NEWSLETTER
I can’t pretend in this space that I don’t know the biggest news in the world this morning, and it’d be dopey not to acknowledge that the President and the First Lady tested positive for COVID-19.
First of all, I’ll wish everyone who contracts the illness a speedy and complete recovery. For our purposes here, I’ll primarily consider whether there are any downstream sports-related implications, since that’s my job. Had this happened months ago, I actually do think we could have found there would be an impact in some attitudes and behaviors across the country that might’ve indeed impacted the medium-term outlook for sports and fan attendance. Recall, this President has been very active in trying to get sports back as quickly and completely as possible, so there is an obvious interplay here. As it stands now, though, it feels like we’re pretty well entrenched in where things are, I don’t know that any messaging changes – good or bad – that come from such a highly prominent positive test will have an impact.
That said, as I look ahead to next year with the hope that we’re in a place for fans to be safely at baseball games, I continue to hope – regardless of this positive test – that people take this disease seriously, recognize just how easily transmissible it is, and appreciate that we’re all impacting whether it continues to spread and how rapidly. None of us can do much in isolation, but en masse behavior changes, yes, could have a dramatic impact on whether we’re in a place to have fans at games next year. And, more importantly, could save lives. So, take the opportunity to remind yourselves and those around you: wear masks when indoors and/or close to people, stay distant whenever possible, and quarantine yourself/get tested if you start to feel a little off.
On to the OTHER huge story of the day …
•  The Cubs will try again to extend their season this afternoon against the Marlins. We talked about the potential impacts of the postponement yesterday, but ultimately, the main thing is that the Cubs just need to win today. They’ve got a potential Cy Young winner in Yu Darvish on the mound, they still have a top tier defense, and they do have the ability to score some runs. A few runs. Please, just score some, any runs. Don’t make Darvish feel like he has to be absolutely perfect out there, especially in the event that he’s thinking at all about wanting some postseason redemption.
•  As for the guy off of whom the Cubs will need to do the scoring, much has been made of Sixto Sanchez’s dominant first five starts in the big leagues, and then his two disastrous outings that followed (each while facing a team for the second time). Not sure what to make of it to be honest, since he clearly didn’t have good command in those outings – how much of the success do we attribute to the bats in those cases, and how much of it was just Sanchez having a couple down days?
•  One thing you note in the pitch mix, though, is that his changeup usage went waaaaaaaay up in those two outings, doubling from where it was the starts before. He was throwing it more than 1/3 of the time, and focusing on his fastball. He barely mixed in the slider. What’s odd, though, is that the increase in changeup usage made sense – it’s been his most valuable pitch – but teams feasted on the fastball in a way they hadn’t before. Is is possible that he only increased the changeup usage because he didn’t quite have the feel for his fastball in those starts? Or did something actually get picked up by those teams having seen him once before? Odds are good it was just two flukey outings, but if there was anything to detect, here’s hoping the Cubs’ advance scouts (do they still have any?) are all over it.
•  A final quick thought on Sanchez for today: he’s been waaaay more effective against lefties this year than righties, which I expect is largely because of that killer changeup. Today is not a day to load the lineup with more lefties than you have to. (Bummer that Victor Caratini catches Yu Darvish, because that means a lefty bat has to go in the lineup behind the plate.) Yesterday’s lineup was set to feature FIVE lefty bats ….
•  The Cubs might lose today, and that will suck deeply, but there are some fan bases that have it muuuuuch worse:
Which is more heartbreaking for their fans, the Indians losing 10 consecutive postseason elimination games, or the Twins losing 18 consecutive postseason games?
— Mike Ozanian (@MikeOzanian) October 1, 2020
•  Relatedly, this is wild:
18 STRAIGHT playoff losses for the Twins!
Betting against Minnesota – starting with just $1 the first game of this losing streak – and letting your winnings ride fading the Twins for all 18 games … Would have won over $33,000!
— RJ Bell (@RJinVegas) October 1, 2020
