That’s entertainment. Tonight was the kind of night where Jim Deshaies mused that “Kyle needs to join the party” and on the very next pitch, Schwarber launched an opposite field missile into the second row of the left field bleachers. And the thing is that there was so much great stuff happening in tonight’s game […]
Author: Ken Schultz
Game 127 Recap: Phillies 7, Cubs 1
Tonight’s game marked the first night of Players Weekend with MLB showing its lighter side by allowing its athletes to choose a nickname to put on the back of their jerseys, following the most famously successful sports business model of all time: the XFL. Unfortunately, no one on the Cubs chose “He Hate Me,” presumably […]
Kyle Schwarber Doesn’t Have to be Adam Dunn
Before this season began, Kyle Schwarber was still something of a mystery wrapped in a riddle inside an enigma. Because he still had yet to play a full season’s worth of major league games, our sense of him as a player was made up of a small sample of snapshots from the past two years. […]
Game 109 Recap: Cubs 7, Nationals 4
Going into today’s game, there were an awful lot of “NLDS Preview” takes for a team that had lost three in a row, was sitting at six over .500, and was all of half a game ahead of the team that somehow still employs Matt Garza. So naturally, the Cubs and Nationals played a remarkable […]
Carl Edwards Jr. and “That Inning”
Of all the pitchers in the Cubs’ bullpen, Carl Edwards, Jr. is the most exciting. His fastball consistently sits in the 96 mph range, and both it and his curveball generate what Brooks Baseball uses its Professor Frink voice to call “an extremely high number of swings and misses.” To date this year, he has […]
Game 103 Recap: Cubs 2 Brewers 1 (11)
Tonight, Jason Heyward let his bat make the speech. I guess that’s what happens when he’s in a park where it’s physically impossible to have a rain delay. What a beautiful ballgame. The best part is that no matter what happens on Sunday, the Cubs will leave Miller Park in first place. The second best […]
Game 94 Recap: Cubs 8 Braves 2
Hot Take: This road trip was better than the one to LA and San Diego. Yesterday’s game ended at 1:06 AM. That gave the Cubs just enough time to grab a couple hours’ sleep before heading out to the ballpark once again for a noon start. In other words, today’s game was the Kyle Farnsworth […]
A Reflection on the First Half
This All Star break feels like a reprieve. After three months of underperformance, disappointment, and frustration, there is genuine relief in this: four days where the Cubs will not be showing up to play baseball. In that respect, it’ll be just like every day following a win in the first half. Since none of us […]
Game 83 Recap: Rays 6, Cubs 5
Things were lining up perfectly today for the easiest recap intro in the history of Baseball Prospectus: Cubs declare independence from .500 mark. It was almost too perfect. And then the Cubs went and declared independence in the wrong direction. It was like fighting the Revolutionary War only to declare “Wannabe” our National Anthem. What […]
Game 78 Recap: Nationals 8, Cubs 4
I apologize for the unfortunate timing in my signing up for the recap tonight. Clearly this one should’ve gone to BP Wrigleyville’s newest staffmembers: Franz Kafka and Sylvia Plath. Forget Daniel Murphy, Matt Holliday, and Hunter Strickland. My least favorite person in baseball is whoever installed third base at Nationals Park. So…who wants to talk […]