Fun with Dancing, Fun with a Great Win, Javy’s Rough Night, Willy’s Rough Error, and Other Bullets

So, if you haven’t seen/heard it already, the Yanny/Laurel thing is the new white and gold dress (yes, it was white and gold!). Initially, listening on my phone, I heard Yanny extremely clearly, and I couldn’t figure out how anyone was hearing Laurel. I thought it was a joke. Then I turned my phone to a different direction, and I could just make out the lower-register Laurel. Thing is, when I listen on my computer, no matter what I do, I cannot hear Yanny. So I tend to think this one – unlike the dress – is a bit more technologically-driven than solely being about our brains. Still fun, though.

  • Speaking of fun, I just can’t get over how awesome Cubs Productions is. First of all, they *made* the ‘Superbad’ bullpen dance video, and now they’ve released a behind-the-scenes on how they made it! I’m swooning:
  • And more speaking of fun, and more dancing:
  • https://twitter.com/IowaCubs/status/996567297006407680

  • OK, should I talk about actual baseball now? Sure dug that win last night. It was a good turnaround win regardless, but coming off a couple games the Cubs really could have won despite some sloppiness, it just felt nice for them to be on the other end of some breaks. Did they deserve to win last night? Eh, I mean, it’s not hard to envision some calls going another way and the Braves winning by a few. It’s also not hard to envision a couple of the Cubs’ warning track shots leaving the park. On the whole though … yeah, it still feels like the Cubs stole that one. And I’m good with it.
  • (Photo by Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images)

  • It was a calf cramp for Yu Darvish, who looked really good, by the way.
  • Pitcher wins are a stupid stat and tell you absolutely nothing about a performance that you can’t better sum up in other ways, part 10,000: the only Cubs reliever last night to allow a run was Carl Edwards, Jr. The “winning” pitcher last night was Carl Edwards, Jr.
  • Javy Baez had a rough night, with an ugly error that nearly lead to a disastrous inning* and some plate appearances that were wild even for Baez:
  • Take a breath. Shake it off. Get back to organizing that strike zone. This will probably always be a challenge for Baez, who *CAN* really crush some bad pitches. You don’t really want to take that away from him. But the success will ebb and flow as pitchers push the limits of what they can get away with against him. And when the guy hasn’t taken a walk in well over a month, you’re gonna get some extreme examples like last night.
  • *That disastrous inning was wiped out by two – IMO – brutally bad calls on the field by the umpires. The first was even reviewed, and the call was upheld. The second was even worse, but the Braves had no challenges left, so they were screwed. I want to give Willson Contreras plenty of credit for making two very nice plays, even if the Cubs probably didn’t actually record either out. Make a play and see what happens.
  • Speaking of Contreras, he got a crap error in the game on the crazy play that saw Kyle Schwarber throw out Freddie Freeman at the plate. He made a perfect throw, and Addison Russell tried to let the throw come all the way in to Freeman (the way Javy Baez does), but he let it go just a little too far and it hit Freeman’s leg before he could catch it. I know we always say, “Well, you gotta give Contreras the error there since it was his throw and it bounced away,” but can we just change that? On a play like that, I can’t say there was an error at all. It was just a flukey thing, and I won’t even say that Russell made an “error,” because he had a very tight window in which to make that catch and also apply the tag. It just feels like that should be a “baseball is weird sometimes” in the official scorebook.
  • After the Cubs took the lead in the 9th last night, I had a very calm and peaceful feeling that they were going to win, because Brandon Morrow just tends to be very low on the drama. I immediately thought of what Michael wrote about Morrow. It’s nice, because even last year with Wade Davis, I didn’t quite have that same feeling, especially because he got uncharacteristically wild with the Cubs at times.
  • Pedro Strop was awesome again last night, and was heavy on the cutters.
  • Meanwhile, over in the Bears’ world:
  • written by

    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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