Moving On From Disappointment

In Facepalm by Rice Cube176 Comments

There’s no sugarcoating it, this has been a very horrible stretch for the Cubs and they probably need to have a team meeting or some kind of surprise call-up or trade or signing to spark…something. I’ve generally mellowed out after the Cubs did the thing back then that some people forgot, but it’s a lot more fun to follow a team that is winning, and at the least, even if they don’t win, at least try to play well. The issue is that they’re not winning AND they’re not playing well. That is hopefully something the brain trust figures out.

A full roster turnover isn’t happening in season due to many factors, so we have to start with the current guys on the active roster doing what we know they’re capable of. Having a team-wide systemic slump is incredible and reminiscent of many of our complaints this year and for many past Cubs squadrons. Having the bats wake up more consistently will go a long way.

Until they wake up, the Cubs need to play defense and have their bullpen hold the line. The catchers might not hit, but they have to frame pitches better and help hold baserunners. Guys in the field, whether former Gold Glove winners or guys who are just there out of some roster necessity, need to convert outs and get their pitchers out of innings. I love what the rotation has been doing recently, but wasting all those starts late is extremely irritating and I’m sure it can’t be fun for the team either. I do wonder how much of this is coaching, but I do think because we were all generally happy with the roster construction (like we had much of a choice, but it wasn’t supposed to suck), there’s only so much the manager and staff can do. But it wouldn’t hurt to brainstorm a bit.

We are entering a stretch of division matchups and hopefully weaker pitching that will help the Cubs find their offensive stroke again, though you can allow for some poor luck with batted balls lately too. With over 100 games remaining, there is time to let things improve internally, but hopefully there are plans in the works to really shake things up, whether it’s to motivate the troops or to change personnel. I am hopeful for a turnaround because the talent should be there, and I do think the front office agrees and will add regardless of their record at the deadline. But it’s up to those already here to make that decision easier.

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  5. andcounting

    Rice Cube,

    Kinda makes me laugh envisioning him joining the ESPN broadcast booth for analysis on challenges. It isn’t difficult to understand why, but it’s still interesting to me that baseball is the one sport that never uses retired officials to talk about the rules in those situations.

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  6. Perkins

    CB Bucknor and Laz Diaz have to be sweating a bit now. Joe West’s retirement made Angel the league’s most hated umpire.

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  7. andcounting

    I will say this about the Cubs’ disastrous week: that PCA demotion just so Vazquez could play for 12 seconds remains an all-out head scratcher. I thought they might use him as the defensive option at 3rd when Morel sat late or DH’d, but it turns out they just wanted him to fly on the team plane a couple times.

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  8. andcounting

    Man, that Angel Hernandez retirement statement reads like his parents forced him to write it.

    “I am glad I got to umpire. It was very fun. It’s cool that baseball got better. I want to hang out with my family now, bye.”

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  9. berselius

    Perkins:
    CB Bucknor and Laz Diaz have to be sweating a bit now. Joe West’s retirement made Angel the league’s most hated umpire.

    The weirdest thing about CB Bucknor is how, unlike Angel Hernandez, every single former player always says he’s such a good dude.

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  13. BVS

    Is there a reason that Michael Busch hasn’t played any 3B this year? That was his position with the Dodgers/on the farm, at least in part, no? Cody to 1b, PCA back in CF, MB at 3b, Morel or Tauch at DH. Seems to work. There are a couple middle infielders who can go back to Iowa whose last names start with M.

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  14. andcounting

    BVS,

    My guess is it’s similar to why they’ve kept Morel at third. They probably want him to focus on only first base since it’s new to him.

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  16. BVS

    Rice Cube,

    Perkins,

    I’ve mostly been playing IG to try to fill in Cubs/ex-Cubs in every box. I think that would be pretty easy today.

    But lately I’ve been trying to get 9 correct answers with the highest rarity score possible. It’s hard to guess who the plurality of everyone else will guess. For example, yesterday for 1b x Silver Slugger, would you have picked Paul Goldschmidt or Freddie Freeman or go older and pick Don Mattingly or Todd Helton? (None of these guys were the top selection.)

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  17. Perkins

    BVS,

    I could see that being fun. My guess for most common 1B x Silver Slugger would be Pujols since he played the position for so long and was one of the best hitters of the past 50 years, but I don’t remember who it was.

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  18. berselius

    To-day’s base ball squadron vs Freddy Peralta

    RF Tauchman
    DH Seiya
    CF Belli
    3B Morel
    LF Happ
    2B Hoerner
    1B Busch
    SS Swanson
    C Amaya

    SP Brown

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  33. Author
    Rice Cube

    Ben Brown should not be closer long term but I know he’s on an innings limit so I hope the Cubs get another 50 innings of starts from him before he winds down

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  41. andcounting

    This team is just walking the high wire every single game. It’s a form of entertainment, but not one I’m particularly fond of.

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  43. andcounting

    Fun chess match there between the managers pinch hitting with a righty to face reverse-splits Leiter.

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  47. andcounting

    Even when Neris blows a lead he does it in a way where he’s lucky it’s not much, much worse.

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  52. andcounting

    Vazquez scoring from 2nd on a comebacker to the pitcher could go down in Cubs lore as the play that turned this season back around.

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  54. Perkins

    Ugly play but nice to see the Cubs pile on there. I also maintain that pitchers shouldn’t qualify for a vulture win unless they come back out and hold the lead the following inning.

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  60. berselius

    My favorite Angel Hernández memory will always be when he ejected Steve McMichael from the press box and stadium for saying that he would meet him in the parking lot after the game, due to a vintage umping performance.

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  61. Perkins

    I saw Joe West defended Angel Hernandez saying “whether you want to believe it or not, he was good at it,” which may be the most unintentionally hilarious thing I’ve heard in weeks.

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  71. andcounting

    I’m again tiring of the Marquee graphics department just thinking up ways they can jinx the Cubs.

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  74. andcounting

    This seems like a pretty clear example of Counsell getting too smart for his own good. What’s the phrase, too clever by half? The rain gods gave Shota an extra day of rest, why add four days of rust?

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  75. Perkins

    andcounting,

    I also don’t get why Counsell would delay him that long when getting more starts from your best pitcher without burning him out should be the ideal.

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  79. andcounting

    Do you have to announce it on the transaction wire when you trade one pitcher’s mojo for another’s?

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  83. andcounting

    Rice Cube,

    Finally. That Vazquez move seems like it got stuck in interoffice mail for a week and didn’t get processed until Dansby and Nico got back.

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  85. BVS

    This team reminds me so much of last year.

    Super streaky. Only 2 of 4 cylinders firing. Bad/unsettled bullpen. This year the D is off and the hitting is better, but that’s just swapping one cylinder for another.

    Time for an attitude reboot in the clubhouse I guess. Ross seemed to figure that out, maybe with Dansby”s help calling out Jed. I have no qualms about Counsell, but it goes to show that swapping a manager isn’t a magic elixir.

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  86. berselius

    To-day’s base ball squadron

    RF Tauchman
    LF Happ
    DH Belli
    3B Morel
    1B Busch
    2B Hoerner
    SS Swanson
    CF PCA
    C Amaya

    SP Taillon

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  104. Perkins

    I remain confident the Cubs will right the ship, and that they are the most talented team in the division. This has been a brutal stretch, but at least the offense is scoring again and the batted ball luck has to even out soon.

    And Trump is a convicted felon, so not a bad day.

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  111. berselius

    Series Mini-Preview Cubs v Reds

    Friday: Graham Ashcraft vs Javy Assad, 1:20 PM CT
    Saturday: Hunter Greene vs Justin Steele, 6:15 PM CT (FOX)
    Sunday: Nick Lodolo vs Ben Brown, 1:20 PM CT

    Someday I’ll have time/effort to write real previews again (dying laughing)

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  112. berselius

    To-day’s base ball squadron

    DH Tauchman
    RF Suzuki
    1B Belli
    3B Morel
    LF Happ
    2B Hoerner
    SS Swanson
    CF PCA
    C Gomes

    SP Assad

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  115. Perkins

    Rice Cube,

    I don’t think it’s officially tracked but it’d be cool to have “was in a baseball fight” as an IG category. Probably the only way Farnsworth would have a high rarity score (dying laughing)

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  137. berselius

    I’m not even listening to the radio broadcast and I can hear Coom’s head exploding from here (dying laughing)

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  157. andcounting

    Every series feels like those end-of-season DBacks games from last year. Some combination of Cy Young, Willie Mays, and Ozzie Smith in the field every damn game.

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  171. andcounting

    berselius,

    (dying laughing)

    Going back and watching replays on the at bat app, it’s a bummer they used Zach Zaidman’s calls of the highlights. For a little objectivity in my infinite criticism of him, on the Dansby homer you can hear multiple times where ZZ overloads the mic, resulting in distorted, static-ridden audio. It happens frequently on his calls because he doesn’t know how to monitor his levels and temper his volume. For a guy who spends that much time behind a microphone, there’s no excuse. Even Santo was better at pulling off the mic when he yelled. It has to drive the audio engineer crazy, along with anyone who has to use the highlights in any kind of production capacity. It’s awful.

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