Give me the (four-seam) fastball and I watch what I do with it — Lil Bow Wow, paraphrased On Opening Night, Jon Lester struggled to find a rhythm against the St. Louis Cardinals. In failing to make it through five innings, Lester allowed eight hits, all on his four-seam and cut fastballs, while Cardinals left-handed […]
Tag: Postseason
The Beer List: Cardinal Weakness Edition
This is The Beer List. It’s an opportunity, once every two weeks, for the staff here at BP Wrigleyville to get together (virtually, of course) and respond briefly to one small, usually quite open-ended, question. Despite the strenuous efforts of certain members of the writing crew to make it so, it has nothing to do […]
Been There Before: The Brilliant Postseason Consistency of Jon Lester – Playoff Experience on the 2015 Cubs, Part II
Part I of this series focused on the rest of the Cubs roster. This piece, which looks at Lester’s postseason career in general, will set up Part III: a preview of Jon Lester’s Game One start in St. Louis, which will run tomorrow. October legends are created a myriad of ways—in a few signature at-bats (David Freese and Reggie […]
Joe Maddon and the Potential for a Bullpen Game in the NLDS
Joe Maddon has recalibrated our understanding, as Cubs fans, of a manager’s ability to run a baseball team. For every stroke of statistical savant, there’s the nurturing development side that Maddon facilitates. He rides his bike, keeps it loose, and keeps baseball in perspective. The fans expected Maddon to reach the .500 mark in Year One. […]
Playoff Prospectus: Wild Card Recap — Casually Cruel ($)
This piece, by BP’s Sam Miller, first appeared at the Baseball Prospectus main site and is exclusively available to BP subscribers. We’ve posted a sneak preview here. There were two trillion possible half-versions of you. And your father, he encountered thousands of women in his life, any of whom could have been your mom, bringing […]
Playoff Prospectus: Cubs vs. Pirates ($)
This piece, by BP Wrigleyville’s Editor-in-Chief Sahadev Sharma, first appeared at the Baseball Prospectus main site and is exclusively available to BP subscribers. We’ve posted a sneak preview here. By winning their final eight games, the Cubs put some pressure on the Pirates in the final week of the season. But Pittsburgh did what they […]
Montero and Cervelli: Twin Stories Colliding in the City of Bridges
The most fascinating players on the field on Wednesday night in Pittsburgh are likely to be Gerrit Cole and Jake Arrieta. They’re the aces, after all. They’re the huge names around whose matchup anticipation so nicely formed in the final days and weeks of the regular season. Starting pitchers take center stage during the postseason, if […]
The Playoffs, through Horn-Rimmed Glasses
On the day of his introduction as Cubs manager, Joe Maddon declared, “I’m gonna talk World Series this year.” Since that beginning, the eminently quotable Maddon has continued to embrace bold predictions while keeping the young Cubs loose yet focused, and players like Anthony Rizzo have echoed the confident tone set by their philosophical skipper. And, at last, […]