The Littlest Girl lost her first tooth and I am not prepared for this.
A very weird schedule thing today, as the Cubs conclude their four-game series against the Padres today, a Monday. Then it’s a Tuesday-Thursday series against the Angels (who shuffled their rotation, by the way, so no more Shohei Ohtani on the mound against the Cubs).
Marcus Stroman did it again, continuing his streak this year of being awesome in every single start except that one in Minnesota. This time, it was a loaded Padres lineup that was no problem for him, and there was a lotta good. At 32, Stroman may wind up putting together the season of his career:
Maybe the best part of Stroman’s performance, well, aside from the results, was his moment in the fifth inning against Juan Soto. One of the best hitters in baseball, Soto is known for his superlative strike zone judgment, and the little shuffle he sometimes does upon taking a close pitch. Soto had done it earlier in the start, when Stroman issued a rare walk. So later, when Stroman got Soto, he returned the favor:
That’s just fun baseball. That’s how it should be, with both guys REALLY wanting to get the other guy, but knowing it’s just good competition when the other gets it done:
This was also David Ross’s and Ian’s Happ’s reactions in the dugout:
Obviously the ump meant to say the call stands and the runner is out (Happ was thrown out at the plate on a Patrick Wisdom single, but it was MIGHTY close), but it’s funny to think about how nuts that would be if you had to stick with what you said. And if it was a run that REALLY mattered. Like I think about the Jim Joyce call at first base in the Armando Galarraga should-be perfect game – say he quickly said safe, but almost immediately realized he meant to/should have said out (which is kind of what happened!). But you can’t change that and just say, oops, I mis-signaled, I meant to say out. When you mis-speak on a replay challenge, clearly you can say, oops, I mis-spoke.
Good Q&A from Patrick Mooney, with a range of topics explored. I appreciated getting a little bit of specifics on how the Cubs feel like Jameson Taillon MIGHT be turning a corner:
“What we talked about the last couple starts was just getting back to what we feel like his strengths are,” (Cubs pitching coach Tommy) Hottovy said. “That’s the good four-seam fastball and the curveball off of that. When that is right, it makes all the other pitches play up. You saw, metrically, some good sliders and cutters that had good numbers, but he missed in the zone with them. And he got bad swings with them. When you’re missing in the zone and you’re getting bad swings, that’s usually a good indication that the other stuff you’re doing is playing up. The things that he’s focused on mechanically — which he knows are going to help him and make him successful — tie into that vertical approach. Live four-seam up, curveball down, playing more through the strike zone. All of those things are starting to line up for him more consistently.”
The emphasis on getting the four-seamer and curveball right, while staying focused on north-south, sounds about right to me. The biggest issue with Taillon was that so many pitches were decently located east-west, but were belt high. And got hammered. That’s a combination of not changing the batter’s eye level well enough, but also because he didn’t have his primary pitches working (so none of the other pitches played well off of it).
Today in stats you’ll swear are wrong, but are not … Over the past month and a half, Trey Mancini is hitting .275/.368/.412/116 wRC+. He’s actually been hitting reasonably well for a while now.
I could see this being a big deal long-term, as it could make for more visibility for baseball players:
Attendance is climbing:
It’s still TBD what the impact will be, but the bankruptcy court in the Diamond case is not allowing the company to cut its rights fees to the Minnesota Twins, Cleveland Guardians, Arizona Diamondbacks, and Texas Rangers (which it had argued were too far above market to continue paying at that price level). That could lead to Diamond/Bally ultimately rejecting those contracts, as it did with the Padres, and then MLB will take over broadcast operations for those teams, as well.
I have melted:
Never fails to crack me up:
The Cubs also never win on Sundays, so yesterday’s Succession-less Sunday win is all the more suspicious:
NEWSLETTER
