Cubs 7, White Sox 2

In Postgame by JonKneeV60 Comments

OSS: A most incredibly frustrating 5 run win.

Three up:

  1. Willson Contreras might be the best player on this team. He hit another homer, his 7th of July which brought his OPS up to .835. Combining his offense, defense, and rookie contract, I don't think there's a more valuable catcher in the game.
  2. Ben Zobrist is trying to find himself out of a season long slump and went 3-4 with 2 doubles. 
  3. Carl Edwards, Jr. was nails taking over for John Lackey with men on 2nd and 3rd in the 5th. He got out of the jam and holding the 2 inherited runners, culiminating with a swinging strikeout to Jose Abreu.

Three Six down:

  1. Cubs hitters struck out 17 (!) times, 11 coming from Carlos Rodon in his 4 innings of work. Yes, of Rodon's 12 outs, 11 came by way of strikeout.
  2. Lance Barksdale has a terrible game behind the plate. His zone was all over the place for both teams. He then didn't issue a warning after Lackey hit his 4th batter of the game in 5 innings and 3rd HBP in a row in the 5th. With no warning issued, Chris Beck retaliated on his second pitch hitting Ian Happ. It took 5 HBP for Barksdale to issue a warning. Of his strike calling duties, his worst came on Bryant's called strike three which culiminated in Bryant getting tossed: 

    Call hurts #Cubs Strike 3 should be ball 3 Bot 4 Rodon vs Bryant 2% call same 4.4in from edge

    3:52 PM – 25 Jul 2017

  3. Kris Bryant took home a golden sombrero prior to getting tossed and hitting the showers early. He also took a nasty foul ball off his right knee that kept him down a good 3-4 minutes before being ready to get back in the batter's box.
  4. One-uping Bryant, Javier Baez took home the palladium (rhodium? diamond?) sombrero going 0-5 with 5 Ks. 
  5. John Lackey continued doing 2017 John Lackey things. He allowed 11 baserunners in 5+ innings and somehow only gave up 2 runs. He hit 4 batters on the day, including 3 in the 5th alone.
  6. Lackey came up to bat in the bottom of the 5th just after getting out of his bases loaded via HBP jam. There were two runners on with two outs after Rick Renteria intentionally walked Addison Russell. Joe kept Lackey in to hit for himself despite the scoring opportunity and high likelihood that Lackey wouldn't get through the following half inning. Lackey grounded out to end the frame, gave up a single and double and was promptly pulled without recording an out in the 6th. Touche Joe.

Next up: The teams switch sides as the series goes to Guarantee Rate Field (dying laughing) for a two game set. Jake Arrieta takes on James Shields today to see if either pitcher can go back in time to 2015. 

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  1. Berselius is too lazy to login

    The Sox ballpark was dubbed “G-Rated Field” on the Ivy Envy podcast (dying laughing).

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  2. Edwin

    President Trump sure has sent some inflammatory tweets so far today. Say, this wouldn’t have anything to do with trying to distract people from the Senate possibly voting to give millions of people the freedom no healthcare, would it?

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  3. Perkins

    Edwin,

    Or to distract the Democrats from their recent pledge to focus on economic issues and put the culture war stuff on the back burner.

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  4. cerulean

    cerulean:
    Is it just me, or does Guaranteed Rate Field sound like a name from Idiocracy?

    Ugh: Their logotype is Arial, the vanilla* icecream of typefaces.

    Aesthetics matter. This might be the thing I hate about Trump the most—there is no craft, no care—it’s a tacky, trinket man pushing a tacky, trinket economy.

    *Flavored with vanillin.

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  5. Perkins

    cerulean,

    Re: the orange charlatan: I find it fascinating and amusing that someone who makes such an obvious show of disdaining others’ appearance is himself so visually* objectionable.

    *Not an exhaustive list of ways he is objectionable

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  6. cerulean

    In lieu of giving up anything in a trade for a rental catcher, I think the Cubs should call up Taylor Davis and send Caratini down. Davis should be a fine framer with a decent enough bat to be a backup. Caratini needs to work on his craft and get at bats everyday.

    BONUS: Maybe that use some of the Devil Magic they stole from the Cards to have him break out.

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  7. cerulean

    Candelario, Zagunis, and Lackey for Samardzija and $10M. That would come out to about $15M a year through 2020 and the rest of this year offset by Lackey’s salary. Any takers?

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  8. Berselius is too lazy to login

    To-day’s base ball squadron

    RF Heyward
    3B Bryant
    1B Rizzo
    2B Zobrist
    DH War Bear
    CF Happ
    LF Jay
    SS Russell
    C Caratini

    P Arrieta

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  9. Rizzo the Rat

    Chris Sale is so much better now that he’s no longer operating under the White Sox’s “pitch to contact” philosophy.

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  10. cerulean

    berselius:
    Jake’s looking real sharp today

    /nojinx

    Since you didn’t properly open the nojinx tag, your statement was not embedded in the nojinx, therefore the closing tag isn’t doing a damn thing, and you just doomed Arrieta. I hope you’re happy.

    Oh look, a hit…

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  11. Perkins

    Arrieta is around a 4:3 strike/ball ratio in this start. He’s looked good, but that might not play well against an MLB team.

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  12. cerulean

    Arrieta was good. Montgomery was good. Hitters left 23 on base and they still scored 8 runs. These are the Cubs we know and try to love.

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