1. So many chances.
On the one hand, the Cubs putting so much pressure on the Brewers without two pieces of the core of their lineup is rather impressive, hope-inspiring, etc. On the other…man. A win would have been big.
2. Please get Bryant and Rizzo right.
One side of this is that you want Bryant and Rizzo to produce so that the Cubs are a better team. Another side of this, particularly with respect to Bryant, is that if you’re going to sell at the deadline, you want to be selling a healthy, productive player. But there’s also a piece of this where you just want these guys healthy because they’ve been good professional baseball players in the personal sense. There’s rarely been a reason as a fan to complain about these guys, while there’ve been plenty of reasons to be grateful to have them as the faces of the franchise. You want Kris Bryant and Anthony Rizzo to do well independently of what they do for the Cubs for the same reason you celebrate Kyle Schwarber doing well: Because these slices of these guys have been a big part of your life, and while you don’t have the whole picture, the slices make you think they’re good people. Good people who deserve good things.
3. Who’s the new backup catcher?
Is it Tony Wolters again? I like Wolters, but probably because I still think of him as a competent baseball player based on one Cubs-crushing at-bat in 2018. At the very least, he’s sound defensively back there.
Pour one out for Jose Lobaton. That looked extremely painful. Hope he’s ok.
4. The Cubs won the bullpen battle.
Suck it, Brewers. Josh Hader and Brad Boxberger are both probably unavailable today, while the Cubs didn’t fully burn anyone. That’s the real competition anyway.
***
Around the Division:
The Reds fell to the Padres, 5-4. The Cardinals beat the Diamondbacks, 3-2.
Standings, FanGraphs division championship probabilities:
1. Milwaukee: 47-33, 80.3%
2. Cubs: 42-38, 10.9%
3. Cincinnati: 39-39, 6.5%
4. St. Louis: 39-41, 2.3%
5. Pittsburgh: 29-49, 0.0%
Kwang Hyun Kim vs. Riley Smith in St. Louis. Vladimir Gutierrez vs. Joe Musgrove in Cincinnati.
Up Next:
Game 3
***
Whom:
Cubs vs. Milwaukee
When:
1:10 PM Chicago Time
Where:
Milwaukee
Weather:
Chance of rain, so the roof may be closed. If it isn’t, temperatures in the 70’s and wind blowing in at about five miles per hour.
Starting Pitchers:
Jake Arrieta vs. Aaron Ashby (bullpen day)
The Opponent:
Ashby isn’t a top-100 prospect for everybody, but he’s close, and he’s been carving up hitters at AAA, striking out almost a batter and a half an inning. Thankfully, he’s walked over half a batter an inning, but still…might not be a great first time through the order with him on the bump. Lefty.
The Numbers:
The Cubs are +130 underdogs, with the Brewers at -155. So about a 41% chance of a win. Over/under’s at nine and leans towards the under.
Cubs News:
Rizzo and Bryant were completely unavailable last night, which casts doubt on their availability today. Ryan Tepera’s on the IL now with a calf strain. Matt Duffy’s on the 60-day IL and is eligible to return about a week after the All-Star Break. Adam Morgan was added to the 40-man and called up, Tommy Nance was recalled, and Trevor Megill was sent back down. More may be coming today, but probably in the form of Lobaton being DFA’d or put on the 60-day IL and Wolters or someone else being called up to be the backup catcher.
Cubs Thoughts:
Well, win this one and you’re four games back, with a chance to get within two and a half by the All-Star Break (as we wrote yesterday, the Brewers can win their series with the Pirates, split their series with the Reds, and lose their series to the Mets, and if they do that and the Cubs win each of their three sets, they’ll be back within two and a half). The underlying goal with that is to pull off one hell of a hot stretch, going 8-3 over the next twelve days, and even that requires some help. But it’s what we can look for on the optimistic side.
Also on the optimistic side, the Brewers aren’t that good. They just have three of the best fifteen starting pitchers in baseball, and…ok, they’re pretty good. But really, beyond those three and Josh Hader, there isn’t reason for terror of the Brewers. They’re an 85-win team on paper who’s played like a 95-win team on the field, and the better expectation with them is that they play at their mediocre level the rest of the way rather than at their good level.
On the pessimistic side, though, the Brewers are still better than the Cubs on paper. On the optimistic side of that, you’re starting to look long-term, and seeing that the Cubs’ bullpen could bring in haul after haul at the deadline. But back to the pessimistic side, the thing that makes the most sense in a maximize-total-championships sense is probably not to extend Javy Báez or Rizzo (each is approaching an age at which hitting drops, each hasn’t been phenomenal already this year, Rizzo’s back and Báez’s reliance on outrageous athletic feats—easier when young—for so much of his value are both concerning), or to only do it on team-friendly deals, and those are the two guys most marketably worthy of extensions. If the Cubs sell, they should probably tear the whole thing down, even considering trading Willson Contreras, who could be the biggest chip on the market, and while that might be smart, it won’t be fun. If it happens. Hopefully it doesn’t have to happen. And yes, I know, the Cubs made their own bed a bit this offseason, but I do think that when we look back on this team in ten years the overall sense isn’t going to be, “The front office sold them short.” I think it’s going to be, “The organization somehow failed to develop a handful of outstanding young hitters and ruined Jason Heyward, then got caught in limbo for four years.”
Anyway, hopefully the Cubs win today and win seven of those next ten before the break, hopefully the Brewers go 5-7 before the break, and hopefully the Cubs enter the All-Star Break a game and a half back with a healthy Kris Bryant, a healthy Anthony Rizzo, and Nico Hoerner back on the roster after completing his rehab assignment. Hopefully we can keep this alive just a little bit longer.
