Game 163 Preview: Brewers at Cubs

In Series Previews by berselius132 Comments

Welp, here we are at game 163. As frustrated as some of us are, it’s good to remember that this team was somehow both kind of disappointing/had all sorts of crap/injuries/scheduling thrown at it and still won 95 games. It would be nice if, say, the Cubs didn’t get swept by the Reds earlier this year, but the fact that the division ended in a tie probably has more to do with the Brewers in general and Christian Yelich in particular catching fire in the home stretch.

Team Leaders

Cubs

  • OBP: Ben Zobrist (.380)
  • ISO: Javier Baez (.266)
  • HR: Baez (34)
  • R+RBI: Baez (209)
  • wRC+: Baez (230)
  • BSR: Baez (4.3)
  • DRS: Albert Almora (+8)
  • SP K/9: Cole Hamels (8.72)
  • SP BB/9: Kyle Hendricks (1.99)
  • SP FIP: Hamels (3.42)
  • RP K/9: Carl Edwards Jr (11.75)
  • RP BB/9: Jesse Chavez (1.22)
  • RP FIP: Chavez (2.40)
  • WAR: Baez (5.3)

Beers

  • OBP: Christian Yelich (.400)
  • ISO: Yelich (.275)
  • HR: Yelich (36)
  • R+RBI: Yelich (225)
  • wRC+: Yelich (166)
  • BSR: Yelich (5.5)
  • DRS: Lorenzo Cain (21)
  • SP K/9: Freddy Peralta (11.12)
  • SP BB/9: Zach Davies (2.86)
  • SP FIP: Wade Miley (3.59)
  • RP K/9: Josh Hader (15.88)
  • RP BB/9: Joakim Soria (2.49)
  • RP FIP: Hader (2.86)
  • WAR: Yelich (7.4)

Injuries, transactions, vengeance pacts, etc.

 

Morrow is done for the season, and Strop probably won’t be back until later this week. Bryant had a week where Joe gave him some ‘proactive’ rest for his may or may not be still bum shoulder, and was hit on the wrist by a pitch earlier this week. That didn’t stop him from hitting a 5000 foot home run in his return. There were rumblings that Schwarber was having some back tightness last week and didn’t seem to play as much as you normally see him.

No big news on the Brewers side, injury wise, that I can see. Jeremy Jeffress had some neck spasm issues a week or so ago.

Pitching Probables

ERA, FIP, xFIP, projected ERA listed for each pitcher

Friday: Jhoulys Chacin (?) (3.56, 3.99, 4.43, 4.50) vs Jose Quintana, LHP (4.09, 4.52, 4.23, 3.85), 12:05 PM CT

Chacin and Quintana matched up at Wrigley on Sep 11, a game that the Cubs won 3-0. However in his other two starts against the Cubs this season he had thirteen shutout innings, striking out seventeen and allowing just seven hits.

I don’t expect to see a ton of Chacin in this one – I’m guessing he goes through the lineup once followed by the Brewers leaning on their lights out bullpen the rest of the way. They could even start Hader in this one. Chacin hasn’t pitched more than five innings in a start since August, which kind of surprises me. Chase Anderson is also available for this start, but he hasn’t pitched in nearly two weeks.

Q had six starts against this Brewers lineup this season and five of them were pretty good, combining for four runs and 28 strikeouts over 32.1 innings. They did manage to get to him for five runs in five innings in mid-August, which was part of a stretch of rough starts for Q in general. Since that start he’s been on a roll, only really struggling against his former team. Hopefully Q puts up a fifth great start and the Cubs get two well deserved days off.

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Comments

  1. Rice Cube

    Would obviously appreciate an early shellacking of the Brewers followed by a 4 inning spring training game to rest the regulars.

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  2. Perkins

    That four game sweep by the Reds really looms large. Especially the final game, when the Reds put up 7 runs late to win.

    Well, also Tyler Chatwood got starts as late as mid-August.

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  4. andcounting

    My updated schedule has the game at 12:05 on Monday, but I’m hoping I’m wrong and the Cubs get to rest up for four days.

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  5. Berselius is no longer on an airplane

    andcounting:
    My updated schedule has the game at 12:05 on Monday, but I’m hoping I’m wrong and the Cubs get to rest up for four days.

    You’re right, I forgot that I’m on Eastern time right now. Not having the sun completely up yet at 7:30 am is pretty lame.

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  6. Author
    berselius

    At least the chance of a must win game tomorrow should preclude the Brewers from leaning on Hader too much today.

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  10. SK

    andcounting:
    There are club box tickets available, really all sections.

    still time for a gofundme. we need you behind the dugout man. Joe might do that Bill Veeck thing where he asked the fans behind the dugout to make managerial decisions for one game.

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  18. cerulean

    Ryno,

    Iff statement, eh? I don’t think we need to qualify the “only if” because the collective we are always right. #logic

    I vote for BartCavanaughBoofs

    (no reference to current events or any noted cubs blog)

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  21. Perkins

    Ryno,

    It’s hard to notice in the quote box, but I added a few extra commas in the Alvin statement.

    Part of me almost hopes they lose today and tomorrow because I’m not sure I like this team enough to sit through a postseason likely to end in defeat and sure to be filled with anxiety.

    The rest of me wants them to see them crush their opponents, see them driven before them, and hear the lamentation of their women.

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  23. Ryno

    Perkins,

    Losing in the NLCS last year and in ’15 sucked, but it was sure better than the previous 12 years. Losing in the WC game would be less than ideal also, but it’s way better than planning the off-season in July.

    Anxiety, in this sense, stems from lack of perspective and confidence, imo. It’s hard to be confident in any Cubs team (the ’16 team not withstanding), so perspective is your best bet.

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  39. Ryno

    Seriously, I might just have to think of this as an away game… I heard Arcia hit the ball and the volume of cheers made me think it was an out.

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  50. andcounting

    Q should not go through the lineup a third time. He’s not doing bad, but he will if he faces the 15th batter or beyond.

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  52. SK

    Perkins:
    Goddamnit, Schwarber.

    My son informs me Schwarber is the least clutch player in MLB this year — by a long margin too — according to the fancy stats for such like.

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  56. andcounting

    Javy has to take that walk. Obviously I would think differently if he had clobbered that ball, but they have to be thinking more than one run every inning.

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  87. BVS

    I hope Baez’s off season includes seeing a lot of balls while in the box, but without a bat in his hand–just ID balls and strikes. Like Schwarber did prior to coming back before the playoffs in ’16.

    Baez at the plate with runners on and less than one out: feelings of excitement.
    ….with 2 out: Feelings of dread.

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  90. SK

    BVS:
    but without a bat in his hand–just ID balls and strikes. Like Schwarber did prior to coming back before the playoffs in ’16.

    I never knew he did that. Great idea. Yes, Javy should do that drill 365 days a year just to be sure.

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  112. JKV

    BVS,

    Schwarber is better. Rizzo was a mess for a month so I think his numbers are artificially lower than they should be. Bryant was hurt all year. Zobrist is much, much better.

    I think the idea of this offense being worse this year is more due to their stretches where everyone went cold at one time (along with what seems like an eternity of poor clutch hitting spanning decades).

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  116. Perkins

    I’d probably hope to see LA tomorrow. The Cubs probably have a better chance of winning one game against LA than a series, especially if Buehler and Kershaw are unavailable.

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  119. Perkins

    It’s obviously not a thing they can make too much noise about right now, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see some chatter in the offseason about how MLB handles makeup games.

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  122. dmick89

    I’m sure the lack of rest didn’t help, but there are a number of things this team itself could have done to even avoid this game. The Strop injury looks even dumber than it did when it happened and it looked bad enough that I probably wouldn’t haven’t complained if Joe was fired as a result of it. It should not have happened under any circumstances.

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  123. Perkins

    Not giving Tyler Chatwood any starts after about mid-June probably would have helped.

    I’m honestly impressed this team won 95 games with all its flaws and all the key injuries. If someone said at the start of the season that they’d win 95 while getting basically nothing from Darvish, about a half-season’s productivity from both Bryant and Rizzo, and losing Morrow for an extended period of time, I’d have been pretty happy with that. Too bad the Brewers got shit hot at the end of the year.

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  124. JKV

    dmick89:
    Perkins,

    I would hope so, but the only solution I can think of is to add some days off at the end of the season to avoid having teams getting one day off in 6 weeks.

    I don’t think it’ll happen until revenue starts declining, but they need to go to a 120 game season. Playing baseball in March and November is stupid. The only reason baseball’s revenue has been increasing is due to technology advances (TV, streaming) and the fact there isn’t a major competing sport during the season. Literally, all baseball has to compete against is golf. It would get destroyed if the NBA, College Football, or NFL seasons aligned with it. There’s some real talk about the NBA shortening their season when their CBA runs out (though that may just be the players’ bargaining chip).

    With a shorter season, you’d eliminate some of your lowest revenue producing games (early season games, weekday games). You increase tickets 5% to account for some of the loss, plus the increased scarcity of games would (in theory) produce higher demand.

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  125. dmick89

    JKV,

    I can’t get behind a 120 game season. I love baseball. I’d be okay with 154 games if it meant more off days so that this sort of thing could be avoided, but no way do I want only 120 games.

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  129. North Side Pat

    There were way too many Brewers fans in there today, especially in the upper deck. Win tomorrow, then return the favor in the NLDS.

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  130. andcounting

    Colorado to LA and then LA to Chicago on consecutive nights is no easy assignment. The Cubs may have gone a long time without an off day, but they haven’t traveled in a while either. They should have a distinct advantage when it comes to rest come tomorrow night.

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