Because a playoff run has been extremely unlikely for so long now, I don’t really feel the need to pick a day to “call it,” but I will point out that the Cubs sank to yet another season low on the playoff odds after yesterday’s loss (1.2%). Had that Pirates series gone a very different way, I might’ve said the Cubs could afford to lose the series to the Yankees and still have a prayer. As it stands, the Cubs are just not going to make any real progress shy of winning these two weekend games, and then also going to L.A. and taking two from the Dodgers. Even then, I’m guessing the odds would bounce only to about 4 or 5%. Do with that what you will.
I would say the Anthony Rizzo return went just about as well as we could have hoped as fans. Maybe if the Cubs had won by 20 and Rizzo had hit a meaningless homer, that would’ve enhanced the experience a little? Yeah. I guess so. But outside of that, we got the crowd moments, the tribute, the standing ovations, the memories, and all the like. It was good. A little sad to think about all that is firmly behind us, sure, but I mostly got the dopamine hits of nostalgia I was seeking.
… which is good, because the Cubs certainly weren’t going to provide the hits yesterday! Hi-oh!
Here’s Nico Hoerner talking about something special from Anthony Rizzo’s time with the Cubs ():
“He was able to be here through a rebuild all the way through a championship, and be at the heart of it. I’ve always felt that would be the coolest thing I could be a part of here — being a part of each phase from the end of the previous great team through some challenging years and to the next run of a lot of playoff baseball and championships, and all those things we strive to do. That’d be as satisfying as it gets, and he’s someone who’s actually done it.”
You can feel that, right? Hoerner, who arrived in late-2019, clearly has that specific set of hopes for himself, and I bet it really would be so satisfying for him, and a few other guys, to see THIS group of Cubs go to the playoffs and make a deep run. They would have been through all the phases, as Rizzo was, and several others were.
Jed Hoyer on Anthony Rizzo:
Hey, that’s all well and good, but we know where he’s signing that final one-day contract:
It’s the time of year when these moves start dropping:
Without more context, we can’t know what the circumstances are here – specifically, whether this is typical annual turnover that happened to get reported, or whether it’s the elimination of scouting positions for non-performance reasons. In either case, you feel for those scouts who are now out of a job, as it’s become harder and harder to find and keep that particular gig in this sport.
That lawsuit that sought to nullify the funding the A’s were going to get from Nevada for their new stadium in Las Vegas . It seems increasingly likely that there will not be another last-minute twist in this saga, and the A’s really will move to Las Vegas … eventually.
Speaking of which. Oof, this makes the whole interim-play-in-Sacramento thing sound even worse than it already did:
In particular, the concern about the artificial turf combined with the heat sounds pretty significant. Apparently, because the park will be used pretty much every day (A’s and the Giants’ Triple-A River Cats), they have to switch to artificial turf. But you generally don’t use artificial turf in that kind of heat/direct sun, because it just baaaaaakes. It could be a miserable experience in the summer months, and that’s exclusively the turf issue (there are plenty more).
Crazy way to lose a game, both in terms of the quality of the throw, and also in terms of the decision-making to try for third in that situation at all:
I’ve turned around a little on the idea that you “literally never” risk trying to get third base with two outs (wrote about it here). But I still believe in something close to that: if you’re trying for third with two outs, the math suggests you better be about 90% sure you can get it. Was that a 90% play right there? Actually, given how unbelievable that throw was and had to be to get Brewer Hicklen RIGHT at the bag, it probably was a correct decision to try. Risky, yes. Mathematically appropriate? Probably.
A very good doggo:
