It’s not hard to figure out what’s going on with the Cubs.
In a recent stretch of ten games, all against last place teams, the Cubs went
8-2. They should have swept the White Sox, but the great Joe Maddon likes the
contact play with no outs and had two runners cut down at home plate. They also played the first place Braves and
Indians and went 1-4. What all this means is it's a good thing is they play
in the NL central with their inter-league schedule against the worst division in
baseball, the AL Central. So they may not be playing good baseball but there are enough bad teams to feast on.
The pitching, aside from a couple of glitches, has been
good; the hitting has been somewhat anemic. Rizzo is too good of a hitter to be
in a funk all year. He’ll be just fine. The question is how long do you keep
going with Heyward in right? I know he
is outstanding defensively, but adds nothing to a struggling offense. The team
is much better off with a combination of Happ, Almora and Zobrist.
As they did with Jose Quintana, the Cubs should be a making a
pitch for Machado well before the deadline. Otherwise, they could be competing
with other teams. He could be their best offensive player and is only 26 years
old. With Joe as the manager he can be a great lead-off man.
I hate baseball players who are cheaters. What gets to me is
players like Alex Rodriguez, Barry Bonds and Mark McGwire are still making
money on the game they cheated on. Which brings us to Welington Castillo, the
latest cheater suspended for 80 games. He is not a free agent trying for a
monster contract next year. Funny thing is, even with PEDs he is barely mediocre
.When he comes back in August he should be second string. He is not part of the
future.
Injuries are taking its toll on what is already a bad team,
destined to lose well in excess of 100 games. However, some positives have
emerged. New right fielder Danny Palka is a much better option than Trayce Thompson and his .119 batting average. Starter Reynaldo Lopez has been
outstanding. They have discovered two competent relief pitchers, Rondon and
Fry, although Renteria keeps using Nate Jones as their closer. Abreu is doing
what he does after his usual slow start. Moncada looks like he is starting to
get use to major league pitching.
General Manager Rick Hahn has done a pretty good job in
acquiring top notch prospects. However, I
wish he would forget about service time and put the best product on the
field. This means players like Eloy Jimennez will only get a September call up and
begin 2019 in AAA until at least May. Luis Robert may be young and raw but has
to better than Adam Engel.
P.S In my last post I had written the Dodgers off. However, with Arizona 1-9 in their last 10 games,
Colorado is in first place and the Dodgers are only 3 ½ back.
This swift change is why I love baseball.
No comments:
Post a Comment