This is a Game Notes blog for last night’s game against the A’s.
Let’s just get into it:
Kyle Tucker’s better than I expected and I opened the season saying he was the 6th best player in baseball.
It feels good to see him make such an impact so early. There’s a lot of drama around the trade and the club and the best thing Kyle Tucker could do was come in and destroy the opposition. That puts pressure on Tom to spend money and turn things for the long-term.
Yes – I want to enjoy this team right now. Yes I love good baseball and we’re very lucky to have Tucker’s bat in the lineup. I 100% agree with you.
But my critical concern about being a Cubs fan is Tom Ricketts acting like a modern owner and investing in big contracts. This is the last stop on that path. He either pays Kyle Tucker or we burn Wrigley Field to the ground.
Here’s a good look at a perfect Kyle Tucker swing.
I tried explaining yesterday in context of a paint brush. He’s got the longest strokes with the most amount of paint.
Another analogy would be taking a piss. In that comparison, his bat path would be a long hard stream that goes for 2 minutes straight whereas an average major leaguer has weak piss that needs to be skaken or leaked.
Cliff Floyd can explain it better if you really want to know why Kyle Tucker is so much better than the world’s best players:
That’s the meat and potatoes of the Cubs season right now and the game last night. It’s Kyle Tucker’s world and we’re just living in it until he gets his half a billion dollars.
Nice thing is that Tom Ricketts can start weighing the cost against signing Kyle Tucker long-term. And the louder and meaner and more insistent we are in that process, the greater the cost to let him walk. So turn up the noise when you see Tom walking the concourse handing out hot dogs. Make your voice heard and tell him to spend his $371,000,000 in net revenue.
For now let’s stay on last night’s game…
The Cubs win another non-quality start by Justin Steele and that’s important because he’s got 24 of those coming this summer of 6+ innings and 3 ER or less. That’s a guarantee, which makes the remaining 8-10 starts very important, and the Cubs have already won the first two. That’s how you outperform projections which is unfortunately a big tenet in this front office.
Whatever.
Steele looked settled and efficient last night once he got another cushion and then it was cruise control.
Also nice that he only threw 78 pitches because I’m a huge proponent of saving your bullets over the season. The most important thing is making the playoffs. The 2nd most important thing is having momentum and healthy starting pitching when they start. And I think this team is good enough to consider the latter right now, so even better to see him throw less than 80 pitches in his 3rd start of the year.
Another big thing is winning with below-average stuff.
A lot of starting pitchers can be huge pussies when their stuff isn’t breaking as expected. They pout and complain about the ball or the mound or the stadium or the indian food they had the night before. A lot of starting pitchers will complain about anything before they accept the fact that sometimes you just don’t have your best and you still have to go compete.
Justin Steele is NOT one of those pitchers and that’s the big point I’m trying to make. That’s what we love about Justin Steele. He’s got huge balls and the closest comparison would unfortunately be another Mississippi mud slinger in Brett Favre. That beat up, undersized competitor that would rather cut off his arm than be responsible for a loss. That’s kinda how I see Justin Steele and I fucking hate the fact I had to throw a Favre on the table to make my point.
Finally
Offense is clicking so hard and we have to remember this when they cool. The fact we’ve seen the power this early will allow me to relax through the later droughts. The most important thing is we have the potential to explode and now we need Craig to shepherd the lineup throughout the season so it performs the best. That’s the manager’s responsibility and I encourage you guys to buy into his role around here a little bit more. Because let there be no doubt, if you can’t win 90+ games with this club in this division, you don’t deserve to wear that uniform.
Next game is today at 2:35pm against the A’s. Some closing programming notes:
- This is our last west coast game today for a full week. Then we come home against the Padres and Rangers before returning to the west coast next Friday for another round of 9pm games
- Those will be the last 9pm games of the 1st half
- 4 of the 6 home games are day games including all 3 against the Padres
- Bullpen went a scoreless 2.1 innings last night and that’s a huge relief because we need that group to build confidence and momentum. I think a lot of people would be surprised how much that matters and how fragile some of these athletes are. My experience is that they need confidence to do the job well and that confidence is largely tied to perception and performance. So in that mindset – 2.1 scoreless absolutely means something to me at this point in the season.
- I’m still soft on Craig Counsell but will obviously keep you guys posted as this is an ongoing situation.
Go Cubs.
Something I’ve been curious about is how Hoerner would respond to the pressure of Bregman, younger infielders, and all the summer trade talk. At the end of the day, he’s still a top 3 2nd baseman in the league. Also, if analyzing stuff from our starting staff, Boyd turned my head and burnt my eyebrows. He is going to break out.
What are the odds they sign Tucker? 25%? If they don’t they are never going to win again under Ricketts