Cubs (Boyd) vs Brewers (Gasser): 09/07/26, 1:10 PM

[Brock Beauchamp]

Boyd gets the ball for the Cubs against Gasser and the Brewers at American Family Field this afternoon.

[Brock Beauchamp]

	WED	THU	FRI	SAT	SUN	TOT
Trevor Megill	12	0	20	0	0	32
Robert Gasser	0	0	0	0	0	0
JoJo Romero	11	0	0	13	35	59
Grant Anderson	0	0	0	17	44	61
DL Hall	0	12	0	34	0	46
Chad Patrick	0	0	41	0	0	41
Antonio Senzatela	12	0	15	0	28	55
Abner Uribe	12	0	0	0	4	16
Aaron Ashby	11	0	19	23	0	53

[adambr2]

Few things I would like to see happen down the stretch: 

1) Just make Ortiz the everyday 3B. Your infield defense is completely locked down and you’ve got a pretty good hitter over there to boot. What Hamilton offers in speed and baserunning isn’t enough to offset what he doesn’t do with the bat and doesn’t offer with his defense. 1-2 starts a week against righties is fine. That’s it.

2). By the same token, I’d have Lara over Frelick in RF every day. Look, Lara has been up and down and you’d like to see some more consistency, At the same time, Frelick simply doesn’t offer anything that Lara can’t do as well or better even when neither are on. Lara is, at the very worst, going to give you long ABs to help wear down opposing pitchers and high end defense. Nobody is really getting into any rhythm as far as playing time, so let’s give someone a chance to do so. 

3) When you’re going to play Yelich, just stick him at 6 and leave it alone. He was finally starting to come around with less pressure on him near the bottom. I do think that he presses near the top of the lineup and forces himself to try to be that guy when he’s just not at that stage in his career anymore. Just stop moving him around.

[Playing Catch]

After Boyd's performance against the Brewers last week, I'd like to see Hamilton start and bunt down the first base line in his plate appearances to make Boyd play defense.

[Frisbee Slider]

I’m exhausted of the Cubs 

[BruisedCrew]

The Brewers young SP and the bullpen seem to be showing the strain of a long season and a long stretch with very few off days. Someone has to come up big this week to get the Brewers at least one win in this series.

A de facto 7 1/2 game lead with 18 games to play looks pretty comfortable. But a de facto 3 1/2 game lead with 15 games to play does not look that comfortable, especially with a young team that might be wearing down.

So, my focus for this series is WIN ONE GAME. That one win would take 3 games off the magic number vs the Cubs and ensure no worse than what amounts to a 6 1/2 game lead with 15 games to play.

Gasser wouldn't be my first choice to start the tone setting opening game of the series, but that's how the rotation falls. Hopefully he can get through at least 5 innings with no more than a couple of runs allowed to keep the team in the game. There isn't much long relief available to cover a short start.

Like the series last week, the offense is going to have to take advantage of the Cubs pitchers to give the Crew a good shot.

[liveforoctober]

Will be curious how Sproat looks out of the pen. Take away a pitch or two, turn up the velo a tick and throw strikes. I'll begin this journey optimistic.

[adambr2]

I like the lineup today, pretty much follows my template above, I’d have Yelich 6th instead of 5th but not a huge deal there. 

[RobertCrawley]

Full Gas, let’s go!!

[Cool Hand Lucroy]

I say this as Brewers fan. It's pretty suspicious that our last two pitcher IL moves came after guys threw a whole bunch and we needed a fresh arm.

I'm a little torn on this (assuming it's roster manipulation--it certainly could be a coincidence). On the one hand, these guys get paid, and the Brewers get a fresh arm who also gets paid, so maybe it's a victim-less crime.

On the other, it's a little uncomfortable to use the IL for roster management purposes. 

At the end of the day, I'm not sure there's anything the league can do about it, so maybe it's best to leave it at that. The principle is weird, but maybe there isn't much of a practical downside. Be curious to hear others' thoughts, as I genuinely don't have a firm opinion. I think I've talked myself into it mostly being fine...

[MoreTrife]

I'm always intrigued by "fresh arm" label. They aren't just sitting on the shelf, they're throwing in the minors too!

[TURBO]

2 hours ago, adambr2 said:

Few things I would like to see happen down the stretch: 

1) Just make Ortiz the everyday 3B. That’s it.

2). By the same token, I’d have Lara over Frelick in RF every day. 

3) When you’re going to play Yelich, just stick him at 6 and leave it alone. 

1. yes

2. yes

3. yes

Seems simple, doesn't it?

[adambr2]

25 minutes ago, Cool Hand Lucroy said:

I say this as Brewers fan. It's pretty suspicious that our last two pitcher IL moves came after guys threw a whole bunch and we needed a fresh arm.

I'm a little torn on this (assuming it's roster manipulation--it certainly could be a coincidence). On the one hand, these guys get paid, and the Brewers get a fresh arm who also gets paid, so maybe it's a victim-less crime.

On the other, it's a little uncomfortable to use the IL for roster management purposes. 

At the end of the day, I'm not sure there's anything the league can do about it, so maybe it's best to leave it at that. The principle is weird, but maybe there isn't much of a practical downside. Be curious to hear others' thoughts, as I genuinely don't have a firm opinion. I think I've talked myself into it mostly being fine...

Why couldn’t they just option Anderson for Sproat if they wanted to anyway if both were healthy?

[TURBO]

Brewers placed RHP Grant Anderson on the 15-day injured list with right biceps inflammation.

[Cool Hand Lucroy]

2 minutes ago, adambr2 said:

Why couldn’t they just option Anderson for Sproat if they wanted to anyway if both were healthy?

They could, but there aren't that many minor-league games left, and then he doesn't get service time credit. 

I certainly could be off-base. It just happened with Wilson and now Anderson, so [shrugs]...

[Cool Hand Lucroy]

26 minutes ago, MoreTrife said:

I'm always intrigued by "fresh arm" label. They aren't just sitting on the shelf, they're throwing in the minors too!

Fair point!

I don't know what schedule Sproat was on, but I imagine he's fresher than Anderson would've been, so I guess I only mean "fresh" in a relative sense.

[Jim French Stepstool]

2 hours ago, adambr2 said:

Few things I would like to see happen down the stretch: 

1) Just make Ortiz the everyday 3B. Your infield defense is completely locked down and you’ve got a pretty good hitter over there to boot. What Hamilton offers in speed and baserunning isn’t enough to offset what he doesn’t do with the bat and doesn’t offer with his defense. 1-2 starts a week against righties is fine. That’s it.

2). By the same token, I’d have Lara over Frelick in RF every day. Look, Lara has been up and down and you’d like to see some more consistency, At the same time, Frelick simply doesn’t offer anything that Lara can’t do as well or better even when neither are on. Lara is, at the very worst, going to give you long ABs to help wear down opposing pitchers and high end defense. Nobody is really getting into any rhythm as far as playing time, so let’s give someone a chance to do so. 

3) When you’re going to play Yelich, just stick him at 6 and leave it alone. He was finally starting to come around with less pressure on him near the bottom. I do think that he presses near the top of the lineup and forces himself to try to be that guy when he’s just not at that stage in his career anymore. Just stop moving him around.

At this stage in his career there are certain pitchers that I think Lara should be steered clear of. Other than that I agree 100%.

[adambr2]

5 minutes ago, Cool Hand Lucroy said:

They could, but there aren't that many minor-league games left, and then he doesn't get service time credit. 

I certainly could be off-base. It just happened with Wilson and now Anderson, so [shrugs]...

You don’t have to have minor league games left to be optioned, though. The service time credit (and MLB pay) benefits Anderson, not the organization. If there was no injury, I think they’d prefer to go the legitimate route of just optioning him, which they had no problem doing in August, and keeping him on his normal routine rather than hitting the shelf for an automatic 15 days. 

I understand this line of thinking on Bryse Wilson. Just don’t think there’s anything to see here on this occasion as manipulation just wouldn’t make much sense.  

[Jim French Stepstool]

38 minutes ago, Cool Hand Lucroy said:

I say this as Brewers fan. It's pretty suspicious that our last two pitcher IL moves came after guys threw a whole bunch and we needed a fresh arm.

I'm a little torn on this (assuming it's roster manipulation--it certainly could be a coincidence). On the one hand, these guys get paid, and the Brewers get a fresh arm who also gets paid, so maybe it's a victim-less crime.

On the other, it's a little uncomfortable to use the IL for roster management purposes. 

At the end of the day, I'm not sure there's anything the league can do about it, so maybe it's best to leave it at that. The principle is weird, but maybe there isn't much of a practical downside. Be curious to hear others' thoughts, as I genuinely don't have a firm opinion. I think I've talked myself into it mostly being fine...

Once the smoke clears in the upcoming negotiations, I wouldn't be surprised if you see a 14th pitcher added to rosters, maybe even some sort of a taxi squad situation. That might alleviate some of the "fake IL" moves, FWIW.

[MoreTrife]

24 minutes ago, Cool Hand Lucroy said:

Fair point!

I don't know what schedule Sproat was on, but I imagine he's fresher than Anderson would've been, so I guess I only mean "fresh" in a relative sense.

Wasn't aimed at you, I think we hear it often! Just always funny to me. 

[just_some_guy]

58 minutes ago, Cool Hand Lucroy said:

It's pretty suspicious that our last two pitcher IL moves came after guys threw a whole bunch and we needed a fresh arm.

I agree; it's almost certainly roster manipulation, but it must be an accepted practice because I've watched the Cubs do the same thing all season (they've had 39 -- 39! -- different pitchers on their roster this season).

And it wouldn't be the first time the Brewers did some manipulating:  remember when Uribe served his 1 game suspension after pitching 3 days out of 4?

[just_some_guy]

25 minutes ago, Jim French Stepstool said:

Once the smoke clears in the upcoming negotiations...

Around May or June-ish, I fear. 

Some pretty hardened positions will have to soften first:  https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/49786246/mlb-labor-2026-players-survey-salary-cap-cba-negotiations-lockout-mlbpa

[just_some_guy]

Vaughn:  "Piece o' cake."

[HarryDoyle]

Did you see that cheap shot PCA put on Vaughn?

[adambr2]

16 minutes ago, MoreTrife said:

Wasn't aimed at you, I think we hear it often! Just always funny to me. 

Sproat hasn’t pitched in 4 days I think though, so as far as pen arms go he’s pretty fresh.