The Dark Knightengale Rises

"For only the second time since July 26, there is not a single #MLB game already postponed because of COVID-19, and weather permitting, it would be the 1st time since opening weekend there will be a full slate of games."- Bob Nightengale on twitter. Folks our dastardly hero The Dark Knightengale has struck again. Just mere minutes after tweeting the report that no games were getting canceled, Astros-Mets was postponed because of a hurricane. As disappointing as missing baseball is, it's still quite a feat for the Dark Knightengale to consistently get these reports wrong as soon as possible. It's almost as if he's playing all of us, and enjoying a nice little laugh. He's not the hero we deserve, rather the hero we need. While he may be more Joker than Batman, it's important to understand that Bob Nightengale's reverse jinx is one of the strongest substances on earth. Many people talk about what happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object, and while science nerds have been debating it for centuries, I am here to tell you that the real answer is that Bob "The Dark Knightengale" Nightengale is both the immovable object and the unstoppable force. Whereas many reporters focus on the unimportant things, Bob-O focuses on getting it wrong so that we he can get it right. A man so immune to clowning that he actually prefers toying with us mere twitter morons from his castle on top of a mountain. He is the puppet master and baseball is the puppets. He is the only one with the power to save us with his reverse jinx, and I would like to shine a light in the sky to signal to our fearsome ally that the sport needs help. Please help us Dark Knightengale, you're our only hope.

Cubs Salvage My Sanity, Drop 2 of 3 to White Sox

I missed the Cards vs. Cubs recap. They won 3 of 5 against the Corona-Birds, there's your recap. Onto this weekends action. It's a well known fact the White Sox lineup is absolutely loaded with young and exciting talent, they have a really nice balance of good veteran bats and electric young talent up and down their lineup. That's what made this weekends crosstown series so interesting, the Chicago Cubs, while being the team that has underachieved the past couple of seasons, have successful executed a full on blow it up rebuild that resulted in them winning a World Series, get to take on the Chicago White Sox, who are entering year one of expecting to be competitive after a full tear it down rebuild. Obviously the storyline of sharing the city and who is king of the city and blah blah blah make this fun and intriguing. This is the first time since 2008 that both of these teams are legitimately competitive and that's what makes this so fun. Enough babbling, lets get into what happened.

GAME ONE - White Sox-10, Cubs-1

The Cubs had big dick Jon Lester starting for them and he started like the 58 year old accountant with the smallest package gym locker room instead. This was actually a pretty bad match up for Lester from the jump. It was a perfect storm of ugly for Jon as he tried to take on a Sox lineup that absolutely MASHES left handed pitching and he had a bad night hitting his spots (leaving a 90 MPH cutter over the heart of the plate to Luis fucking Robert is probably not going to work out), this resulting in him giving up 8 earned runs in just 3 2/3 innings of work, thats not great. This was really a beatdown from the jump as the Cubs never got into it with an offense that is sputtering as a whole, but especially against left handing pitching as they could get nothing going all night against Dallas Keuchel. They got their asses whooped by a good team, shit happens.

GAME TWO - White Sox-7, Cubs-4

This was a good matchup for the Cubs. They trotted out the calm and cool Kyle Hendricks and he was a professional as usual. He made a mistake and gave up a bomb to Luis Robert, gave up a few more weak knocks before the modern day Babe fucking Ruth, Jose Abreu, hit a his 3rd of 800 home runs for the weekend. and the Cubs could not get anything going offensively....... again. It actually felt like it couldn't get more infuriating but it someone did (more on that during the Sunday game). But not to bore you with the details but the bullpen shit the bed and the offense had a bunch of fake rallies and the Cubs lost 7-4. 

GAME THREE - Cubs-2, White Sox-1

This felt better. The Cubs had that bad bad man Yu Darvish on the bump to face the RED HOT White Sox and he was spectacular again. Yu went 7 Innings, gave up one run on a mistake pitch the the white hot Jose Abreu, but other than that was just about untouchable as he struck out 10 and gave up only 1 walk. As for how good Yu was, the offense was equally that bad. Now, before any Sox fans that read this chastise me, Dylan Cease has awesome stuff, and he's going to be an awesome pitcher, but he was all over the place. Fastballs down the gut, sliders hanging, he struggles with his location at times. And the fact the Cubs could only manage to squeak 2 runs out of this game was pathetic. They were able to get runners on 2nd and 3rd with 1 out in the 4th and load the bases with 0 (zero) outs in the 5th and scored exactly 0 runs both times. That's actually fucking embarrassing. It's like they just get up there with the bases loaded and just wanna fuck around and play tummy sticks. I mean holy fuck, I can only handle so much. Thankfully Kyle Schwarber saved the day with a 2 run shot before Craig Kimbrel and Jeremy Jeffress made us shit our pants for 2 innings.

The Cubs head to Detroit team that I know has some fun young arms, so naturally the Cubs probably won't be able to touch them. First pitch is 6:10 pm CST tomorrow night.

My Old Nemesis Curt Schilling Is In Deep Shit

 

My old nemesis Curt Schilling has recently been linked in connection with Steve Bannon's Build The Wall Group that got him arrested. I'm not a lawyer, I'm not a judge, I'm at best a common criminal with a penchant for petty theft. None of this super intense federal shit, so I'm not going to pretend like I understand any of it. 

I have a code, I only steal and nick stuff from big corporations and only when I'm especially bored or needing attention, but my old nemesis Curt Schilling is fucked. That stupid chudsky fucked up the second he made an eternal enemy out of me. Folks, Curt Schillings bloody sock is only the 3rd biggest fraud he's committed, along with bankrupting the literal state of Rhode Island and what appears to be federal fraud. I don't know, I'm not going to read the case or figure it out in any stretch of the imagination, but I will be vehemently rooting for Curt Schilling to end up in prison with a die hard Yankees fan that lost millions of dollars on the 2004 ALCS

This was tweeted about 2 weeks before Curt was fired from ESPN for being a racist douchebag. Many people have called me the puppet master. The man pulling the strings at ESPN, one of the most powerful influencers in sports media, and others have called me an Azz Clown (Sp). To me, I'm not a puppet master. I'm the hero twitter needs, but doesnt deserve. I'm the Dark Knight of Twitter, and Curt Schilling is my Joker. And like the Joker, I expect Curt to die of an overdose within 4 years. Fuck Curt Schilling and fuck his stupid face, I win. 

The Absolutely Heinous "Unwritten" Rules of Baseball

    

    All of the rules of the game of baseball are written already, in fact you can review them all in a 188 page PDF right here. However, the rest that is unwritten is not a bunch of bangers like Natasha Bedingfield's first studio album. If you have the time and the will power to sift through this monster of a rule book, you'll find the following "rules" not included:

No bunting to break up a no hitter.

No admiring or "pimping" home runs.

Do not steal bases if your team is up by 5+ runs

Pitchers do not call their fielders out for making errors

Do not swing on 3-0 if your team is up by a large margin.

    There are a few others that we are missing, but many of the unwritten rules have nothing to do with the actual game play, and more with common courtesy between batters/pitchers/innings etc. And I'll be honest, those unwritten rules I can deal with. 

    Yeah, you shouldn't stand in the batter's box while the pitcher is warming up. We in the biz just call that a "dick move" though. Also yes, when you're hit by a pitch, don't rub it. But that's more of an alpha move than an unwritten rule. There are some unwritten baseball rules that do make sense, but the ones that do are mostly just basic etiquette of the game.

    HOWEVER, I did not forgot about the literal shit list that I mentioned earlier. Obviously because that's what we're  here to  talk about. As a former college baseball player, and a player who both pitched and played the field, I am here to offer my opinion on why the "unwritten rules" of baseball are not only bullshit, but contradictory to the spirit and the fun behind actually  playing baseball. 

    So firstly let's address bunting during a no-hitter. I'll say this one is the most flawed from the start because it comes with so many caveats. Obviously if you're the leadoff hitter in a game, there's no hits on the board yet. But it's okay to bunt your way on base safely in the top of the first right? Then why is it such an issue with 1 out in the 7th when your team is trying to win the game the same way they were in the 1st inning? It doesn't make sense to me and the line where it is acceptable is different to every crotchety old man out there, so why are we making a big deal out of it? 

    The game that immediately comes to my mind when thinking about this rule is the no-hitter that the late Doc Halladay threw against the Reds in 2010. If we remember, Brandon Phillips tried to bunt his way on with 2 outs in the 9th inning, and the old men of baseball went into a frenzy. However none of this mattered because Carlos Ruiz was still able to throw him out in time to seal the no-no. 

    Unlike traditionalist baseball though, I'm cool with the bunt attempt with 2 outs in the 9th inning. I think the idiotic part of that was that he bunted with 2 strikes, but that's why he's paid millions of dollars a year to play baseball and I sit behind my keyboard and  write about it. It's not just this situation though, if it were a regular season game, a straight up  shutout, or a perfect game, I think baseball players should be doing everything they can to get on base. If the pitcher or catcher can't field a bunt, that is on them.

    Same thing goes for stealing when a team is up by a ton. If the pitcher is lazy to the plate and the catcher has a shit pop-time, then that is on them if a runner decides to take a base. Bases come at a huge premium in the MLB and I can tell you right now every speedster out there is looking to pass old Rickey (not that it will ever happen). 

    The only one on here that I semi-agree  with is the fact that pitchers shouldn't call out their fielders for making errors. The shortstop in me says that's right because the one pitcher who ever tried to call me out for making an error took a 102 exit velocity line drive off the jaw the very next pitch, so I don't want to fuck with baseball karma like that. On the other hand, people like Andrelton Simmons and Francisco Lindor are paid stupid amounts of money to do one thing and one thing only on a baseball field: play fucking defense. So if your guys aren't backing you up inning after inning, game after game, I'm totally on a pitcher's side if they want to collectively call out their infield. 

    Now this brings us to the two remaining unwritten rules: pimping home runs and swinging on a 3-0 count when your team is killing the opponent. We've seen one of these be the subject of a good amount of bench-clearing brawls in recent years; and the former is, of course, the subject of discussion surrounding Fernando "Future Face of Baseball" Tatis Jr., and the softer-than-baby-shit Texas Rangers.

    I'll address these one at a time because I feel like they are separate issues. So firstly let's talk about pimping home runs. I'm sorry, I may have missed something in the 18+ years I was playing the sport; but last  time I checked, baseball is a GAME. Also last I checked, games are  meant to be FUN. I could not give a smaller fuck about a pitcher whose feelings got hurt because someone celebrated hitting a 500ft tank shot off of them. 

    Baseball is meant to be fun, it is a game played for the entertainment of others and the fulfillment of those skilled enough to do so. I am a lowly technology consultant and you bet your ass I celebrate if I make a big sale and beat out a competitor. Why should it be different, do we really expect a bunch of the most elite athletes in the world, who are mostly between 22-30 years old, to not get excited when they excel at their job?! And nonetheless, a job that is also, in case I haven't mentioned it yet, a GAME. So next time your grandpa wants to complain about Bryce or Bregman standing in the box too long or flipping the absolute life out of their bat after dick slapping a 500ft bomb, tell grandpa he's the killer of joy and needs to lighten the fuck up. Also tell Papelbon to get good.

    So that brings us to  the issue of Fernando Tatis and the Texas Rangers. I think there's two very simple resolutions to this argument, and both have been mentioned before. The first is that this is a goddamn game. If Ian Gibaut is so embarrassed after giving up a granny down 10-3, I feel no sympathy. The fact of the matter is he and his team allowed  the bases to be loaded. He then threw 3 straight pitches outside the strike zone. Which side note, is really fucking hard to do, especially as a guy whose job it is to come in, throw strikes, and get the game over with. Then, with the bases loaded, down 3-0 in the count and 10-3 overall in the game, Gibaut throws a knee-high 92 MPH baby cutter that looked like a high school pitch minus the velocity. Of course Tatis spanked that fucker like a red headed step child.

    My last issue with this is the Ranger's base coach calling out Tatis for it. Chris Woodward had no issues being on the other side of the same situations. He celebrated with Corey Seager a couple years ago in almost the exact same scenario. All of this to get an apology from Tatis. AN APOLOGY? Imagine being so good at your job, that you end up having to apologize to the team your just embarrassed because they couldn't deal with their own inferiority. 

    Absolutely pitiful showing by the Rangers. To not only get  beat 14-3, but to then bitch and moan about the best young player in the game putting your team on blast, that's a new low. Texas Rangers, get fucking good.

    The unwritten rules of baseball remain unwritten for one reason: they are bullshit. They are some arbitrary way for old men to measure a baseball player's acumen of the game, and they are a crutch for purist to lean on when they don't like how fucking cool of a game baseball is becoming.

The only unwritten rule that should remain is:

DO NOT EVER TALK ABOUT A NO HITTER.

    That's my two cents, let me know what you think in the comments. Any grievances or Rangers-esque bitching can be directed to: harrisonhilman78@gmail.com

Bless,

Theo Mills

Cheap, Bullshit Detroit Tigers Announce Plan To Stop Being Shitty

 

Big day for hopeless Tiger fans everywhere. Many fans, including myself, thought that the glory days of getting swept in the playoffs with Cy Young Award Winners David Price, Justin Verlander, Max Scherzer and Anibal Sanchez with Triple Crown Winner Miguel Cabrera and Nick Castellanos, JD Martinez, Ian Kinsler, Torii Hunter, and Victor Martinez in the line up were over. The former first place Tigers are on the outside looking in on their playoff hunt this year, and recently decided to call up future Super stars Casey Mize, Tarik Skubal and Isaac Paredes. 

This is an encouraging sign for a dogshit team to call up their best prospects, because as everyone that's ever played MLB The Show for 13 hours at a time to avoid coming to terms with their parents impending marital separation could tell you, starting the service time clock gets way more expensive. The Tigers have finally decided to return to the glory days of disappointment, World Series losses, and embarrassing sweeps with loaded rosters. No longer will we go 48-114 as the kids are going to be alright. 

Considering how bad the Tigers pitchers have been, their starting pitchers ERA is well above 9 runs, Mize and Skubal will both be monster wins even if they bring total mediocrity. Big Cock Casey Mize and Tarik The Freak have ace starting pitching stuff, and Isaac Paredes is going to be a stud. I personally haven't watched any of them, but I've played the Show a ton, and I'm excited to pretend like I know what's going on. Let's fucking go. 

This Absolute Legend Is Back On His Bullshit:

 

    Take a good long look at the picture. This man is our new overlord, and a champion of reasonable men everywhere. This absolute legend's name is Elliot Shorr-Parks and folks, I guess we should start calling him Elliot Whore-Barks, because he's got women barking in pleasure after he lays down that A1 hog game on them. This is the face of a man that would cuck you with your girlfriend, and there's nothing you can do about it. But that's besides the point, yesterday ESP tweeted that: 

 "I could maybe score a touchdown. I could luck into a home run. I could probably get two points in an NBA game. I could play hundreds of games of hockey and never, ever score a goal. It looks impossible."

    This is the time of things I would say in the middle of a Bipolar break from reality. In between feverishly researching the clearcut links between the small business owner that declined my month expired coupon for $1 off a sandwich and Jeffrey Epstein, and forgetting that my toilet is clogged before shitting in it, I would also probably say a similar thing as ESP. 

There seems to be a running trend of people thinking they're more athletic and more talented than they are. The average person could maybe, and I say MAYBE get a base hit off of a major league pitcher. Over 162 games and an average of 4 at bats a game, I think that enough people could time it up well enough by game 90-95 to throw their bat across the strike zone to put a tiny little single over the 2nd baseman. But no one, especially not the Notorious ESP could actually expect to put enough of a whack on a journeyman relievers slider to hit it 350 feet over the fence. There's no chance of the home run, but I respect the effort.

Next, I don't believe he could score a touchdown either. ESP probably thinks that he could punch in a 1 yard touchdown out of a goal line set, because he'd never get off the line against any NFL Corner. Regardless, I think that he'd probably get mashed into a pile of dust by a blitzing Khalil Mack, and he'd be out of the game with a broken neck pretty soon. People forget how strong NFL players are, and even from the one, this little slut isn't reaching pay dirt.

Lastly we have the NBA. ESP thinks he can get a bucket, and I don't hate the optimism. 82 games, all he has to do is be left open enough once for the ball to go through the basket. But so much of the NBA is about getting open, and even the laziest of defenders are going to be locking up ESP. You can almost guarantee that he's not getting the ball, so if you lock him down, you get to spend less energy on defense. Even if he did get the ball, the shot is getting blocked before it even releases out of his hand. No chance our 5'7 manlet is getting the ball over Brandon Clarke's outstretched arms, much less Giannis or Anthony Davis coming to close out. I guess if you gave him 10 open 3's a game, he may make 1 or 2 in a season.

I would actually say the NHL is the easiest to score a goal in, because if he gets knocked unconscious, it's easier for his NHL teammates to bank in an empty netter off of the size of this lads forehead. Corralling it against the boards? Nah, throw it off this asshole's landing strip of a forehead and call it a day.

Sorry Elliot, you may be the big swinging dick of beat writing twitter, you may be up to your neck in hot snatch, and you may be cucking me, but you will NEVER be an athletic success in any major sports league. You dumb bitch.

Cubs get Nighengaled, Drop 3 of 4 vs. Milwaukee Brewers, Cubs vs. Cards Preview

I just wanna get one thing off the ground here, I fucking hate the Milwaukee Brewers. No fanbase has acted so high and mighty over the better part of three seasons without winning shit than the Brewers, expect probably Yankees fans. Cardinals fans are right up there too but they just remind me of an old guy that sits around and bitches about iPhones and talks about the good ole days. Maybe I'm a salty bitch because they actually have literally been better than the Cubs the past of couple of seasons, maybe I'm just pissed that outside of Christian Yelich they're a team of replacement level to slightly above replacement level players that seem to have big, fluky years then drop off the face of the planet Earth, looking at you Eric Thames and Jesus Aguilar. Whatever.

The Cubs came into the weekend with the best rotation in baseball and coming off a series in which they scored 14 runs in 2 games against an Indians club that hadn't given up 4 runs in a game all year up to that point. Then this happen.

The #Cubs (12-3) running away with the NL Central with 5 1/2 game lead. They have an .800 winning percentage. No one in #MLB even has .700 winning percentage. Magic Number: 39

— Bob Nightengale (@BNightengale) August 13, 2020

This may actually the worst thing to happen to the Cubs in 2020, they got fucking Nightengaled. I went from being pissed about bad ABs and Willson Contreras all of a sudden forgetting how to lay off a breaking ball to getting furiously red with rage when I saw this reappear on my timeline Sunday. It's just poetic how Bob tweets this and the Cubs are 1-3 since and have lost 3 straight by one run.

I feel better now that I got to vent. It's baseball, it's a game that makes you want to pull your hair out. If you would've told me in Mid-July that the Cubs would be 13-6 at this point in the year I would have been through the roof. Time to pack it up and move onto to the next series. Circling back to the Cardinals, they come to town for 5 games in three days at Wrigley. I guess the Cubs will be visitors for a couple of them as they are trying to make up the fuck ton of games since their irresponsible escapades that put the whole team on the Corona IL.  Nothing would make me feel better after this weekend than taking at least 4 of these 5 games from the Cards and that starts with taking 2 games today starting at 4:15 local time. Kyle Hendricks, dragged his 88 mph tossing balls all over the Cards in 2019, starts game 1 and after that we have no fucking clue who throws the rest of the games for the Cubs and neither do they. 

Seems fitting for 2020, "fuck it, we'll figure it out.

Go Cubs... Cards Suck

Heyward, Rizzo's Chains Carry the Cubs to a Two Game Sweep in Cleveland

The Cubs returned to Cleveland to take on the Indians on a Tuesday and Wednesday night for the first time since... you guessed it, April of 2018 when they split a two game series with the Tribe. Not what you were thinking? Whatever, here's what happened

GAME ONE

Game one we saw Jon Lester do what Jon Lester does and the offense carried by none other than... *checks notes*... Jason Heyward??? Yes idiot Jason Heyward. The Cubs used a big 6th inning to scratch across 5 runs and sparked by a big 3 run yabo by J-Hey. It would be smooth sailing after that. The teams best offensive player Ian Happ added a couple knock and an RBI. Who gave up on this guy after 2018? Couldn't be me, he's unreal and it makes me and many other Cubs fans very glad we will now RARELY get a start from Albert Almora ever again. The Bullpen threw 3 clean innings with Tepera looking solid again and Colin Rea coming in for the last couple of innings. Rea looked sharp, if the Cubs can get some productive innings out of him in this condensed here that would be a massive help to a struggling bullpen. Rea has been a starter in the MLB and was solid before injuries derailed his career. Remember when he got traded to the Marlins for a game, got hurt, and then sent back to the Padres? That was weird. Cubs win 7-1

GAME TWO

Holy Fuck Anthony Rizzo comes out rocking bike chains that would make Rick Ross proud. I mean talk about the Italian Stallion, one of the most obnoxious chains I've seen on the Diamond in a while; and it gave him the power to rope one right over the right field fence to get the scoring going in the first inning. Kyle Hendricks did what he does best, worked quickly and efficiently while throwing a whopping 88 mph. Speaking of The Professor, the Cubs got another Solid outing out of him. 6 sharp innings only giving up one and only getting himself into a bit of a jam in the 5th but working out of it only giving up the one run then. The Cubs got another couple of RBI's from Jason Heyward this game and somehow is the teams RBI machine. Bote added a 2 RBI single as well to add some runs in a crooked 5th inning in which the Cubs plated 3. Oh yeah, KB is good too. He's gotten off to a bit of a slow start but has put together a bunch of good ABs and today drove one WAY out of yard to get in a nice groove. They would go on to get a crun across in both the 8th and 9th inning for insurance and the bullpen gives up one run in 3 innings of work and YOUR Chicago Cubs improves to 12-3 with a 7-2 victory over the Cleveland Indians.

Overall two very well played ballgames in Cleveland after four days off. Onto the Brewers for four games at Wrigley where they can really put a strong grip on the rest of the NL Central this weekend.

Cubs Update (8/10): This Team Is Good

 Goooooood morning,

The Chicago Cubs are good at baseball. After disappointing ends to the previous two seasons of Cubs baseball, that resulted in losing a game 163 at home for the division title then losing the wild card game at home in 2018 and then the team all together missing the postseason last year and somehow winning 2 less games than Mickey Calloway's Mets. The team elected to move on from future Hall of Fame manager Joe Maddon and brought in a man that will melt the heart of every single mom in the north suburban Chicagoland Area. That brings this bad boy to the first part of this recap... the good.

THE GOOD

The Culture: Not to go total dumb meatball fan, but it does feel like the culture around this team has changed. In this very fucked up COVID year where these teams are playing in front of no people, this Cubs team shows up every day like that travel team that annoys you to no end but comes out like they're all on steroids and mercy rules you 22-0 in 5 innings and before you can even get you're second AB in you're on your way home with a Reese's Cup Blizzard dripping on your jersey. David Ross is the largest reason for this shift in culture; but the buy in from the player, especially the captain Anthony Rizzo, has to be recognized. These guys have talked a lot about their disappointments the past couple of years and so far they're playing like they meant that.

The Starting Rotation: These guys are pitching their their absolute dicks off. The tone was set opening day when the most underrated pitcher in the league came out and dragged his 88 mph throwing nuts all over the Milwaukee Brewers with a complete game, 3 hit shutout. Yu Darvish struggled a bit in his first start but since then has looked like the guy we saw in the 2nd half of last year. Jon Lester has been Jon Lester, no surprises. Now for the 2 very pleasant surprises, Tyler Chatwood and Alec Mills. Mills has been awesome. He's similar to Hendricks in that he does not throw with a ton of velocity and mixes in a big slow curveball and a disgusting change to compliment his 90 mph fastball. He looks like he could be your Family's accountant but then comes out and goes 6 scoreless before he heads home for his strict 10 pm bedtime to be up to balance the books by 8:00 am. As for Chatwood, he's pitching like a guy who's fighting for an opportunity to be a big league pitcher again after this season. He has been bad as a Cubs' starter in his time here, and was okay as a relief pitcher this year. But this year he looks like a new pitcher. The biggest reason for this change is his command. Tyler Chatwood has always had the 2nd best "stuff" on the pitching staff, bullpens included. The ball jumps from his hand and bounces all over the place. This year his BB% is down tremendously and his K% is up a ton as well. Even with him getting his tits blown off in Kansas City the last time out, his xFIP is still down at 2.40 which is good enough for 10th in all of baseball. He probably cannot keep up this pace but they are encouraging signs nonetheless.

The Offense: Long story short, these guys showed up this year. Circling back to David Ross again, one stark difference we've seen from Joe Maddon to him is lineup consistency. David Ross has had the same 1-5 of Bryant, Rizzo, Baez, Schwarber, and Contreras. The most lineup flopping he does in the 1 through 5 is flipping Willson and Schwarber. Rossy is making sure his 5 best hitters will get the most PAs on the team, no more of Albert Almora as the Lead-Off hitter. This team ranks top 10 in just about every major offensive category and thats probably where they should be and settle in for the duration of this year.

Ian Happ: He's been so awesome he deserves his own category. He has been the best offensive player on the Cubs this year. After being optioned to AAA last year to begin the year, he came up towards the end of July and played like his hair was on fire. He was one of the best offensive players down the stretch for the Cubs and that has continued this year. He is the Center Fielder and the fact I will rarely ever have to see Albert Almora starting again makes me happy.

THE BAD

Albert Almora: He stinks. The fact Nico Hoerner got a recent start in center over him vs.  a lefty should speak volumes about what David Ross thinks of him at this moment in time.

THE UGLY

The Bullpen: Ohhhhhh boy are they fucking bad some would say, ugly. They are up there with the worst bullpen ERAs in the game. It's a bullpen made up of a very expensive closer who is just been straight up terrible, and then a bunch of random guys that you've never heard of. Rowan Wick has been good after a strong year last year and Jeremy Jeffress has been a pleasant surprise (although his diminished velocity could give cause for concern further down the road). Other than that, it's a bullpen made up of old average veterans that have been as average as ever for forever, and a bunch of young guys that can't seem to figure it out (looking at you Dillon Maples). It's bad. The COVID year also makes it hard to want to deal for big time arm because the season could literally be closed down any day, it's just going to be extremely difficult find value at the trade deadline. Maybe you can grab a rental vet for cash or perhaps make a move for a controllable arm. It's a hard spot but what we know is this group of guys currently just is not getting it done. Despite this, they're still 10-3.

There it is, my (not so) in-depth look at the Chicago Cubs so far in 2020. The Cleveland Indians are on deck Tuesday in what will be the Cubs first game since Thursday since that dumb organization in St. Louis can't get a handle on protocols to make a year happen. Hopefully Zach Plesac got sent home in enough time to not spread COVID around before the Cubs get there.

Six Years Ago Today Anthony Rizzo Officially Ended the Cubs Rebuild

People will look back through the Cubs rebuild at moves like trading for Jake Arrieta, Pedro Strop, Miggy Montero, signing Jon Lester, etc. But one moment that does not get talked about enough as a turning point for this era of Cubs baseball is this right here.

6 Years ago today, Anthony Rizzo became the Captain of the Chicago Cubs. #ObviousShirts @ARizzo44 @cubs pic.twitter.com/DAXyigxC57

— OBVIOUS SHIRTS® (@obvious_shirts) July 10, 2020

Anthony Rizzo decided six years ago today that the Cubs were #DONE rebuilding and he was the captain of this squad. He decided the days of being the NL Centrals punching bag were done. Get a look at the full exchange below. 

For those of you with too short of attention span for a 4 minute and 24 second long video I'll summarize shortly. Aroldis Chapman, notable scumbag and hard thrower of baseballs, sails a fastball right around the noggin of Cubs rebuild legend Nate Schierholtz. Look that's not a huge deal, shit happens in the game, but the problem is the very next pitch he did the same thing again. Again, shit happens in the game, but fuck me thats 100+ flying right at your lid; literally fast enough to kill a man. The Cubs dugout was rightfully on edge and upset after the second pitch up and Chapman made sure he let them know when he eventually K'ed Schierholtz later in the AB. Anthony Rizzo, the captain, took exception to that when the Cubs went back out to play defense and a good old fashioned brouhaha ensued.

The Cubs lost a lot of baseball games from 2010 through 2014, 464 to be exact compared to only 346 wins, it was ugly. But on this date in 2014, Anthony Rizzo said were done being pussies and were turning this thing around. Up until that point in 2014 the Cubs were 38-52 and in last place in the division (again), but from that point on the Cubs finished the 2014 campaign 35-37, with a team that started Junior Lake every day. This was the Declaration of We Don't Wanna Suck Anymore. Then in 2015 it's been full steam ahead ever since. All thanks to my captain on this very important and under appreciated day in Cubs history.

5 Rule Changes that can Bring the Fans Back to MLB

It's been known for a few days that baseball finally returning after a long and painstaking negotiation process that would make the Michael Scott Paper Company proud. With players set to return to camp July 1st and games set to resume in late July, baseball is moving quickly to a restart. I was about -3 years old in 1994 when the players went on strike so I don't truly understand the magnitude of what happened then; but what I do know is baseball lost a shit ton of fans and were really reeling until Sammy Sosa saved baseball. It looked as if baseball staring down the same barrel of the same gun again in terms of losing fans, and it appears they still may have lost some in this utterly ridiculous negotiation process, that's where I come in. 

Mr. Manfred I'm here to help out this great game we all love so much, I have five proposed rule changes that could bring the old fans back and grow the game to levels we haven't seen since sac bunting was cool.

1. Three words, trampoline pitchers mound. None of this little bump in the middle of the diamond shit anymore. Pitchers now get to wear gym shoes and run out to the bump to pitch from the trampoline. Imagine all the cool flips and shit we would get to see pitcher do to get the ball out. Upside down curveballs, rising splitters, I mean come on who wouldn't want to see that?

2. Aluminum bats; and I'm not talking the BBCOR shit they have now either. We're busting out the old DeMarini Voodoo drop 7's. If they pitchers get the advantage of being able to do flips and throw backwards curveballs, hitters get to hit the ball a country mile if they get a hold of one. There won't be the risk of hurting fans since they won't be allowed at the games anyways. It'd be even better with cardboard cutouts. Imagine Pete Alonso ripping a ball foul and just demolishing a cardboard cutout down the left field line, how fun is that? More cool pitches and 700 ft. dingers is a strong start to bringing this sport back from the dead.

3. What do Americans love more than big macs and freedom? Violence, that's why I'll be implementing kick ball style outs. Think you'll have a better shot getting the baserunner out by drilling him with the ball rather than the old fashioned way, whip that thing right at him, below the noggin of course. This could also become a strong outlet for anger as it allows position players a chance to unload on the opponent, with benches clearing brawls strictly prohibited due to social distancing measures, this could be the best way to unload some pent up testosterone.

4. Allow steroid. Please. Please just let these guys get all pumped up with the good stuff. Steroids + Aluminum bats = DONG SHOW. That's why people pay the money to get in. Gate price is solely based on dingers. We don't pay to see singles, We pay for the yabos. The steroid era saved baseball once before, it's looking more and more like we're gonna need the steroid era 2.0 to bring it all back again.

5. Everyone thinks they can get the job done better than literal professional athletes, lets give them an opportunity to show it. The final rule change will allow for fans can enter a raffle to have the opportunity to play in a real life MLB game. Once every 5 games a fan has to come in and pitch (off the trampoline) to at least 3 batters, of course to adhere to the newly implemented 3 batter minimum rule. The opposing team will have to have a fan then take an at bat and play an inning of defense every 5 games as well. Not only does this allow for fans to have a once in a lifetime opportunity to get embarrassed by professional athletes on a live stage, it will allow for the managers to bring some strategy back to the game. Managers will have to think about when to trot out 5'6 290 pound JimBob from facebook to get in his 3 batters of work. Get this one rolling Manfred.

Hey Rob, if you see this, I'll accept direct deposit.