Rationality Not Working, Steele’s Situation, Morel and Mervis, Strike Zone Calls, and Other Cubs Bullets

I still haven’t figured out much of a use case in my personal life for AI. It’s possible there’s some great matter of convenience I’m missing out on, but if there is, I don’t know what.

  • I am not feeling especially rational today. I understand that winning a series against the best team in baseball is a good thing, and I recognize that the order in which the games are won or lost within that series doesn’t really matter. But these facts and realities just aren’t pulling back on the reins for me today. I went to bed pissed off that the Cubs lost that particular game in that particular way, and I woke up pissed off that the Cubs lost that particular game in that particular way. Like I said in the EBS, they just bundled EVERY SINGLE BAD THING that we’ve seen this year into one game. Hell, into three innings.
  • And that’s not even counting the injury concern. Justin Steele (forearm tightness) left after three perfect innings, and he’s set to get an MRI today. He indicated after the game that he wasn’t worried, which is a good sign, but I’ll wait until the results come in to exhale. Actually, no, I’ll wait until he’s on the mound again (because we’ve seen these situations where you hear that an MRI came back clean or with a minor issue, and everyone is all happy, and then the guy misses a month anyway).
  • As for why Steele was allowed to finish the third inning even after a visit from David Ross and the athletic trainer, knowing it was a forearm issue, here’s the explanation, via Cubs.com:
  • Ross was alerted by the Cubs’ training staff prior to the third inning that Steele was experiencing some discomfort in his throwing arm. The pitcher relayed that he was not feeling anything while throwing a pitch and the Cubs’ staff gave him the green light to take the mound.

    “I talked to the trainers,” Ross said. “They felt comfortable.”

    Ross said his radar was “way up” as he monitored Steele face Christian Bethancourt, who grounded out to third base to open the third. Steele then misfired on an 80 mph slider to Taylor Walls, prompting both Ross and an athletic trainer to head to the mound for a follow-up chat.

    “He said he doesn’t feel it at all,” Ross said. “No tingling. No shot down the arm, or anything like that. So I let him finish.”

  • Ross didn’t want to take any more chances after that. I can understand how that played out, and I also understand that players do know a LITTLE bit about their own bodies, with nobody feeling 100% all of the time. But again, we’ll see what we see when the scan results come in.
  • When discussing the other starting options already on the roster (Hayden Wesneski, Javier Assad), Ross said, “There’s a lot of moving parts there that we’ve got some coverage if we need to. But I don’t think anybody’s sounding any alarms at the moment.” For what that’s worth.
  • The inevitable down period has come for Christopher Morel and it has been firm: in his last 23 plate appearances, Morel has just two hits, one walk, and ten strikeouts. It’s been a very bad week for him. You have to let it ride, though, and give him time to keep working. The development is important, but the upside is also worth it even in the near-term. When he gets hot, he’s the kind of guy who can carry you.
  • It’s been an even worse week for Matt Mervis, since that homer against the Mets. He had been creeping toward average overall production by that point, but has cratered since. It’s all still small sample stuff, which is why the numbers can move so wildly, and I think it’s still important to point out that the contact quality has often been really good (50.0% hard hit, 12.5% barrel). That 33.8% strikeout rate and 52.5% groundball rate, though. Can’t have those.
  • A random thought on the (possible) differences between the official strike zone as shown on the MLB game feed and the ones shown on broadcasts. I wonder if they don’t always perfectly line up:
  • Watching live, the pitch was clearly outside the box. So I went to the app to see where MLB had it, and the pitch was touching the outside edge of the strike zone (i.e., in a review system, had Happ appealed that one, it was going to stay a strike). So the question is, are we seeing an imperfect K zone box on the broadcast? Or are we seeing the problem with trying to display a perfect 2D box set against a 3D zone from a camera angle that isn’t perfectly straight on? I think it’s probably a mix of those things, and you have to keep that in mind when popping off about a call while you’re watching live.
  • One more strike zone comment, acknowledging that Mark Leiter Jr. did kinda get screwed in his second inning of work:
  • All-Star voting has arrived:
  • The NL Central is awesome:
  • There are some schools of thought that nobody can actually command to the edges of the strike zone as perfectly as we like to think (being within 6 inches of your intended target is usually pretty great), but when you do it THIS MUCH in a single game … that’s nuts and has me wondering if it can be done more than we think:
  • With MLB taking over Padres broadcasts from Diamond Sports/Bally, an interesting note about the financial backstop the league is promising teams that wind up being blown off by the bankrupt entity:
  • We know that MLB would PROBABLY like to retain any of these rights that they get back this year, but the fact that they’re only promising 80% AND only for this year tells you all you need to know about the price tags on these rights deals: they’re probably no longer market rate.
  • 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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