Cubs 4, Dbacks 3

By
berselius
-
92
Matt Shaw holding the baseball from his first MLB hit.

OSS: TOOTBWIN

Three up:

  1. The Cubs defense came up big with two huge plays in this one, most notably Dansby Swanson’s game ending TOOTBLAN. I guess a NALBTOOT from the Cubs side since it was the Dbacks runner that goofed. Heads up defense from the Cubs defensive captain. Or is he?

    The most impressive play of the game was a double play from PCA, who caught a ball in deep CF and threw a laser of a throw to nab a runner tagging up from second to third. We all just simply gasped in our section to see it. The dude is for real out there.
  2. Shota Imanaga shook off some early rust to throw seven strong innings, with three hits and two walks over seven innings. Most of those were in the second, where he struggled to get a few strikes at the top of the zone which led to walking the bases loaded, but he escaped with only an RBI groundout. Gotta love seeing one of your starters go seven in the ‘first’ week of the season.
  3. Kyle Tucker and Matt Shaw each picked up their first home runs of the season and their Cubs career (or their MLB career in the case of Shaw). You love to see it, especially since Shaw struggled in his first few games.

Three Down:

  1. Bullpens, man. Porter Hodge gave up two quick singles in the eighth before escaping without any runs. Pressly came in for the save in the ninth and immediately gave up a single, a bomb, and another single before ‘earning’ the save.
  2. Seiya continues to be ice-cold to start the year, going 0-4 with three Ks.
  3. Maybe stop pitching to Eugenio Suarez.

Next up: The Cubs go for the series win at 3:10 PM CT on Sunday. New Cub Matthew Boyd takes on Eduardo Rodriguez. Don’t pitch to Geno. Or do. I can’t tell you what to do. Unless that thing to do is to extend PCA. Do that please.

92 COMMENTS

  3. dmick89,

    Yeah, they look like juggling pins. It should be interesting to see a) how sustained their effectiveness proves to be and b) how long MLB (as well as other baseball/softball organizations) waits to make them illegal.

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  4. andcounting,

    I’m kind of surprised there isn’t already a rule about how the bat must be built. They are so damn specific about how the baseball is made, stored and used. They are also quite specific about where and what position specific baseball gloves can be used. Did they just forget the bat? It’s crazy if they did.

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  6. berselius,

    dmick89,

    It’s interesting because it kind of points to the idea that they have been working hard to perfect the process of making and selecting bats within the confines of the traditional bat design. This idea of literally moving the barrel further down on the bat to customize it to a player’s swing/contact tendencies must be radical enough that the rules and standards folks didn’t even consider it as a possibility.

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  12. Kind of tough

    Daily Walkoff ⚾️
    Cubs #212

    “The 212: Subway Series”
    🟡🟡🟡🟢
    🟢🟢🟢🟢🚀

    dailywalkoff.com

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  13. Maybe some of you better at engineering and math and stuff can look into this, the difference doesn’t look too significant?

    @sunshinevvn.bsky.social My first attempt, using a reasonable guess as to the bat profiles, old vs. torpedo. Both bats 33"/31 oz. MOI's are not much different. Solid curves are EV, dashed curves are q. Max of EV shifts out ~0.5".

    [image or embed]

    — Alan Nathan (@pobguy.bsky.social) March 30, 2025 at 11:06 AM

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  14. My hunch is that graph answers the wrong question. Or at least it doesn’t tell us much without context. Moving the sweet spot a half an inch might not mean very much or it might be revolutionary, depending on the player and how far down the barrel they tend to hit. We could compare barrel percentage by guys using the torpedo bats and guess at filling in the blanks. But the data that they have on contact analysis probably tells the Yankees how big of a deal that design change really is, and I don’t think they’re giving that up voluntarily.

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  32. A split is what you hope for going into a four game series on the road, but it’s still disappointing when the team had no excuse not to win three.

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  47. To-day’s base ball squadron

    LF Happ
    RF Tucker
    DH Suzuki
    1B Busch
    SS Swanson
    2B Hoerner
    CF PCA
    3B Shaw
    C Kelly

    SP Brown

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  49. Ok Red Sox

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  59. Think PCA slowed up on that fly ball because he was worried that he would Wile E Coyote through that ramshackle of wall

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  86. I would do an April Fool joke post but it wouldn’t hold a candle to reality…and then we’ll find out those torpedo bats were really an elaborate April Fool’s joke from MLB all this time (dying laughing)

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  89. Daily Walkoff ⚾️
    Cubs #214

    “April Fools”
    🟢🟢🟢🟢🚀

    dailywalkoff.com

    (dying laughing) at immaculate grid

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