The mighty Cubs struck out three times against their mortal enemy St. Louis Cardinals. This means that they are limping, somewhat, into the 70 game mark of the season. 70 games is an important demarcation line in the season is because this is the point where Russell Carleton, writing at the mothership, found that run differential stabilizes. […]
Category: Articles
Game 70 Recap: Cardinals 7 Cubs 2
The Cubs are bad and you should feel bad. Top Play (WPA): Are you ready for this? Chris Coghlan walked leading off the fourth inning (.043). The end. This game was miserable cacophony, a metaphorical gnashing of teeth. While the first two games in the series were close, and in fact one swing at the […]
An Old Idea as New: Let’s Turn This Thing Down to Eleven
Baseball is a beautiful game but also a cruel one. Often it can be both at the same time. That might lead one to call baseball a crueltiful game. On second thought, don’t call it that. That would be weird. Perhaps no better example of the sport’s essential duality has been the recent injury bug […]
The Cubs’ Luck So Far This Season: It’s Complicated
At the end of the 2015 season, I decided to take a crack at quantifying how lucky the 2015 Cubs had been. The season had been a pleasantly unexpected surprise, and I had a hunch that luck had played a role. After all, the team had so many close, thrilling games that ended in their […]
Game 69 Recap: Cardinals 4 Cubs 3
I’ll forgive you a little frustration, if you’re feeling it. This game, like last night’s loss before it, featured an unusually high proportion of missed offensive opportunities, poorly-placed ground balls, and Brandon Moss. There haven’t been a lot of games like this for the Cubs in 2016—to be frank, this one felt more like a 2014-era performance than anything […]
Catching up with Duncan Robinson, Cubs Ninth-Round Draft Pick
Duncan Robinson, 22, is listed at 6’6″/220 and was one of the many tall right-handed pitchers the Cubs selected in last week’s draft. Equipped with a low-90s fastball and a big curveball, he was named the Ivy League Pitcher of the Year in 2015. He was drafted last Friday, graduated from Dartmouth College last Sunday, drove […]
The Bullpen: Not the Achilles Heel You’re Looking For
The irony of the legend of Achilles is that his name, far from being a symbol of strength, is now largely associated with the notion of a single critical vulnerability. And, more to the point, whenever we’re confronted with something that strikes us as without weakness, our minds immediately flit to the young demigod, dipped by […]
Game 68 Recap: Cardinals 3 Cubs 2
Rare are the nights when the top and bottom play, according to WPA, tell the story of a game so well. This contest was taut throughout, but neither team could make the big play and turn the game definitively in their favor, and so, as the only clock that applies to baseball (the number of […]
Series Preview: Cubs vs. Cardinals, June 20-22
As extraordinary as it might have seemed in this offseason that was so pregnant with expectation for a competitive National League Central race, the Cubs enter this three-game, mid-June set with the Cardinals at Wrigley a stunning 12.5 games ahead of the Redbirds in the Central, and with an even-more-imposing 15 game lead on the reeling Pirates, who’ve […]
Game 67 Recap: Cubs 10 Pirates 5
“It always seems one guy every year is that guy. On every staff there’s one guy that never gets any runs, regardless of how well that he pitches.” Maddon went on to commend the job Kyle Hendricks has done, improving both velocity and command this season, but through twelve starts he had nevertheless been that […]