Besides the inverted M, best news out of today is only three more games against the Reds. And not in Cincinnati.

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  15. Author
    berselius

    Did the Pirates ever have Watson and Crick on the roster at the same time? They missed out on a huge marketing opportunity.

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  16. Rizzo the Rat

    berselius:
    Did the Pirates ever have Watson and Crick on the roster at the same time? They missed out on a huge marketing opportunity.

    I don’t think voluntarily associating your organization with James Watson is a great idea…

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  17. Rizzo the Rat

    dmick89:
    Based on what Thom said you’d think the Reds had a 13-0 lead or something. It was only 3-0.

    dmick89:
    So my prediction of the Cubs losing 3 of 4 was right unfortunately.

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  18. dmick89

    Rizzo the Rat,

    One of us is paid handsomely to talk regularly about baseball. The other just assumes the worst. I also think the Cubs will get swept in their upcoming series. Any other outcome will surprise me, but it won’t be unbelievable.

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  19. andcounting

    dmick89,

    To be fair, I’m pretty sure I said something along the lines of “unbelievable” when I stepped outside for a second and came back into the house to see the Cubs with a lead. (dying laughing)

    Also to be fair, the Cubs’ chances of winning had to be pretty damn low before KB homered.

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  20. BVS

    andcounting:
    Why is it that hard to believe all the rich rapist presidents wanted Epstein dead? (Posted here for obvious Pizza Hut MILF tie-ins.)

    The Pizza Hit MILFS called to complain. They were too old for that d-bag, so no tie-in.

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  21. andcounting

    BVS,

    I did not. One might almost think I was paid to react with some semblance of dignity, but I assure you it was a fluke

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  22. andcounting

    Ryno,

    Slumping? Try being more erect. Play with it a little. Nice short strokes. Open stance. Get good extension, and you can hit that all day long.

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  23. BVS

    Rizzo is going to have to adjust to fielding weak bounce throws from Lucroy after all the season getting his catching hand blown out by Contreras.

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  24. Perkins

    14K through 6 for Quintana. I know he’s over 100 pitches, but I kinda want to see him pitch until he runs out of gas.

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  25. WaLi

    Darvish article:

    https://blogs.fangraphs.com/yu-darvish-makes-a-trade-off/

    TLDR:

    Darvish has made a trade-off. He’s cut his slider usage in half in favor of his cutter, a pitch he can control significantly better. With this increase in control, however, Darvish has left more pitches over the middle of the plate, and his home run rate has worsened. Darvish still might not be elite, but he is better now than he was early this season, and that is very good to see.

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  26. Smokestack Lightning

    I can’t even muster the will to boo this garbage with the caps lock on.

    Wake me up for the next home game.

    Or don’t. I can’t tell you what to do.

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  27. andcounting

    Pretty confusing that Wick got taken out. He induced really weak contact. When Strop came in, the game was over. I get paid considerably less than Joe, and it was obvious to me.

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  28. Perkins

    andcounting,

    It’s entirely too predictable. Strop has been great, but it’s obvious that he’s lost something and can’t be relied on in high leverage situations right now. I feel bad for him, but it also can’t be good for his psyche that Maddon keeps setting him up to fail.

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  29. Smokestack Lightning

    dmick89:
    The Cubs should just DFA all their relievers. They’re useless.

    Not good enough. Permanent bans from baseball. Maybe make an example of one of them, throw em in prison for twenty years.

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  30. Ryno

    WaLi,

    Well, it led to the team blowing a four-run lead in the 9th inning yesterday, which knocked them out of first place for the rest of the season and essentially closed their window of being relatively competitive.

    So not good.

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  31. dmick89

    Ryno,

    It also probably was the final straw for Joe as the Cubs manager. I thought there was a chance he’d return, but after last night there’s probably not a chance in hell he’s back next year. Between blowing last season and the shitfest this season, I’m sure the Cubs front office can’t wait to move on. The problem is building a competitive team when the Cubs are probably going to be about a 70-75 win team entering the offseason. They’re going to have to find a way to buy 15-20 wins with little to no money because the Cubs are broke.

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  32. andcounting

    WaLi,

    The 2019 Cubs have had a 5-game road winning streak, a 3-game road winning streak, and a 2-game road winning streak. Three distinct instances in which they’ve won consecutive road games.

    The Pirates have had 12 winning streaks this season, including 3 wins in a row at home against the Cubs, so I don’t love the Cubs’ chances.

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  33. Rizzo the Rat

    WaLi:
    How bad was the fielding error by Bote?

    Honestly, it wasn’t an easy play. But it’s one you’d expect a real shortstop to make.

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  34. Rizzo the Rat

    For the record, that intentional walk to Bell was probably much worse than any if the moves that Maddon was criticised for yesterday.

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  35. Smokestack Lightning

    Cubs should just fly back to Chicago tonight. Take the weekend off. Save themselves the aggravation.

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  36. Author
    berselius

    I am starting to wonder if Joe will still be the manager by the time the cubs return to Chicago, let alone next season.

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  37. dmick89

    The only thing that should have been surprising about losing this one was that they managed to score a couple runs and take a lead. This team sucks and there’s way too much shit to fix to even entertain contending next season. It’s time to blow it all up and start over.

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  38. Rizzo the Rat

    I wasn’t really buying most of the criticisms of Maddon over yesterday’s game. But today’s ninth inning… yeesh.

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  39. Smokestack Lightning

    Perkins:
    I don’t think the Cardinals are going to lose tonight, so the Cubs need to get their shit together.

    Fuck it. Let the Cardinals have it. They can get slaughtered in the NLDS.

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  40. Rizzo the Rat

    What’s funny is that I’m seeing some of the people who attacked Joe’s decisions yesterday agreeing with his decision to put the eventual winning run on base.

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  41. mobile dave

    I’m watching Ricky Nolasco pitch for the Reno Aces right now, which I guess makes up for the Cubs screwing me on my six-way parlay ticket. Dunno what I’m gonna flip him for.

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  42. Perkins

    I don’t think I’m even going to bother buying postseason tickets this year. They’ll just have to issue a full (or mostly full) refund for all the games that aren’t played.

    It’s kind of darkly funny that the most glaring weakness to address in the offseason has crushed the Cubs so much, especially on the road. Who would have thought the spare parts bullpen was a bad idea except anyone who thought about it for any amount of time?

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  43. dmick89

    Perkins,

    The Cubs won’t have home field in the playoffs so they’re done. Anyone who expects this team to beat any team on the road at this point is kind of nuts in my opinion. Sure, they’re going to inevitably win some, but for whatever stupid reason, this team sucks on the road.

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  44. andcounting

    It’s one thing to just suck on the road, just play poorly. That’s easy. It’s quite a feat, though, to make it look as though you should win and still lose. It’s like they’re the antagonist in every cheesy sports movie ever, every single day.

    David predicted Cubs lose, Cubs lose, Cubs lose. But that’s as easy as saying the Cubs will play three road games. We KNEW that was going to happen. But how? How will they make us start to expect a win? Sure, they’ll throw us off by making Thom Brenneman break his own neck every once in awhile, but that’s just the occasional bit of truth a liar tosses out to prevent us from knowing for certain when to trust the opposite of what he says when he whispers “They’re gonna win tonight, I can feel it” into our ears. It’s actually pretty entertaining if you can appreciate the “hopeless case” genre.

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  45. Smokestack Lightning

    dmick89:
    Perkins,

    The Cubs won’t have home field in the playoffs so they’re done. Anyone who expects this team to beat any team on the road at this point is kind of nuts in my opinion. Sure, they’re going to inevitably win some, but for whatever stupid reason, this team sucks on the road.

    It’ll be hilarious when they sneak in, win the first two on the road in the NLDS, but lose the series anyway.

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  46. Author
    berselius

    To-day’s shit show squadron

    CF Heyward
    RF Castellanos
    3B Bryant
    1B Rizzo
    SS Baez
    2B Russell
    LF Happ
    C Lucroy
    P Lester

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  47. Rizzo the Rat

    I actually think Joe managed this game worse than he managed the Darvish game (for which he was unfairly criticized, in my opnion), but I’ll take it.

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  48. dmick89

    I’m assuming this was a loss until the league office confirms this as a win. Just seems too unlikely that the Cubs would win. Much more likely there’s some cheating involved that the league will fix.

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