caulfield12

Not even trading him across the city resulted in a 1-2-3 inning from Heuer…but Madrigal somehow gets 2,900 hits for the Cubs.

Just saying it wasn’t so obvious a HoF closer was easily going to adjust to pitching the 8th. That’s not a hindsight opinion from that trade. And Hahn has done something dangerous to Sox payrolls putting so much risk with two veteran closers, Grandal, Keuchel…heck, even our three younger core pieces don’t feel like slam dunk contracts at this point, especially further down the line.

Saving those guys for next Thursday. Just hope there's no rainout.

Leury hitting .133 since the ASG, haha. Are we really bad enough to go 2-5 against in the Royals in our last 7....4-5 at home, and 8-8 on the season?

Yikes. That said, if he can't shut down the Royals, there's not much hope against playoff competition that he can be relied upon. Not asking for 1-2-3 even, just don't give up a run.

Engel/Garcia/Zavala Over-under 0.2 runs produced? Can that reverse jinx them into scoring?

Merrifield with 29 consecutive steals. Thank god we got out of that inning. Of course, the next problem is that LaRussa will bring who in to pitch if we're still down by 2? Bummer? Definitely won't be Kimbrel.

Well, if we keep playing like this, we'll get swept right out of the playoffs before knowing what hit us...

Nicky Two Strikes.... Of course, Lopez has the longest string in all of MLB for homerless games and at-bats. Almost a homer to break the streak.

Where was that poster in 2007/2009/2011, or 2013-2019?

The constant offense/Mackowiak vs. defense/Anderson debates. Dye at least could catch and throw the ball if it was hit directly at him. I don't think anybody would have bet Lynch would have 53 strikes thrown vs. 49 for Keuchel at the beginning of this one.

Two catches that Engel barely missed and then the bad misplay earlier in the game. Olivares yet another former Padres farmhand. And Lopez is back to his former self again.

Except that team was dying in the second half after starting out 26 games over .500 at the ASB and clearly getting passed by DET and MINN behind the likes of Verlander, Santana and Liriano. Jenks started to fall apart, and the workload on the pitchers from the previous year started to hit the rotation. But yeah, the offense feels similar...kind of dead in the water.

This team...

LOL. Of course, the ONE thing they couldn't afford. Jesus. Vaughn would have easily hit into a triple play there.

You've been pretty angry all game...guess there are points for consistency of position.

Are we actually going to score here? This feels like the most low-key 10 game playoff lead in the history of the franchise...2005 and 2008 were so tense. I guess 2000 is the closest comparison, although the pitching is much better and offense pretty much the opposite although we're still scoring a decent number of runs...at least until recently.

95 pitches and likely Staumont...

Not sure we prefer Staumont here...but let's hope we get a dinger first.

In a 7 inning game...sure.

Just don't hit into a DP, Zavala...lets try to get this line-up going the third time through.

Sure, the first time out it actually was his big league debut, he was visibly nervous and rattled, didn't have any idea what to do besides throwing as hard as he could (97-99) when he started to get hit around and couldn't locate his secondary pitches, either. He definitely made some progress in the the minors this past summer. Between the Tigers and the Royals and Indians...the pitching it going to continue to improve in the division, unless CLE trades Bieber/Plesac and does another rebuild. Betting money is they give it one more final go with Bieber and Ramirez next season.

Of course, we follow up an inning like that with the dreaded leadoff walk. How do we advance this runner to 2nd? Steal? WP? PB? Defensive indifference? Jared Kelenic would be our best hitter at this rate...

SIGH. Extends career high to 6 K's, lol. We can't even get out of our own way at this point. It's not like we mounted a rally by actually hitting the ball...well, except Engel's foul ball I guess.

Moncada needs a next-life futbook career, he could compete with Christiano Ronaldo anytime someone comes into his vicinity, he goes down writhing in pain.