chw42

Lance leaving a lot of pitches right down the middle.

I took a quick look at Kimbrel's release point yesterday compared to his release point in the 2 games in Toronto. He was all over the place last night with it. Usually his fastball release point is very consistent, even when he's off, but his release point yesterday had about a nearly 9 inch deviation from lowest to highest release point. His curve release point was a little off too, as usually they're clumped but it looked like he was throwing 2 different types of curves with 2 totally different release points.

That's one more excuse Keuchel can't go to for explaining why he's had a 7 ERA in the past 2 months.

Karinchak got optioned to AAA. Couldn't have happened to a nicer guy. The only bad thing now is that he won't be blowing games for Cleveland.

Keuchel wouldn't really even benefit much with spider tack or pine tar. Sinker ballers like him usually don't benefit anywhere near as much as guys with 4 seam primary. He's also mostly sinker/cutter/change and you can probably argue only the cutter benefits from higher spinrate. The results on the field today showed as much.

His problem was that he was leaving his change up high and in the zone. 80 MPH floaters in the zone get hit hard in the Majors. If he can't get that change up lower in the zone or get it to dip out, he just isn't a ML level starter. Wisdom also hit a sinker he left middle/middle 450 feet. He needs to be better with his location.

It's like Grandal comes back and the other guys figured out what a walk is.

We were up 7 runs and still needed to burn 2 of our good relievers. This shit has been happening way too often. Hell it just happened yesterday.

My ears were ringing when I saw what we gave up. But I didn't expect him to be this bad. I still think the situation is salvageable. He clearly looked pretty good yesterday in Toronto and he looked decent against Schwindel tonight. I think he might have been trying to throw his fastball more tonight to work on some things. In a real save situation, I doubt he would have thrown as many as he did. He threw 79% fastballs tonight. He was around 60/40 with the Cubs and 66/33 with the Sox prior to this outing.

This game took so long that some of the games that started out west already finished. The Angels game started at 8:38 central time and was over before this game.

So despite this nice comeback win, we now have a hole in the rotation and even more question marks about our $16 million co-closer who we all thought had just fixed himself the day prior. This team is fucking exhausting.

Kimbrel's ERA when he joined the Sox was under .5. It's now over 2 in a span of 10 innings.

At least that homer restore the football score lol

Way to waste Kimbrel in a 7 run game just for him to give up 2 dingers.

You can't be serious...

He clearly sucks when the game isn't on the line.

They scored a bunch off the Rockies. Their bats are probably going well right now, especially against bad pitchers like Keuchel and Wright.

This almost looks like a bullpen session with how often they're calling for fastballs.

Well now we can't say Kimbrel has a 0 ERA in the 9th. Shoulda gone curve to him at least once.

Nice catch

I doubt he plays. Although it's hard to sit a guy after he hit 2 homers with 8 RBI.

I'm beginning to think the adrenaline of a save situation magically fixes his mechanics.

So far, it doesn't look like it.

I know Kimbrel was warm, but why waste him in a 7 run game?

Grandal had 0.4 WAR in this game alone. Started the day at 1.7 and is now at 2.1.