To use a tired cliché, that escalated quickly. Top Play (WPA): Jake Arrieta dispatched the Pittsburgh Pirates quickly in the bottom of the first inning, bringing the Cubs to bat against Pittsburgh left-hander Francisco Liriano in the bottom half. They wasted no time. Dexter Fowler singled on a ball that ricocheted off the third base […]
Day: June 17, 2016
The Call-Up: Willson Contreras
Over at the main site, Brendan Gawlowski and George Bissell profiled the Cubs’ newest catcher. We’ve excerpted a section here. The Situation: The Cubs aren’t really struggling for production behind the plate. Miguel Montero missed a few weeks and is running the worst BABIPof his career, but David Ross has filled in admirably, and the […]
Laura Ricketts Is An Owner to Take Pride In
Major league owners are, as a rule, a hard group to root for. They’re the Yankees of people: obscenely rich, and annoyingly good at staying that way. Even when held to that low standard, the Cubs have had an astounding run of mediocrities and jagbags. Charles Murphy once fired Frank Chance while he was in […]
Let’s Take a Second To Appreciate Javy Baez’s Improvements
When Javier Baez first came to the big leagues in 2014, it was a well-established fact that his cumbersome strikeout rates would be coming with him. And they did. Baez posted a strikeout rate of 41.5 percent in 2014, accompanied by a stat line as dull as Joe West’s name: .169/.227/.324 in 229 plate appearances. But […]
Series Preview: Pirates at Cubs, June 17-19
This has a chance to be a moment. If the Cubs win two out of three in each of their series over the next week, they will hit the road with at least their current 9.5-game lead in the NL Central, and both the Pirates and the Cardinals will be running low on chances to […]