Multiple Meetings and Mike Montgomery Misuse Make Me Mopey and Other Mullets

The Cubs are scuffling badly, but it’s never a bad day to announce a fundraiser to help out some kids. Details soon …

  • This won’t make anyone feel better about the Cubs’ situation heading toward the break: the players decided to have a team meeting on Monday … before they got smoked by the Pirates. Then Joe Maddon had his annual midseason meeting last night … before they looked utterly lifeless in another loss:
  • With a hat tip to Matt Trueblood for pointing it out, the Cubs this year are an incredible 5-27 when trailing after FOUR innings. So if you want a data point on why you feel like the Cubs are so lifeless, look no further than that. When a team virtually never wins after trailing through LESS THAN HALF OF THE GAME, it’s a great recipe for fans to feel like a team is just giving up (whether that’s actually true or not). In the three previous seasons, the Cubs won nearly 1/3 of the games in which they trailed after four innings. This year they’re winning less than 1/6.
  • Yesterday, Jed Hoyer mentioned how Mike Montgomery is not a match-up lefty, and instead is better when he pitches longer outings. Indeed, Montgomery has been absolutely atrocious against lefties this year. So what happened IMMEDIATELY after those comments from Hoyer? Joe Maddon puts Montgomery into a dirty inning to get an out against lefty Adam Frazier … who hits his first homer of the year off of a lefty. Then Montgomery pitches three scoreless full innings. STOP. DOING. THAT.
  • (Photo by Justin Berl/Getty Images)

  • Didn’t I just say last night that Jason Heyward was playing some really great D again in right field? Did it again last night:
  • https://twitter.com/NBCSCubs/status/1146254542121701376

  • I always liked him:
  • The coulda-woulda-shoulda game:
  • Hey, it helped beat the Brewers, so I don’t even care if this is trolling the Cubs:
  • https://twitter.com/EvilJoeyVotto/status/1146257231408762881

  • Nice – fire pit tables are among the deals of the day today at Amazon. Love those things.
  • I couldn’t help but immediately think about how Daniel Descalso’s OPS is 17 points lower than Castro’s when I read this headline (and no, I’m not advocating for a return):
  • Just imagine watching this play out. This was Greg Holland and the Diamondbacks – the first four walks were his, and T.J. McFarland came in for the finale:
  • I’m just going to assume today’s big sale at the official Cubs shop is because the team is playing so poorly that they’re trying to unload stuff. Take advantage!
  • Sammy hanging with Vlad Guerrero:
  • 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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