Bleacher Bums Forum

Boy, Webb has been a revelation. Three days in a row he's pitched - need to sit him tomorrow and Sunday.

That Pedro HR, that was a line rocket.

Gotta wonder if Happ isn't hurt or carrying some emotional baggage at the moment.  He looks terrible.  As a FA he's killing his payday.

Winning a lot is more fun than losing a lot, that's for sure.  I've been a little bit cautious on Gausman, but kind of fun for a guy who can throw his fastball for a strike kinda when he wants, and works so quickly.  Nice debut.

Holmes obviously isn't going to give 7 innings, but hope he pitches even better tomorrow.  Interesting that he's facing Lugo, a guy we once talked about pursuing, but seems to have relapsed a fair bit. 

Ramirez everyday, with Conforto and Taylor platooning in left, the three of them rotating as DH. And either a mysterious IL stint or sanity break for Happ, who looks absolutely cooked.

Geez, a guy has a 4K game and a bad week and now he’s “cooked.”

Here are some facts.

Happ has a .802 OPS this season against righties. This is very close to his career norms against righties (.817). 

His struggles have been hitting from the right side against lefties. This is a concern and that’s why Cubs traded for Taylor and perhaps this will be a strict platoon going forward. Not sure that Counsell has committed to that yet. We’ll see.

Happ is in a pace for a 2.5-3.0 WAR season—an above-average regular.

Happ has been in a very bad slump for the past week. We have seen this before from him. Typically, he comes out of it and gets hot again for a time. Maybe he needs a day or two off and we might see Conforto in there this weekend.

I get it. Folks remember what just happened. It’s vivid. But there was baseball played in America before this week.

Somehow Thornton survives again despite his complete inability to miss a bat.

He hasn't allowed a hit in last three outings, in July he only walked a single guy.  Not sure how sustainable his effectiveness can be, may be a lot of luck.  But he does get a lot of ground balls, and with our defense that works pretty well.  Yesterday he seemed a little out-of-control overthrowing to the middle batter, but first guy was a nice easy groundout, and third guy was a nice easy soft fly.  Soft easy contact. 

This is dumb I'm sure, but I wonder whether guys without overwhelming stuff sometimes have a foul-ball advantage...  Some K-pitchers who get some whiffs, often when they don't get a whiff they still get very "off" contact that results in foul ball after foul ball.  I wonder if guys with lesser stuff, what would be a foul ball with a stuffier pitcher is a little more likely to get enough contact to get in play? 

Rea hasn't pitched since Sunday.  He should be well rested and ready to pitch tonight, assuming Holmes fresh off IL is on a pitch-count and won't eat too many innings.  By tomorrow, Assad will be on his 5th day, so by tomorrow he should be fully available for relief usage.  This week Counsell has kinda been rolling with Rea and Assad on roster. but not actually in bullpen use yet, so kinda working two-arms short, in a sense.  By tomorrow, he should be back to having full availability. 

Will be interesting to see how the usage of Thornton adjusts, relative to Assad and Rea and also Zeferjahn. 

If we're going to carry both those guys when Cabrera comes back, Counsell is going to have to trust them in leverage spots. You don't need two guys whose only job is to piggyback pitch count limited starts and save the staff in blowouts.

The reports of Ian Happ's death are greatly exaggerated.