OSS: A most incredibly frustrating 5 run win.
Three up:
- Willson Contreras might be the best player on this team. He hit another homer, his 7th of July which brought his OPS up to .835. Combining his offense, defense, and rookie contract, I don't think there's a more valuable catcher in the game.
- Ben Zobrist is trying to find himself out of a season long slump and went 3-4 with 2 doubles.
- Carl Edwards, Jr. was nails taking over for John Lackey with men on 2nd and 3rd in the 5th. He got out of the jam and holding the 2 inherited runners, culiminating with a swinging strikeout to Jose Abreu.
Three Six down:
- Cubs hitters struck out 17 (!) times, 11 coming from Carlos Rodon in his 4 innings of work. Yes, of Rodon's 12 outs, 11 came by way of strikeout.
-
Lance Barksdale has a terrible game behind the plate. His zone was all over the place for both teams. He then didn't issue a warning after Lackey hit his 4th batter of the game in 5 innings and 3rd HBP in a row in the 5th. With no warning issued, Chris Beck retaliated on his second pitch hitting Ian Happ. It took 5 HBP for Barksdale to issue a warning. Of his strike calling duties, his worst came on Bryant's called strike three which culiminated in Bryant getting tossed:
Call hurts
#Cubs Strike 3 should be ball 3 Bot 4 Rodon vs Bryant 2% call same 4.4in from edge
3:52 PM – 25 Jul 2017
- Kris Bryant took home a golden sombrero prior to getting tossed and hitting the showers early. He also took a nasty foul ball off his right knee that kept him down a good 3-4 minutes before being ready to get back in the batter's box.
- One-uping Bryant, Javier Baez took home the palladium (rhodium? diamond?) sombrero going 0-5 with 5 Ks.
- John Lackey continued doing 2017 John Lackey things. He allowed 11 baserunners in 5+ innings and somehow only gave up 2 runs. He hit 4 batters on the day, including 3 in the 5th alone.
- Lackey came up to bat in the bottom of the 5th just after getting out of his bases loaded via HBP jam. There were two runners on with two outs after Rick Renteria intentionally walked Addison Russell. Joe kept Lackey in to hit for himself despite the scoring opportunity and high likelihood that Lackey wouldn't get through the following half inning. Lackey grounded out to end the frame, gave up a single and double and was promptly pulled without recording an out in the 6th. Touche Joe.
Next up: The teams switch sides as the series goes to Guarantee Rate Field (dying laughing) for a two game set. Jake Arrieta takes on James Shields today to see if either pitcher can go back in time to 2015.
Comments
The Sox ballpark was dubbed “G-Rated Field” on the Ivy Envy podcast (dying laughing).
Berselius is too lazy to loginQuote Reply
More likely a pitcher has a 2.015 WHIP than 2015 form.
mylesQuote Reply
President Trump sure has sent some inflammatory tweets so far today. Say, this wouldn’t have anything to do with trying to distract people from the Senate possibly voting to give millions of people the freedom no healthcare, would it?
EdwinQuote Reply
Is it just me, or does Guaranteed Rate Field sound like a name from Idiocracy?
ceruleanQuote Reply
Edwin,
Or to distract the Democrats from their recent pledge to focus on economic issues and put the culture war stuff on the back burner.
PerkinsQuote Reply
Ugh: Their logotype is Arial, the vanilla* icecream of typefaces.
Aesthetics matter. This might be the thing I hate about Trump the most—there is no craft, no care—it’s a tacky, trinket man pushing a tacky, trinket economy.
*Flavored with vanillin.
ceruleanQuote Reply
cerulean,
Re: the orange charlatan: I find it fascinating and amusing that someone who makes such an obvious show of disdaining others’ appearance is himself so visually* objectionable.
*Not an exhaustive list of ways he is objectionable
PerkinsQuote Reply
Brett Anderson -> DFA
mylesQuote Reply
In lieu of giving up anything in a trade for a rental catcher, I think the Cubs should call up Taylor Davis and send Caratini down. Davis should be a fine framer with a decent enough bat to be a backup. Caratini needs to work on his craft and get at bats everyday.
BONUS: Maybe that use some of the Devil Magic they stole from the Cards to have him break out.
ceruleanQuote Reply
myles,
Our long national nightmare is over.
PerkinsQuote Reply
Candelario, Zagunis, and Lackey for Samardzija and $10M. That would come out to about $15M a year through 2020 and the rest of this year offset by Lackey’s salary. Any takers?
ceruleanQuote Reply
To-day’s base ball squadron
RF Heyward
3B Bryant
1B Rizzo
2B Zobrist
DH War Bear
CF Happ
LF Jay
SS Russell
C Caratini
P Arrieta
Berselius is too lazy to loginQuote Reply
Chris Sale is so much better now that he’s no longer operating under the White Sox’s “pitch to contact” philosophy.
Rizzo the RatQuote Reply
Pirates lost; Brewers are up 2-0 in the second inning.
PerkinsQuote Reply
This had better not be a repeat of last year’s performance against Shields.
Rizzo the RatQuote Reply
I guess Bryant made contact, so there’s some improvement.
Rizzo the RatQuote Reply
Jay!
Rizzo the RatQuote Reply
Cabrera!
ceruleanQuote Reply
Jake’s looking real sharp today
/nojinx
berseliusQuote Reply
Bryant’s inability to hit Shields is one of life’s great mysteries.
Rizzo the RatQuote Reply
Since you didn’t properly open the nojinx tag, your statement was not embedded in the nojinx, therefore the closing tag isn’t doing a damn thing, and you just doomed Arrieta. I hope you’re happy.
Oh look, a hit…
ceruleanQuote Reply
Schwarber!
Rizzo the RatQuote Reply
SCHWARBER!
ceruleanQuote Reply
Crap.
Rizzo the RatQuote Reply
Time for Kris to remember James Shields is bad.
Rizzo the RatQuote Reply
Eh, I’ll take it.
Rizzo the RatQuote Reply
Bases clogged
berseliusQuote Reply
Rizzo!!!!!!
Rizzo the RatQuote Reply
Rizzo!!!
dmick89Quote Reply
Tony!!!!!
PerkinsQuote Reply
Tony!
berseliusQuote Reply
RIZZO!!!
Also—NATIONALS!!!
ceruleanQuote Reply
Nice bit of plumbing there.
berseliusQuote Reply
Bringing in the lefty after Rizzo hits is so White Sox.
Rizzo the RatQuote Reply
Kato must be happy.
7–2Nats over DrunksMake that 8–2
ceruleanQuote Reply
Way to go, Natinals.
PerkinsQuote Reply
That walk for Schwarber was three pitches too long.
PerkinsQuote Reply
Jay again!
Rizzo the RatQuote Reply
JAY!!
ceruleanQuote Reply
The Nats pen is trying to make this interesting, as is their wont.
Rizzo the RatQuote Reply
Rizzo the Rat,
It’s one of their new acquisitions. He is fitting in nicely.
ceruleanQuote Reply
Doolittle: K, BB, HR, 1B, 2B, coaching visit to mound.
ceruleanQuote Reply
There’s another strikeout for Sean.
ceruleanQuote Reply
Another K.
Brewers lose.
ceruleanQuote Reply
Natinals win.
PerkinsQuote Reply
DP please.
ceruleanQuote Reply
Throw strikes, Jake.
Rizzo the RatQuote Reply
Ugh.
Rizzo the RatQuote Reply
Abreu is not a good first baseman.
Rizzo the RatQuote Reply
Arrieta is around a 4:3 strike/ball ratio in this start. He’s looked good, but that might not play well against an MLB team.
PerkinsQuote Reply
Why is it only the seventh inning?
Rizzo the RatQuote Reply
Bryzzo!
Rizzo the RatQuote Reply
Stop making errors.
Rizzo the RatQuote Reply
Errorific!
ceruleanQuote Reply
Addison rustles up a long ball.
ceruleanQuote Reply
$M^{-1}$
Berselius is too lazy to loginQuote Reply
Arrieta was good. Montgomery was good. Hitters left 23 on base and they still scored 8 runs. These are the Cubs we know and try to love.
ceruleanQuote Reply
First place. Finally.
dmick89Quote Reply
They aren’t in first place until they’re five games up.
ceruleanQuote Reply
http://obstructedview.net/cubs-8-sox-3/
berseliusQuote Reply