Brett Jackson had a good game going 2-3 with a BB and a HR. Jackson is now batting .259 on the year. I think the end might have come for Jay Jackson. He just isn't any good anymore and his 6.75 ERA suggests he might not even be a good AAA arm. Jackson's decline was never tied to anything specific he just got worse as the years went on. Its a good lesson about prospects in general and Cubs prospects more often than not.
Junior Lake is back and went 2-4 out of the leadoff spot. Brooks Raley pitched 6 innings of 2 ER ball but Raley isn't really a prospect just another minor league arm.
Matt Szrzr's redemption project continues as he went 1-4 with a BB and SB. He now has 16 stolen bases on the year compared with 24 all of last year so its nice to see the improvement there. Whats even better is his steal rate is 80 %. Austin Kirk continues his great start working 7 IP and giving up 3 ER. Kirk has a stellar 1.83 ERA but doesn't strike anybody out and its hard to get too excited for his future.
Whatever magic Michael Jensen was using at the beginning of the year appears to have run its course. Jensen was smacked around for his 2nd straight start giving up 4 ER in 4.1 IP. On the hitting side Oliver Zapata continues his slump he got off to a red hot start but is batting .135 in his last 10 games.
@ Berselius:
I don’t know why but I laugh my ass off when I see somebody get left hanging like that.
you know Castro’s walk rate is now incredibly low. 2.5 % on the year, he is swinging outside the zone rate is up 11 %. And his babip is sky high. This isn’t a great sign for the kid.
http://www.boston.com/sports/baseball/redsox/articles/2012/05/04/red_sox_sellout_streak_proves_to_be_a_real_numbers_game/
@ Mucker:
Someone needs to give him a consolation high five
@ Berselius:
Semantics.
Cardenas —————> headed to Chi
@ dylanj:
It’s concerning, but I imagine it will be around his career level by the end of the season. He’s a free swinger and will never take that many walks. He swings at a lot of pitches and makes a lot of contact.
The best chance for him to increase his walk rate is to increase his power rate. Right now pitchers just aren’t afraid to pitch to him. He’s not going to hit the ball out of the park. You pitch him more carefully than someone like Campana, but not nearly as careful as someone with power. If he adds some power pitchers will pitch him more off the plate and then we have to hope he shows a good eye.
Berselius wrote:
the walk rate is down but its only 120 AB but the swinging outside the zone increase is pretty big and in his third season I would have liked to see slight improvements vs declines.
@ mb21:
Is there a Pitch F/X thing that shows how often Castro is thrown a strike or ball? My lying eyes tend to agree that his walk rate isn’t that high because pitchers are throwing him strikes.
dylanj wrote:
I guess that answers that.
@ dylanj:
Agreed. I hope this is being addressed with him. Although, his LD% is up and his GB% is down so he’ll probably continue to have a high BABIP but the 2.5% walk rate is terrible.
@ dylanj:
What’s the league average walk rate this year compared to last?
Castro has looked super aggressive in a lot of his at-bats this season (more so than in the past). Don’t really know why though.
Seems to me (just from watching) that he’s swinging at alot of pitches out of the zone, but because he keeps getting hits (despite sometimes weak contact) he seems to keep doing it. As long as he adjusts and becomes more patient when less of those are falling in. As for now, all of his offensive numbers are up.
@ mb21:
For the NL, I’m getting a walk rate of 8.39% for 2012 (17036 PA and 1430 BB) and 8.13% for 2011 (98763 PA and 8032 BB)
Would it be wise to take the scrub-du-jour out of the #2 spot and just move everyone up a spot?
DeJesus-Castro-LaHair to start each turn in the lineup. I’d be down with that, seems to me whoever was in the #2 spot was a rally-killer. Except for yesterday when Tony Campana shut me right up.
@ Rice Cube:
I felt the same way. Too bad about that terrible send, with Castro coming up and only 1 out at that point.
So if not for Marmol, the Cubs could be 14-14 right now despite playing a pretty brutal schedule so far. And if Clevenger played everyday we’d be 28-0.
well it really helps when you get ace like production out of F7 and LaHair’s massive hitting streak as well. But even with both of those our best case would have been .500. We Stinks.
@ jtsunami:
This assumes another closer would have been perfect, which is probably a poor assumption given the Cubs bullpen. But even at 14-14 that’s pretty bad when you consider the Cubs have had 3 of the best starting pitchers in baseball, 1 of the top 2 or 3 hitters in the game and a very productive SS.
The interesting thing to this point is that the Cubs have actually played better than we could reasonably expect them to from this point forward. I think there are enough players who will do better than they have that it will eventually offset and they’ll be about right where they are now when the season ends in terms of winning percentage.
what you hope to see though is F7 and LaHair stay productive. Now I don’t expect these kind of numbers but when you have guys establish new talent levels that helps moving this rebuilding process right along. We can either trade them for prospects or have ourselves a great SP and productive LH bat to keep.
@ dylanj:
Hover at .500, make a bunch of moves at the break —-> contention. Come out of nowhere and win it all like Diamondbacks of Whenever They Won It.
Bob Brenly’s spirit is strong with this team.
series preview up: http://www.obstructedview.net/previews/series-preview-atlanta-braves-18-11-at-chicago-cubs-11-17.html
On 4/20 when Marlon Byrd left the Cubs, we were 3-11. Since 4/21 when Tony “Don’t eat me seagulls” Campana was called up, we have been 8-6. If we combine this with Clevenger who is 3-1 in games that he starts then we may have a pretty good record by the end of the season when Clevenger gets healthy.
And if Jackson and Rizzo get called up sooner than later, we are World Series bound!!