The Wind Tonight Really Might Be the Story and Other Bullets

Oct 28, 2016

I haven’t watched ‘Saturday Night Live’ regularly for many years, and only occasionally catch stray sketches here and there. A friend pointed out this week’s Halloween themed elevator bit with Tom Hanks … it’s pretty bizarrely great.

I’d say it was a nice distraction from today’s tension, but, as of this moment, I don’t feel a lot of tension just yet …

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The forecast is still calling for ridiculous winds tonight:

Wind gusts of 30-40 mph blowing out at Wrigley on Friday. Tomlin has a 17.7% HR/FB ratio, 4th highest in MLB this year. @BleacherNation pic.twitter.com/d7d84zm4Ge
— Brandon Spinner (@wxSpinner89) October 28, 2016

Not only does Tomlin have an extremely high HR/FB ratio, as Brandon notes in his tweet, he also has an above-average fly ball rate. In other words, he gives up more fly balls than the average pitcher, AND gives up more homers per fly ball than the average pitcher. And the wind is expected to be howling out to center field. You don’t necessarily want to see Cubs batters changing their approach to try to elevate the ball – I feel like I’ve seen that backfire so many times over the years at Wrigley Field – but you would like to see them taking advantage of pitches up in the zone, even if it comes at the expense of otherwise more typical patience. I’m already envisioning one of those Javy Baez swings on a chin high fastball, which too often results in a super high pop fly to shallow center field … and tonight that ball carries an extra 100 feet. (I’m only slightly kidding, as extreme winds, with enough loft on the ball, really can add 50+ feet to a fly ball.)

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Nothing official has been announced, but it looks increasingly likely that Indians DH Carlos Santana will be playing in left field tonight to keep his bat in the lineup. I can understand the move, and it might even be the right one, but with aggressive winds and an “outfielder” who has played 4.0 innings TOTAL (all in 2012) in the outfield, that could be a serious adventure.

The Cubs, as you may have seen last night, will not have their own questionable outfielder in left, as Kyle Schwarber was not medically cleared to play in the outfield. More on that decision here, including thoughts from Schwarber and Theo Epstein, each of whom knows it was a long shot from the get-go.

If you’re wanting to get the official World Series program as a keepsake, you can get it here at Fanatics and support BN in the process.

Bill Murray will be the Seventh Inning Stretch singer for tonight’s game, and, short of showing Harry Caray on the big boards, I can’t think of a more appropriate singer for such an enormous game.

Meanwhile, don’t expect to see Sammy Sosa as a surprise visitor this weekend. His estrangement from the team continues for reasons not entirely clear, and he told the Wall Street Journal it’s been three years since there’s even been any communication. There are theories about why this separation persists, but no one has ever publicly confirmed anything. So fans are left to wonder why a player who embodies many of the best memories of a Cubs era is nowhere to be found. There were issues. It ended badly. No one can argue those things. But work it out. Whoever needs to do whatever … just do it. This eclipsed ridiculous several years ago.

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Personally, I didn’t mind it too much at the game – probably because it was the World freaking Series and the Cubs were winning – but I knew that Game Two was an absolute slog of a game. It was, like Game One, extremely long despite there being no unusually long replay reviews, or significant delays. That’s not good for MLB when it comes to its marquee events, watched by millions of casual fans checking in on what baseball is about. As David Cameron writes, a lot of that was simply pitcher command troubles coupled with a lot of foul balls, but a lot of it was also the time spent between pitches. I am a strong proponent of the 20-second pitch clock, and nothing that has happened this postseason has changed my mind.

With three kids and three cats, I am SUPER tempted by this Hoover carpet cleaner on a huge sale at Amazon. Gonna text The Wife to see what she thinks.

written by

Brett Taylor

Brett Taylor is the Lead Cubs Writer at Bleacher Nation, and you can find him on Twitter at @BleacherNation and on LinkedIn here. Brett is also the founder of Bleacher Nation, which opened up shop in 2008 as an independent blog about the Chicago Cubs. Later growing to incorporate coverage of other Chicago sports, Bleacher Nation is now one of the largest regional sports blogs on the web.

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