NEWSLETTER
To the radio stations of the world: do not start playing ‘November Rain’ if you do not intend on playing the entire song.
• The Cubs are now 10-2 on the season, which not only outpaces their 12-game start in 2016 (which wasn’t just the World Series year, it was also an obscenely hot start), but is their best start since 1969:
Since 1901, the Cubs have won at least 10 of their first 12 games four times:
2020 (10-2)
1969 (11-1)
1934 (10-2)
1907 (10-2)— Jordan Bastian (@MLBastian) August 6, 2020
• (For the younger folks among us, nobody look up what happened the rest of that 1969 season. Just say “nice” and move on.)
• Javy Báez knows he should have run out of the box on his bloop, and I’m not gonna completely excuse him for not doing so. But it wasn’t necessarily a matter of being lazy or staring down a blast – it looked to me like he didn’t immediately pick up the ball off his own bat, searched for it, thought he saw it going foul, and then took off when he realized it might stay in:
• Again, I’m not saying that’s how something like that should play out. Báez looked at that one for a split second even after he’d located it, so that’s not great. But this is a guy who plays his balls off in every game, and is one of the highest baseball IQ players I’ve ever seen. He easily gets a pass from me on this one.
• His manager said the same, noting that Javy Báez brings it every day:
David Ross has Javy Báez’s back. pic.twitter.com/cnr1R3m7Vz
— Marquee Sports Network (@WatchMarquee) August 6, 2020
• How about Colin Rea last night, eh? The 2019 PCL Pitcher of the Year who had tremendous success at AAA Iowa as more of a command/control guy looked – for one outing – like one of those whoa-it-turns-out-he’s-a-“stuff”-guy-when-you-put-him-in-relief. I don’t know if that’s just what Rea has become in his work at South Bend this year, or if he was just really trying to turn it on for the 9th inning to show he should stick around after the roster moves today (as I was typing these Bullets, he did indeed survive the cut). Four batters, 18 pitches, 3(!) balls, two strikeouts, and five different types of pitches thrown.
• Not only did Rea have a completely comfortable 9th inning, not only did he record four outs when you account for the error, and not only was he up to 94-95 mph on the fastball, but he also was throwing this nasty, tight, Chatwood-like cutter:
Last time Colin Rea appeared in MLB, way back in 2016, he threw his cutter 14.7% of the time, with an average spin rate of 2035 rpm.
Last night he doubled the cutter usage, and it was spinning (according to Statcast) at 2647 rpm. pic.twitter.com/tI5YXEh6Hj
— Cubs Prospects – Bryan Smith (@cubprospects) August 6, 2020
• Given that both Chatwood and Ryan Tepera added/modified/improved their cutters this year to look like this pitch, I can help but wonder: is this something the Cubs have started working on specifically with guys? Giving their cutters more movement to turn it into something like a slider-cutter hybrid (“slutter”)? Because that’s a big league pitch right there, and the huge spin rate makes me think it’s fundamentally different than anything Rea was working with before. We’ll want to keep an eye on this.
• I’d joke about the Cubs getting to face their own bullpen late, but the bullpen has started to get good late, so I’ll just say hey, look at these bats being good boys with the insurance runs:
#Cubs in the 7th inning or later:
– Most home runs (11)
– Best OPS (.969)
– 24 runs pic.twitter.com/hZnpxbOgmB— Marquee Sports Network (@WatchMarquee) August 6, 2020
• Doesn’t seem like Yu Darvish will be cutting his massive flow any time soon:
アメリカの人は絶対切るなと言ってきます笑 https://t.co/bGxbnoLmZe
— ダルビッシュ有(Yu Darvish) (@faridyu) August 6, 2020
• Literally the only time I will ever mention the pitching win stat is when it is used, delightfully, to troll Christian Yelich:
Yu Darvish has more wins (2) than Christian Yelich has home runs (1).
— Corey Freedman (@CFCubsRelated) August 6, 2020
• Car cleaning gear, action figures, and NINJA KITS are among the deals of the day at Amazon today. #ad
