Cool Hand Lucroy

Contreras stirs...

Hamstring spasms

If we assume we traded both Shane Smith and Civale for Vaughn, does that make it better for Sox fans?

Chuorio has looked a little touchy running to me over the last couple weeks. Wouldn't be surprised if he tugged something previously existing. Saw him hunched over against LA maybe? After legging out a grounder to third.

I've seen Harper getting a lot of credit for this from writers like Molly Knight and others, all of whom I respect a lot. And I'm with Harper's attitude in spirit. But we're also losing a ton of nuance here. You can be pro-union in a lot of ways, but the baseball union has taken a position that probably increases wage inequality. Blanket resistance to any kind of cap essentially guarantees that a few players get massive deals from a few, big spending clubs, and the majority of roster spots are "soft-capped" by teams who have to play within a lower budget. I wish more folks would write about how many players suffer from a de facto cap, simply because most teams literally can't spend 400 million on payroll. Take Mark A. His net worth is 2 billion. That's obviously a ton of dough. But it's not so much that he can just construct a 300 million dollar Brewers payroll and not take on some significant financial risks. I get that the owners are vastly wealthy and often scrimp unnecessarily. But I push back against the idea that baseball teams have unlimited resources because they're owned by financial elites. Like most things, we're losing nuance in this discussion. I think MLB and its owners spend their revenue in ways that mostly suck. Lots of players, especially minor-leaguers, have to deal with a lot of garbage and wage suppression. But a salary floor, as Torts said, would help that! A cap would hurt players at the top, but might reduce wage inequality and benefit younger players. The team control period could be shortened again too. The union isn't always right just because it's a union and management are a bunch of rich dudes. Baseball negotiations just really seem to miss important pieces sometimes. They become a fight between the owners and players who each benefit most from the current system, and a true, utilitarian common good solution (which is something like a salary floor and cap, with concessions around the team control period and a plan for escalating the cap as revenue rises) ends up totally lost. It doesn't seem that hard in the end. But I am sure it will be a painful negotiation process, and maybe we lose games.

Saw Murphy forego the traditional butt slap. He did look mad. Who could blame him?

Nice way to start the series. Going to need Priester to have a long start tomorrow. Maybe even Ashby to close, pending a roster move.

Now Megill has to throw strikes. Suzuki can't really hurt you.

Anyone else surprised not two from Hall? I guess they didn't want him against two righties and Happ.

I mean, serious question. Right now, the Brewers have around a 25% chance of getting the postseason bye per FG. Trading significant assets for Suarez or Neto or something maybe bumps that up to what? 30? 40? Obviously, that also improves your roster for the opening three-game series and probably bumps your overall postseason odds up from 93 to 96 or 98. But at the cost of a lot of future value. I'm not saying it's not a good thing to do. I think it's a hard call. But I think the likeliest outcome of this season is a WC series, even if it's as a division winner. Under those circumstances, I'm interested in deals like the Jansen one. I'm not really sure I want to give up the capital it's going to take to get Suarez.

Cubs playing with a lot of fire, definitely seems like they think they have something to prove. The optimist in me says this is how in their heads we. They have one good inning and feel like they've asserted their dominance.

When Chourio walks, you know you've entered strange territory. Of course, Contreras restores "order," at least in terms of how things have been lately.

I was pretty worried about Miz tonight. Easy to say now. Really, he's just gotta make that throw. Got out of it with 3, so hold them here and hope we grind as well as the Cubs did that inning. They put together good ABs.

Boyd is on a 23-inning scoreless streak. He's just been crazy awesome this year, especially over his last ten starts. Hasn't given up more than 2 runs in a game since late May, against the Reds at the very hitter-friendly GAB. Sits low 90s, but with a really good change-up. Obviously, this is a big series, but it's probably not as big as we think with the 5-gamer in August coming. Sure, if someone sweeps, okay. But any outcome other than that is probably not going to flip the odds around too much. I definitely think the pressure is more on the Cubs down the stretch, but Fangraphs has them about 60-40 favorites to win the division (the Reds still are being given a shot too, and have been playing awesome baseball), and that seems right to me. Either way, let's get back on a winning streak.

We didn't hit at all on Friday. We hit the minimum amount yesterday (and pitched poorly). Today, we haven't hit at all again, plus a little bad luck. Frustrating, but what are you going to do? This was definitely a "trap" series, but hopefully they can scrap one of those 5-hit innings and take it and then win a Cubs series. Functionally, there's a big emotional difference between winning today and not, but not much of an actual one, what with 8 games left against the Cubs a solid lead in the WC standings.

Yeah, the Marlins have been tough on us this year, winning the Miami series notwithstanding. This definitely feels like a big game. I'm just trying to balance myself out a little bit because I still the Cubs are the favorites in the division, and I expect it to be quite tough to win the division and get the bye. Obviously, I'd rather win the division than be a wild card team, but it doesn't matter TOO much if we're even the fifth or sixth seed versus the third. I think homefield is overrated and maybe even a pressure-adder, even though the revenue obviously helps.

Kind of half focused on the soccer game right now, but it really is hard to see how these Marlins don't have a few more wins. Seems like a very competitive roster.

105 EV with a 27 degree launch angle. That's pretty much how you want to hit it. Just the tiniest bit more carry needed.

Really poor start from Quintana doomed us tonight. We were going to have a dip here, obviously. Hope they get it right soon. These next four are really important.

Haven't had one to forget in a while. Flush it, and move on. Honestly more disappointed in the offense today. Struggled to get any good ABs all day.

There are lots of ways to define good. This team is obviously good. Very good. Just good in ways that are very unsexy and hard to see unless you're watching them pitch-by-pitch and inning-by-inning, and fewer and fewer people consume baseball (or any non-football sport) that way these days. As far as expectations for the rest of the year: The Cubs are the NL Central favorites (I've seen anything from -135 to -280). That seems right (though -280 seems absurd and totally like a play to balance out ridiculous amounts of public money). I think just schedule-wise, the Cubs are going to be really hard to beat over 63 games. I'd love to do it and grab a postseason bye, but I also want to be realistic. That said, there are benefits to being a WC team. Even if we haven't passed the Cubs over the last ten games, we've really widened our lead and solidified a comfortable playoff position. I am not ever going to underrate that. More than anything, I want to win a playoff series this year, whenever that is. The fan base deserves that. And this year's team has the whiff of magic about it, reminding me a lot of the 2019 Nationals in terms of a bad start and a super hot finish. Whatever happens, going to be fun. To end, a word on Pat Murphy: I don't think he's a great in-game manager still. He might be below average. But attitude-wise, teaching-wise, getting guys to believe-wise, you really couldn't ask for more. I was wrong about that hire. I thought it was very blah, very boring, and even a little bit of wishful thinking. Shows what I know. As early as May, I was like "this is why Pat Murphy can't hack it long term," but this team is just playing different than everyone else in baseball. It's hard to translate to stats, but you can ABSOLUTELY see it when you watch the games. I swear, when Perkins scored on that Mona hit, Murphy was asking him if he was running hard into home plate. They kind of laughed about it, and maybe I am just projecting something onto an incident I have no clue about it, but I loved it. Murph is so earnestly "old-school," or "rah-rah," or "team game" that it looks like he's coaching a college team. We all know that. We hate it sometimes. But it's working. Go Crew!!

Mark Loretta is one of my all-time favorite Brewers

Is this ride or die with Abner, or do you try to play matchup in the ninth?

Joey Ortiz is an out thief.

Playing matchup with the two lefties up.