The Little Boy has his first day of kindergarten today. I’m probably less emotional than I was when The Little Girl went through the same transition a couple years ago – been there, done that – and it makes you realize how much the way you reflect on these moments is actually about you as a parent, rather than what you’re feeling for your child who hasn’t done this before. Totally selfish, of course, but I suppose it’s a natural byproduct of putting so much of your life into these little people. Their moments are your moments.
The win yesterday pushed the Cubs back to their season-high mark over .500, at 19 games. Sure, as the season goes on, if you stay at the same level over .500, your winning percentage will go down, but still – it’s wild to think that the Cubs are at their high-water-mark over .500 right now, given the way it feels lately.
Something fun to ponder: the Cubs are 14-12 in the second half, which is a .538 winning percentage. If that were their season-long winning percentage to this point, they’d be only a game and a half behind the Brewers in the NL Central. So … how terrible have the Cubs actually been in the second half?
(That’s not necessarily rhetorical, because yesterday’s point still stands: the Cubs have won a lot of close ones, and also been blown out a lot of times. That tends to be what a bad team looks like. I don’t think this is a bad Cubs team by any stretch, but I do think they’ve probably been fortunate to be 14-12 in the second half, rather than that being a sign of them having played better than we think. I mean, we all see the games – they can play better than they have been.)
The way Joe Maddon puts it (Cubs.com): “There’s a lot of folks who would’ve been running for the hills if we lost. There’s still a long way to go. … You can’t overreact. The power of 24 hours is evident between last night and today. I can’t emphasize that enough. If you want to ride the emotional roller coaster, man, it will wipe you out.” We rid that roller coaster, man, and it does wipe us out. But that’s what makes us fanatics, I guess.
After Ian Happ made his fantastic catch yesterday in the 9th, this is him telling Albert Almora, “The wall is not soft”, and Almora’s like, yeah, I know that one, buddy:
Another couple hits for David Bote yesterday (to say nothing of his defense and baserunning), bringing his season line up to .333/.417/.531 with a 152 wRC+ through 96 plate appearances. His BABIP is up to .414, which is largely attributable to him hitting the ball harder than anyone in baseball, BUT even still, it’s likely higher than it will be once it settles in. Enjoy the ride while he’s on it.
(Photo by Jon Durr/Getty Images)
Willson Contreras busted out the serious reflexes:
Ben Badler writes about changes in the IFA workout rules, which will probably give organizations that invest heavily in their international operations a long-term boost. In short, you’re going to be able to do more to court and evaluate prospects in advance of signing them, which figures to help organizations like the Cubs, who have a state of the art facility in the Dominican Republic. Read Badler’s piece for the full details.
I think Buster Olney put this very well, regarding the chump display during the Marlins-Braves game last night:
Imagine if, in the middle of a no-hitter, a hitter charged the mound and whacked the unsuspecting pitcher on the arm with a bat just because the pitcher was dominating. That's basically what happened with Urena/Acuna.
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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NEWSLETTER
