I know this is odd, but I keep watching the Giants and hoping they remain comfortably ahead of us. I want the Dodgers to play in that WC game with a chance to lose a 50/50 game. That and give me the East winner in the divisional round over the WC winner. I'll take that path any day and have to play one more road game in the NLCS rather than win the 1 seed and possibly have to get through 2 West teams.
We're collectively kind of talking in circles here. It's a nice comfortable lead. If we play decent baseball for the next 6-7 weeks we'll still be at the top in October. I think we can all agree on that. Now if I were the Padres, my concern would probably be a little more immediate.
Let Ashby leave feeling good about himself and get some work for Williams and Boxberger, who haven’t pitched for a few days, and Hader who is returning from his Covid break with only 1 mop up inning. Is it still a requirement in a 7 inning game for the starter to go 5 innings to get the win?
I think it's too early to make any assessment about his career for sure, but he was always drafted to be a project and I don't think he was ever a guy who was going to be ready to go a year into development like Mahomes. I don't think the Packers think he is there yet either. They've essentially said so themselves.
He'll will probably be better than some of what we've trotted out the last few days but he's got no place on the team when people are healthy. I don't get the hype either. He's thrown like 20 innings total over the last 2 years, we really have no idea what he is. How is that any different than Cousins? Why does Cousins deserve a spot but Topa doesn't? Because recency and sample size matter. Topa had 7+ innings of really good pitching last season, Cousins has 15+ of great pitching this season. Of course recent performance matters when making roster decisions as it does for any other position too.
He also has an xFIP of 4.02 and an ERA+ of 118, both which would be above average. I guess if you want to use whatever subjective statistical measurement makes him look worse you can make him look below average, but he's been fine. He's asked to be a bottom of the rotation pitcher. He's not expected to be our ace.
Eh, Anderson has been fine. Good, even. Peralta, Burnes, and Woodruff have been fantastic. His FIP is 4.5. Yes, thank you. This more or less supports what I said. Anderson has been fine.