Bleacher Bums Forum

Wow, fun win. 
*Great catches by Albert. 
*Lots of hits; and lots of clutch hits with runners on. 
*2-RBI hit by Heyward was huge, and 2-RBI double by Baez was a rocket and huge. 
*Never seen a game before or probably ever will again with such sun-problems in RF as Heyward experienced. 
*Never seen a game end on such a bizarre play or call reversal.  Unbelievable.
*Nice work by CJ.   

We can joke about the RISP, but today we got them and won as a result; yesterday Rockies got them and we didn't, and they won as a result.  Today is probably kind of a good example of the randomness; not sure the Cubs were necessarily hitting rockets with RISP today, consistently, but some of them went through.  (Schwarber hit wasn't a line drive or a rocket; La Stella's was a good solid hit, but wasn't really hit with great velocity either; didn't Caratini .)  Think that fits somewhat with Blue's point, that there is considerable randomness and it should even out over time. 

Not random that Rizzo can't get anybody in from 3rd with 1 out.  He's had some pretty ugly and ineffective AB's.  Hope he finds his stroke sooner rather than later.  If the guys who are hot now could stay hot, and then you added good-Rizzo in the middle of it, that could be a pretty good lineup. 

I thought he looked out, the ball was definitely there.  But hard to tell from the TV replay whether he actually got the tag down versus maybe the running sliding under with no actual tag made.  Yeah, I'm pretty confident he was out, but not sure it was certain enough to overturn.... based on the TV video.  Perhaps replay had some better video that was more conclusive? 

It really tells you how bad Heyward has been when he's hitting .246 with no power or speed and he looks to be in a groove.

Hey ward is hitting .353 with RISP this year. He must be somebodies second favorite player, behind the un-clutch Kris Bryant and his .400+ average.

Heyward 2018: .262-352-410-762
Heyward career: .262-344-412-756

His 2018 numbers may not be superstar caliber, but expecting much more probably isn’t fair to the player. Love it or hate it this is the guy we signed, and if can stay at this level all season we probably ought to consider that a win.

Yeah, if Heyward can give us career average numbers going forward, that’s a huge improvement over what we’ve seen from him to date, and would change his contract from being a massive albatross to something like fair market value, though without the upside one might hope for.

Risking a little optimism with Heyward, there are some real changes to his approach at the plate so far. The first is that he has the lowest GB rate and highest FB rate of his career. The resulting GB/FB number of 0.81 is by far the lowest of his career, and that’s *very* positive. GB/FB rates also stabilize earlier than most stats, because the sample builds on them much more quickly. His O-swing is down, and his Z-swing is up (outside the zone vs inside the zone), another very positive trend that also stabilizes quickly.

If J-Hey Can continue to put a ton more balls in the air while keeping his selective-aggressive approach up, those are *very* positive signs, and could point to more offensive improvement. Nothing about his current stat line screams fluke based on the underlying metrics, and if anything, his BABIP is too low and reflects a certain amount of being unlucky this year.

Here’s to hoping...

I cannot fathom what legitimate reason there was for the umpire to tell Javy not to do what he was doing.  What rule could he have been violating?

Probably the “don’t-be-a-flamboyant-Latino” rule.