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The Cubs seem to have some kind of pixie dust with Civale. He absolutely blows everywhere else but when they stick him in the pen he's very useful.

It's not just him.  Look what they've done with Rolison.  Lots of other examples, too.

Well Rolison only had one season and that was in Colorado.

I actually think their batting average with bullpen reclamation projects is probably pretty close to average. If every team claimed 10 of them a season they'd probably find 3 or 4 who were pretty decent. We've had plenty of whiffs too.

Wow, what a fabulous comeback.  Cease was so good.  Perhaps without the wind, or a couple of feet toward center, and Bregman might have had anotherBullpen HR earlier in the game.  Peterson good again, 1ER as usual.  Bullpen, 6 innings with just one run.  Civale nice job.  Fun to see Thornton in those extra-inning games, he is so fired up when he gets out. 

Seeing the Toronto lineup, man, is that ever bad right now.  It's a reminder of how many kinda easy outs there are in a lot of lineups.

What a fun win. 

Tangent, but Bregman is really good at 3B.  Really good at attacking ground balls, charging them or whatever, and for double-plays gets his throws off to 2b so very quickly and accurately too.  In first inning, prior to the balked-in run, Springer hit a soft grounder to 3B that I thought had zero chance for DP.  But Bregman charged in so fast, ball-to-glove-to-hand-to-2B was so quick and smooth, they almost doubled up Springer on a ball that had no business being anything close to a DP. 

Obviously he made a good snag in extra innings as well.  But his footwork and sense of balance and timing is really good. 

In the 10th, I thought for sure Kelly's hit was a game-winner. 

…….Tangent, but Bregman is really good at 3B.  Really good at attacking ground balls, charging them or whatever, and for double-plays gets his throws off to 2b so very quickly and accurately too.  In first inning, prior to the balked-in run, Springer hit a soft grounder to 3B that I thought had zero chance for DP.  But Bregman charged in so fast, ball-to-glove-to-hand-to-2B was so quick and smooth, they almost doubled up Springer on a ball that had no business being anything close to a DP.  Obviously he made a good snag in extra innings as well.  But his footwork and sense of balance and timing is really good…

Bregman leads all MLB 3B in Outs Above Average and is second to Chapman in Defensive Runs Saved.

Thornton has a 4.88 FIP and an 11.9% K-rate. Flexen was eventually DFA'd with a 5.04 FIP and 12.4% K-rate and hasn't pitched at all in the majors this season. Those are examples of being lucky at best.

I do think Hottovy is a pretty good pitching coach but overall I think quantity more than quantity is the headline with the Cubs and dumpster relievers. If nothing elese Hottovy gets more practice at trying to salvage them than anybody else.

Talking about FIP here misses the point, IMO, because it's explicitly *fielding independent* pitching.

Team defense is a major part of the strategy with the pitchers the Cubs acquire, and how they coach those pitchers and shape their arsenals. It's a cohesive run-prevention scheme top to bottom.

Nobody thinks Thornton is going to be good in the future.

The magic is the Cubs have gotten good results from him at all.

And yeah, they seem to do this repeatedly, at a rate ahead of most other clubs.

Gauman gives up a quick run in the first, a walk and three rockets, but escapes with only 1 run. 

Gausman looks like Gausman. 94-96 with lots of run on the fastball, heavy dose of splitters, some sliders that look like changeups. Same guy he's been for 12 years.

There are no odds you could have given me that would have convinced me to wager PCA would get this selective this quickly.