Early Returns

April 19 2018

With the bad weather and all the cancelled games baseball hasn’t gotten on a roll yet. Even though t’s very early here is what I’ve seen and know.

As I write this the Cubs ae beating the Cardinals 8-5 in the bottom of the 8^th. The only way they lose is with the White Sox bullpen. Therefore the Cubs record stands at 8-8. Although Cub fans may not like the way they are playing it is very much like last year. It wasn’t until after the all -star break when the Cubs went on a roll to win the division. The Pirates, currently on top will fade and I don’t think Milwaukee or St. Louis are good enough to beat out the Cubs.

The pitching, aside from Hendricks has been on and off. As the weather gets warmer the other starters should improve. . You may have concerns, about Lester’s healt. Yu Darvish was the best available pitcher.  However, closer examination shows he won only 10 games last year, 7 the year before and 10 the tear before that. The Cubs need better production from him. If need be,Theo will pick up another pitcher. The bull pen, with Morrow closing looks solid.

As for the hitting.. I always loved the bat speed of Javier Baez since his arrival. If he doesn’t go back to swinging at pitches out of the strike zone he could have a monster season. Thus far, none of his homers have been cheapies. Along with Bryant, Zobrist, Contreras the Cubs will score plenty of runs. I’m also pretty sure Rizzo will bounce back after slow start.

I didn’t think the White Sox were going to win anything.  Even though it’s early they have been really bad and most likely won’t be able to get out the hole they have dug. They are 4-11 and with 3 games coming up against the Astros so this could be uglier.

Let’s look at the hitting. The bats are colder than the weather. Nicky Delmonico is your leading hitter at a robust.283 and 1 home run. He’s also worse than Schwarber in left field. The hits with men in scoring position is non- existent. There have many instances with bases loaded failures and poor execution with a runner at third and less than two outs. My worst nightmare is seeing Adam Engel come up with men on base. He’s not sacrifice fly guy, but at least his.179 average is better than last year’s .167. An interesting fact is since 2006 the Sox have had 9 different opening day center fielders. With the winter talk about obtaining Manny Machado, instead they should have made an effort to sign Lorenzo Cain, center fielder and and lead-off man.

James Shield is James Shields. For the most part  bad, falling behind in counts and getting pounded. Miguel Gonzalez has no business on this team. He’s 33 years old and bad. Carson Fulmer has good stuff but can’t find the plate, Lucas Giolito has been okay and should better when the weather heats and he gets a better feel for his curve Reynaldo. Lopez has been outstanding. In three starts  he has allowed 1 run twice. In his other start 2. He is 0-3 thanks to a putrid Sox offense

 The biggest problem is the pull your out your head relief pitching. GM acknowledged that he needed to improve. He raved that Nate Jones was healthy. I can’t get excited about a pitcher the tied for the league lead with 9 blown saves in 2016. He acquired Soria who has blown 14 saves over the past two years. Last year’s end of the season closer couldn’t get anyone and after 4 walks in a row he was sent down. Gregory Infante gave up 10 runs in less than five innings, he was sent down. The only one to keeping is Bruce Rondon. The rest of the relievers would make up a fine AAA roster