Thur, Aug 11 vs Cardinals 7:05 PM CSN Lester (12-4) Martinez (10-7)
Fri, Aug 12 vs Cardinals 1:20 PM ABC Arrieta (13-5) Wainwright (9-6)
Sat, Aug 13 vs Cardinals 1:20 PM ABC Hendricks (11-7) Weaver (0-0)
Sun, Aug 14 vs Cardinals 7:00 PM ESPN Lackey (9-7) Leake (8-9)

3 of 4.

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Cubs are on a huge roll, but its the Cards and there is always some bullshit comeback, so I'm going with the Cubs winning 3 of 4.

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The Cubs WILL fuck the Cardinals with Bea Arthur's dead dick!

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favrefan said:"Chris Coghlan isn't gonna pay your rent, Jimmy."

Assuming Rondon can come back healthy and secure the 8th, would you feel comfortable letting Edwards Jr. handle the 7th or do you prefer a committee for that job?

I say let him have the responsibility for the next couple of weeks. We've got enough breathing room to experiment a bit.

Correct. That's what I attribute to some of Joe's (seemingly) bizarre moves/lineups/substitutions ... find out what's available during the season when there's margin for error rather than in October.

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Power is always in the hands of the masses of men. What oppresses the masses is their own ignorance, their own short-sighted selfishness.
- Henry George

Maddon has already said that Joe Smith will be filling the spot more than Edwards, but let's see how it plays out. I think the kid should continue to get a shot, it hurts nothing with this division lead.

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Strop being hurt is ultimately a good thing. I know a lot of you think he's good but that's because you're dumb.

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Hopefully the beginning of the end of the division race.

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Power is always in the hands of the masses of men. What oppresses the masses is their own ignorance, their own short-sighted selfishness.
- Henry George

The unfortunate thing is that Maddon will go right back to him come playoff time, which is going to suck if he turns into Shitty Strop.

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So, they are basically either conceding this game with the 6-9 hitters setup like that or they are REALLY hoping Lester doesn't let much up tonight.

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I'm really confused why Zobrist hasn't been put back into the 5 hole. He was on a crazy run to start the season hitting behind Bryant and Rizzo. When Fowler went down, he got moved all over the place.

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I'm not a HUGE fan of Bryant in the 2 hole either.

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Heyward is such an eyesore in that lineup.

How has Martinez been this year? His stat line looks really good despite the 10-7 record.

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But he hits the ball hard a lot right at the other team's fielders, so that counts apparently. I know players say there is a psychological issue that occurs with these big contracts in the first year or so, but if he fails over the next few years, this deal will go down as worse than the Soriano signing.

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Strop out 6 weeks. A blessing for this series against the Cards.

Also, he's a slow starter. He is now giving "slow starters" a bad name.

I'm honestly not a fan of Maddon's lineup choices. I think Heyward's confidence was shattered by Joe's ego not moving him out of the 2 spot much earlier. Heyward's just not a top of the lineup guy.

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so if the cardinals somehow swept the cubs they'd be what, 8-9 games back?

last i saw (yesterday i think) they were tied for the 2nd wild card with the fighting fish (marlins), 4 games back behind the #1 WC doyers and ~2.5 games ahead of the next WC threat: your 2015 world series runner up new york M-E-T-S METS METS METS!!!! normally i'd say something about how the mets' pitching staff = prolly the best in baseball when it's on its game, however matz and syndergaard have bone spurs in their elbow (so matz went from a nice ~2.30ish ERA to ~3.60 since the beginning of june) and syndergaard was all the way up circa #8-12 overall in yahoo fantasy baseball when he was in the high high 1s / low low 2s for ERA but lately he's been a 5-6IP 3-4ER machine so you figure his ERA has to be around 2.75 and rising, quite possibly even a tick above 3.00 by now (hearkening the ~3.14/1.18 he finished last season with) --- and THEN you remember that harvey was utter shit b4 going down for the season, and zack wheeler (who had to put in some second half work to get an ERA circa 3.75 in 2014) had a few setbacks but he's still a known unknown, so basically right now the only "bigtime" mets starter that's going good-n-proper is jacob degrom, who Himself recently had some sort of ~7 game streak where he allowed 2ER or less but managed a ND or loss =)

TLDR = barring some kind of historic collapse that will make 1969 look like a speedbump on the highway of progress, these 2016 chicago baseball cubs are going to be able to literally crabwalk backwards high on PCP into the playoffs and then "It's Time" to win the damn world series!

btw how cool is it that the 2ndary/3rdary teams in/around new york city have euphony going with the mets jets and nets? all you need is some kind of rhyming thing for the islanders and you'd be the cutest collection of B-teams in all the land!

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That ship sailed long ago. It is a fact...but we're in August now. And he has gotten worse. There was a stretch there where he was hitting the ball extremely well...into outs. But now he strikes out or grounds weakly to 1B. Not even going deep into counts.

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Rick Hahn is the best GM in baseball.

Welcome to the club.

And fuck New York too.

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i have to admit that i was "scouting the stats" and not "scouting the player" when i went and made my big ol TLDR "the cubs should sign heyward!" thread circa last november. overall his ~.280/15/75/15 type stats looked pretty good to me and being a ~26 y/o free agent (especially with the new opt-out craze taking hold) = one way or another you figure there's a pretty good chance that he'll want to peace out after the ~3/4 years barring some sort of injury/totally-unfathomable-levels-of-sucktitude because even if his AAV technically goes down between this cubs deal and whatever one he could opt out to get in the future, you figure he'll still be ~29/young enough to maybe get another ~5/+ year deal that might be more $$$ overall?

if i were heyward i'd make sure to save every racist letter i got mailed to me (or just keep on archiving elmhurst steve's posts) so that way if his cubbie experience never really works out that well he can go the dusty route and hit up bob nightengale to write the column about how chicago baseball fans are racist pieces of shit and therefore he never really had a chance in this veritably-antebellum town.

also isn't it kinda amusing that the one big $$$ guy whose career firmly established a totally-earned rep for slow starts (jon lester) hasn't had any kind of a slow start this year? IIRC last year his annual "meh to shit" start wasn't too bad (ERA lower to mid 3s circa mid-late may, whereas he'd traditionally have a ~4.50/+ ERA at that time when he was a red sox) but this year it hasn't been any sort of factor at all, just like his free agent walk year a couple'a years back. c'est la vie, no?



yeah, that was pretty much my (admittedly convoluted) point: the mest (sic) are pretty much what the spanglish call "EL FUCKEDO" this year..... at least if they can somehow manage a wildcard berth they'll be able to turn to whoever's pitching the best out of their cadre of remaining young/dynamic arms (most likely degrom) and you'd figure them to have no worse than a "pitcher's chance" </punter> to at least make it to a proper series where they'd most likely get got by a much improved team of young/dynamic cubbies.

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Its just funny that Mallee spoke so much about how tough an out he is, yet it seems like every time I see an article, its talking about how Mallee is working with Heyward to make adjustments, be it to hit the ball the other way or to elevate the ball more. If Heyward is truly working hard in practice as everyone says he is, I'm almost wondering if the Cubs are just fucking him up with too many ideas.

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I'm just glad the Mets aren't in it. I worry a little about the Giants, but I really hope the Cubs can take care of the Nationals and whatever other crap comes their way in the playoffs.

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Sini, do you honestly think Heyward would ever opt out of this deal? He would have to put up some monster numbers to even approach this contract with someone else. Or he would have to have an unbelievably guilty conscience.

Giants and Nationals both worry me. Cubs aren't too good out in SF, and the Nationals are overdue for some playoff damage.

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