Autumn Dreamin

I feel like there’s been a similar rhythm to these last few series. They come into the opener confident, maybe catch teams sleeping a bit, battle and grab a win. The opponent punches back in game 2, they visibly lose confidence with every hit that doesn’t fall for them or does for the other team, and let bad calls/breaks set the momentum too easily. Then game 3 is about if and how they respond. It does feel like their win rate in openers is higher than on the season, which speaks well to their pre-series prep. But adjusting in-series if Plan A loses effectiveness, or even being able to distinguish between bad process that needs adjusting and just unlucky results they should push through, is something young guys will have to learn with experience.

Colson stat padding his defensive metrics at 3B with that inning

Wholesome story from Colson's dad.

Meanwhile, Dylan Cease still in odd year form: 4.2IP, 5ER, 5BB, 9K. Highest ERA since his rookie season, with a career worst 3-10 record. So curious to see where he ends up.

Guards first save attempt post-Clase is unsuccessful, with the Rockies putting up 4 on Cade Smith (now 3 of 6 on saves).

Could have been worse

Maybe related:

Detroit's #14 prospect, 19 year old in rookie ball. Signed as an IFA for $1.25m in 2023. Hitting .250 with a .779 OPS and 6 HR through 168 ABs this year.

Statcast tracks Waste% for pitchers, basically the rate of totally uncompetitive offerings. Clase's is 17.5% for the first pitch of the 9th inning, and 5.2% for all other pitches. Huge small sample size caveat naturally, but if there are outlier spikes of betting volume on these particular pitches like the Ortiz situation then I can see why flags would go up.

Maybe we see Robertson get some run down the stretch.

The boys lost to Chicago today, and I don't mean the Cubs.

Burke is doing his part

The thing about MLB is you can just throw money at problems and if/when that doesn't work you can throw some more. There's no having to navigate cap space or match salaries in trades. Plus you can't mortgage your future in the same way because you can't trade non-comp draft picks. You could still make shortsighted trades of prospects I guess, but I'm not going to mind Ishbia cash being available to keep/acquire/maximize talent.

Taylor opening for Burke tomorrow, which would explain him not being used tonight. Burke has pitched much better with an opener this season (3 outings). Should be a BP day for the Cubs, so hopefully this was just a blip for the bats.

They bounced back after that middle game in Tampa, will be a good test to see what they do tomorrow. Maybe getting the offense/bullpen struggles all out in one game will turn out better than letting them trickle into a bunch of 1-2 run losses?

Back to back scoreless 6K outings for Civale fwiw (probably not much)