You’ll have to excuse me – I’ve been running around today making arrangements for Sterk Family Farms.
The Cubs play today at 3:10pm against the Padres and we’re debuting one of my favorite lineups of the season:
- Happ
- Tucker
- Seiya
- Busch
- Swanny
- Nico
- PCA
- Carson
- Berti
I’m liking this team more and more every day.
There’s still some things that need to drastically improve, like routine team defense and 3rd base production. But overall it’s far exceeding our offseason expectations and I think that’s a fair starting point going into today’s rubber match against the Padres.
No bullshit: if the Cubs were 8-12 at this point in the calendar, I’d be plenty fine with that. The schedule’s been brutal and the bullpen’s still coming together and the weather’s been shitty and everything in between. I said 7-10 through the first 17 was the goal and now through 20 games we’re 12-8. For all the things that could be better, this is a fine moment to step back and reflect on the early success.
With that in mind, some other observations:
- The Padres are 14-4 with 3 of those losses coming against the Cubs
- A win today means 4-2 on a West Coast trip against the Dodgers and Padres.
- It also means 8-4 over the last 4 series against the Rangers, Padres, Dodgers and Padres again
- Everyone is saying those teams are miles ahead of the Cubs in the power rankings
- There’s a lot of momentum in the lineup, especially with Nico and PCA at 6-7
- I don’t want to move PCA up to leadoff for the sake of seeing if it works out when we lead MLB in run differential, runs scored and aggregate offense
- Off day tomorrow then 4 games in a row against elite starting pitching:
- Corbin Burnes
- Zac Gallen
- Merril Kelly
- Dustin May
- That makes today all the more important so let’s go play some good clean baseball and take a series from the soft ass San Diego Padres