A little love in the Bullpen, Schwarber’s decisions, Miller’s debut and other Cubs balls

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Is there a reason it’s a really bad idea to use two coffee pods? Like I do two in quick succession? Obviously the second coffee isn’t so much coffee as brown water, but it gives my brain something more to THINK I’m drinking coffee while I write.

• Jose Quintana has up to four innings (yesterday’s simulation game at South Bend), and Theo Epstein told ESPN 1000 yesterday that it would have been ideal if he returned this week, given the other disruption in rotation and doubles. That doesn’t appear to be in the plans for Wednesday, however. We know Yu Darvish will start tonight and Alec Mills will win one of the doubles matches tomorrow. Who starts the other is probably a question of whether Adbert Alzolay is ready to go (he took a forearm comebacker, which is apparently why Tyson Miller started last night instead of Alzolay). It might just end a pen game, with Colin Rea once again making the ‘start’.

• Pulling three up his work sleeve last night, Ryan Tepera threw his 88mph cutter and 83mph slider 14 times (I’m grouping them together, because they both have that nasty move). Of these 14 locations, the Cardinals have swung 7 times. They sniffed all 7 times. He now has a K rate of 42.4% for the year.

• I always love to hear this from David Ross, who had advocated keeping Dillon Maples in the day one enclosure above Tepera (via The Athletic):

“I don’t have all the answers,” Ross said. “There is something very powerful about a player who tries to prove the opposite to the manager. There is also an advantage to this. It’s not the angle I was taking, but there are those angles with the players, and the guys getting a chip on the shoulder. As we have seen, (some) guys get sent off and come back better.

“Tep and I had several discussions about his fall. He was as professional as he could get, and a guy with a lot of experience in a really tough division in a different league. I made my choice and I’m fine to admit like, ‘Hey, I made a mistake. I was wrong.’ And I’m glad he’s here to help us.

• Thanks to Jeremy Jeffress, by the way, for making this final round a super fast and super weak seven-pitched conclusion. I couldn’t take any drama after the Bote explosion.

(Photo by Nuccio DiNuzzo / Getty Images)

• Tyson Miller’s debut probably didn’t go as well as he hoped, but on a fundamental level, it must be cool to say you did it for the big leagues:

• Obviously, Miller struggled with his position (10% of his throws were in the middle and he also walked three), gave up rockets that found gloves, took none out and did well. sure abandoned the two-point circuit. There’s no need to wrap a replacement drive like this: the results were bad.

• BUT! You could see the bones in his performance for a future big league. As Bryan had anticipated, the four-knife (with a bit of cutting) at 94+, combined with a good slider, has the makings of at least a future intermediate high-low lifter (which is not a review! The best organizations have a lot of these guys, and get a lot of valuable innings). Whether it can be more than relieved depends on whether these slots play after a conversion. Whether he can be a major league starter depends on improving the control and processing of the curveball and / or changing actual weapons. The slider is already pretty clearly a big league caliber pitch, but we know it takes more than that.

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• Kyle Schwarber made some questionable decisions last night – trying to score from second base on a passed ball and trying to bunt for a hit in a 0-2 count – which didn’t work for him . Looking at the past ball game again, I really don’t hate the attempt. He caught the Cardinals off guard when the ball slipped, pressured them to play, and he was still only about three inches from scoring:

• When Schwarber made the decision to leave, it seemed Andrew Knizer had no idea where the ball was. Like, that exact moment. And then Knizer found the bullet immediately. I really don’t hate Schwarber’s decision the more I watch her.

• As for the 0-2 decay attempt, well, I hated it. It was like dropping the staff in a critical spot (I hated Ian Happ’s next decay at least as much). But Schwarber’s manager defended the decision (Cubs.com): “I’m okay with that. I encourage players to think outside the box and do things when they don’t feel comfortable. I think if you look at the two swings before, I don’t think he could see this guy’s ball very well. So he tried to think outside the box and help his team. It’s enough. I don’t agree with the decision, but I’m not in arms about it, according to Ross’s explanation.

• The Cubs’ defense continues to shine this year:

• Hope Starlin Castro’s wrist heals quickly and well, but until then it’s fun:

• I laughed:

• A very beautiful thing:



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