CUBS POSTCAST: The Chicago Cubs are just playing BAD BASEBALL and lose to the Milwaukee Brewers 9-3

CUBS POSTCAST: The Chicago Cubs are just playing BAD BASEBALL and lose to the Milwaukee Brewers 9-3

[Music] This is the Cubs post, your instant game reaction for the Chicago Cubs, part of the Locked On podcast network, your team every day. What’s up everybody? Welcome in to the Locked On Cubs post here on the Locked On Cubs YouTube channel. Joe George here with you on all social media platforms at Joe George radio and the Cubs lose 9 to3. There’s no way to sugarcoat this one. Uh the Cubs are playing bad baseball. This was an awful performance from this team pretty much from top to bottom excluding Nicoer. Um and yeah, he got charged with an error. It was 107 miles off the bat. Like he gets a pass on that one play because he’s the only guy who’s pretty much doing anything offensively. So we’re going to walk through this game, all of the bad stuff that happened. um the reality of the stuff that is happening right now with this team that does not fix does not get fixed at the trade deadline and it starts with Michael Bush say Suzuki and Kyle Tucker. We’re going to talk about them and honestly tomorrow’s a must-win game. Like I know it’s not like a must mustwin game because it’s not playoffs or go home but you got to win tomorrow. three games back versus one game back in the division. With the way the Brewers are playing, it feels like it is a swing moment in potentially in the series or the season tomorrow for the Cubs with Shota Imanaga on the mouse. Look, this game was terrible. Colin Ray, we’ll start there. He wasn’t good. He hasn’t been good. Now, this part they can fix at the deadline potentially. They can add starting pitching. They can add to this team. They can get better pitching performances. Matthew Boyd gets a pass obviously for yesterday’s game. He wasn’t good, but he had 23 straight scoreless inning streak going. Show was terrible in his last start. He had a big bounceback performance from Shota to Ianaga tomorrow for sure. That’s very important. But Colin Ray was not good in this game. He was getting up a ton of base hits, ton of hard contact. The bullpin wasn’t any better. Ryan Presley not good again. You kind of seen like the reality of Ryan Presley has fallen back down to earth tomorrow. me throughout this season. Uh he’s had some positive moments, but like for the most part, Ryan Presley hasn’t been great. And look, the Cubs DFA Chris Flexon before the game. Wouldn’t shock me if we see another move coming here in the coming days here around the deadline of guys that are in the bullpen right now that they don’t trust. Like Chris Flexon had been really good for a while, started to unravel, and it showed that like they don’t trust him and that’s why they moved on from him pretty quickly. Uh you guys are welcome here in the chat on YouTube here also on all social media platforms at Joe George radio if you’re watching or if you’re listening later on Apple Spotify podcast. Um yeah Pomerance Eric says here in the chat Pomerance was shaky too. Yeah for sure Pomerance was has been I would say shaky is is a great way to describe him in this recent stretch. He has been um not been great either in the bullpen like it was a strength but it’s now become a huge weakness for this team. So yes, the pitching was not good in this game, but at the end of the day, while they gave up nine runs in this one, so I guess you can fully blame it on them. This is also the second game this season where the Cubs had three errors. Yeah, one of them’s on Nico. Disagree with it. 107 miles off the bat. And obviously some home cooking going on for the Brewers in this one, but three errors. Only the second time again they’ve done that this entire season. So your pitching was bad, your fielding was bad, which is a strength of yours. PCA, I mean, that play is awful. it. He’s running around. He’s lost out there and then the ball hits right off his glove. That is a just a terrible play. It’s It rains, it pours. And that’s a moment of that where you have two guys who are goal glovers. And they both have errors in this game again. PCA is way worse than Nicoers, but three errors in the game. So, your pitching is bad in this game. Your fielding is bad. and then the lineup. And we’ll get after this, we’ll talk more about the three guys who are a black hole, who are supposed to be three of the best players on your team. But looking through this game today, top of the second inning here, okay, Nicoer, hard hit ball, forces what should have been an error. He’s credited for a hit. So, it’s first and second with no outs in the top of the second inning. The Cubs get one run. Ian Haphel’s choice advances PCA. Uh Dansby Fielder’s choice gets PCA home. So you do nothing. Reese Maguire in that same inning gets a single first and third with two outs. A Matt Shaw broken bat ground out in the inning is over. So there’s two prime opportunities in that inning for multiple guys actually. So it’s more than two and they fail to come through. Top of the fourth inning, PCA single. Nico her single off the pitcher’s glove. First and second with no outs. Ian Hap grounder. So you get and he it bobbles this. The second baseman bobbles it. So you got second and third with one out. Danby Swanson 10 pitch at bat. He’s battling. He’s going at it. He swings at a fast ball that’s in the other box. It’s one of the worst swings of the season that we’ve seen. So Danby Swanson awful in that moment after a really good at bat just doesn’t come through at all. Reese Maguire chops it. Uh probably should have been a foul ball. Yep. But like we’re not going to focus on it too much because you can’t challenge it. It’s a stupid rule. You should either be able to challenge everything or nothing. I’ve said that about sports for a while, but you can’t challenge it. It’s ruled the foul ball. He’s out and the inning is over. So in the second and the fourth inning, prime opportunities to score, they don’t do it. Top of the fifth, Matt Shaw leadoff double. They do nothing with it. Ty Tucker walked to make it first and third with one out. Save Suzuki. Double play. Inning over. Then in the top of the sixth inning, Nicoer hits a home run. His fourth of the season. It’s five to2 Brewers. The game is within striking distance. Ian Hap doubles. Danby Swanson singles first and third with one out. Reese McGuire strikes out. Matt Shaw pops up to the second baseman. Inning over again in the top of the seventh inning. Kyle Tucker walk say Suzuki double. Second and third with one out. A uh a sack fly from PCA makes it nine to three and a Nicoer flyyou inning is over. multiple opportunities for the lineup to score more than nine runs in this game. They could have done it. They could have they had a chance to win this game with all the runs the pitching staff gave up. All those runners left on base and they just do nothing with it. The the guy the the guys are not coming through with runners in scoring position. It starts at the top. It goes down to the bottom. like besides Matt Shaw, besides Nicoer for the most part, they’re not coming through when it matters most. And now the Cubs are two games back in the Central and they’re just playing, again, they’re playing bad baseball. There’s no other way to cut it. They are not playing to the standard that they should be, to the standard that their GM just got extended for, uh, to what their expectations should have been. And then we talk about the other guys and we’ll talk about the rest of the game and everything and take your comments in the in the second half of the show. But now we got to talk about the stuff that the deadline can’t fix. Okay. You can acquire a third baseman. You can you can you can acquire Suarez. Sounds like the the fast ball he took off the finger wasn’t that bad. Sounds like he was fine. Um you can you can do that. You can add a third baseman to this team. You can add starting pitching to this team. You can add bullpen help to this team. All those things can happen. It doesn’t fix what’s been happening since the All-Star break, and that is that Michael Bush, Sea Suzuki, and Kod Tucker have 18 hits combined and a total of eight RBI’s. Since the All-Star break, Michael Bush 6 for 37 with one RBI. Sea Suzuki 6 for 41 with four RBI’s. Kyle Tucker 6 for 31 with three RBI’s. 18 hits between those guys since the All-Star break. Terrible, terrible, terrible baseball from them. They’re not producing in the way that you need them to. This isn’t about World Series or bust or playoffs or bust. It is just those three guys are supposed to be the three best hitters in your lineup and all three of them are terrible at the exact same time. And look, Kyle Tucker, he’s getting on base with the walks, but to be honest, there are things that there are pitches that Kyle Tucker is getting in those at bats in which he’s walking that he should be doing damage with. Like, they’re gloating about this on base streak. Like, I don’t care about um where he has 18 hits or whatever in 18 games. He’s on base a bunch. That’s great. But Kyle Tucker needs to make contact. Again, I said this the other day. I’ve been watching Kyle Tucker since he came up in Houston. I work at ESPN in Houston. Um, as well, obviously, I’m a Cubs fan. I’m from Chicago, but this is the worst baseball he’s played since he came up as a rookie. He hasn’t been good. Um, and Michael Bush has been equally as bad. And Sea Suzuki is just lost. Like, he he’s lost at the plate. I mean, and the other day when he’s just staring at strikeout after strikeout after strikeout and he just you can see the frustration because it’s just like it feels like he doesn’t know what’s going on at the plate, whatever it is. All three guys just absolutely abysmal. So, yeah, the Cubs can make a big trade in the next 48 hours, but it doesn’t fix that problem. And until that problem gets fixed, the Cubs are going to fall down the standings in the Central. Uh, I have this Google doc that I use to take notes during the game and keep track of the standings. And I had to put the wild card standings on there today because that’s what it feels like where this is going where like it it feels like we’re headed towards watching wild card standings versus watching NL Central standings because the lineup can’t produce. The pitching isn’t good enough. And again, you can add pitching, but the lineup has to back them up that when they like Michael Matthew Boyd is allowed to have a bad day on the mound. You don’t you got to pick them up and and they just don’t do that. You have to be able to pick them up. Um and until they add pitching and until those guys get going again, the Cubs are they’re they’re teetering. It feels like like I’m there. I’m there now. or they’re teetering on where this season is going to go. Like you need your best players to just play better. And to make it worse, even though he hasn’t been, you know, the best version of himself even close to it, Ian Half, we’ll wait to see the report, but you know, taking like hitting a foul ball off his foot and having to leave the game is obviously concerning as well. And it doesn’t probably change your deadline plans severely. But I mean, if you like the people out there are saying like that the Cubs don’t want to trade Owen Casey. Well, Owen Casey, welcome to the Cubs. If if he and Haps hurt and you’re not trading him, like he should be up and be in left field tomorrow if you’re not going to trade him. Like it’s it’s go time for him if that’s the case. So, um yeah, all bad. all all bad for for the Cubs uh in this one. Honestly, Ian Hap getting on the injured list to try to get himself right like might be good for him. Um but man, it’s just it’s it’s a lot of a lot of bad right now for the Cubs and the way that they’re playing. Yes, they just two or three out of the White Socks, but I mean since since the since the All-Star break, you’ve beaten the Red Sox, you’ve beaten the White Socks, but you’ve lost the series now to the Royals, and you’ve lost this series to the Brewers. That was a pivotal series and they just kind of have looked lifeless in it through these two games. Uh and it just has not been pretty whatever. All right, we will take our uh break here. We’ll get to your comments, your questions. We’ll talk about tomorrow’s game, how important it really is throughout the season, and also what’s coming for the Cubs because as Brendan says here in the chat, Porter Hodgej had a tough night in Iowa. So that reinforcement’s not really on its way either. That’s all coming up next here on the Locked On Cubs postcast on the Locked on Cubs YouTube channel. Today’s episode is brought to you by Game Day Hugh. Game Day Hue makes clean, no logo gear with team inspired colorways for every pro and college fan base. It’s about letting your colors speak for you. No giant logos, just smart, versatile style that works on game day, on the course, or anywhere in between. It really is like great golf gear uh that they have. Not just the hat itself, but they also do have their split shade golf gloves that are made for the golf course. So, you can represent your favorite teams, no matter who it is. You can, you know, if you want to go back in time and get the colors of your high school team, you can get that all the way to your favorite uh major league teams or football teams as well. You can find all of that at Gameday Hugh. Right now, you can get 15% off with code MLB15 at gamedayhw.com. That’s gamedayhue.com. That code even stacks on bundle deals. So now is absolutely the time to load up. Let your colors talk because colors speak louder than words. That’s gamedayh.com. Code lock code MLB15. All right. Questions and comments in the chat. Yeah, Cubs0209 says, “Uh, love Hap, but he’s been brutal.” Yeah, has not been good. Um, it’s it’s it’s been no bueno for for him. Uh, this series obviously is frustrating in a lot of ways. I saw a fire Jed comment here in the chat. Well, he just got a contract extension. So, uh, unfortunately, uh, if that’s how you feel, um, that that’s not going to be happening, uh, anytime soon. Uh, see question here about Moises and Alcantra. Uh, where are you going to play them if they get called up? Frankly, uh, I think it was I get I might get this wrong. I think it was John Morosei said that those are actually the two guys the Cubs are trying to trade versus Owen Casey and Wiggins. Um so it’ll be interesting. Now you could bring up Bysteros if Ian Haps goes down. That could be the other option. But probably if he’s going to be out for a little bit. I’d rather see Owen Casey come up assuming he’s not traded in the next 48 hours. But if he is traded or if you want to I guess for some reason go a different route. you put Seiya in left field uh and then you put out um Bias Theos as your everyday DH. I frankly would rather Owen be there in left field and then if he wins the job, he wins the job and Ian Hat figures out where he’s going to play uh later on in uh the season. All right, so tomorrow um shows Imanaga on the mound, Freddy Peralta on the mound for the Brewers. You need to win tomorrow’s game. It is a again it’s a must-win game for tomorrow. Um it’s your season’s not totally over obviously if you lose it. You got a five game series coming up with this team in August to where you can obviously you know really get things going again. Uh and if you win a bunch of those games, four out of five of those games, let’s say, yeah, the season’s not over. But going into the deadline with a day game with Shota Imanaga on the mound and it being a one game back in the in the division versus three games back again, it just feels like that is a a tipping point for where this season could go. More importantly, not just winning the baseball game. Um very curious what we see from Emanaga in tomorrow’s game. He’s very important. Like specifically like I want to see what the velocity looks like. It was down in the last start and a guy that’s had injuries this year obviously has been relatively healthy outside of that the hamstring issues but got to like it it has to be better than the last start. Like whatever happened if it was the 4-day rest thing or like if that really makes the difference then Craig Council should never do that ever again. So if he’s like back in form tomorrow I think we have to look back at that. I’m sure the Cubs will and realize how much of a mistake uh that that’s been to you on four days instead of five days, but he’s got to be better tomorrow. And you got to really get these guys going. Like I I don’t know what it is. Again, I I don’t I don’t understand the Kyle Tucker stuff. Like I I really don’t I don’t I don’t get it. Um I I don’t I don’t get what’s going on. The rollover. I mean, obviously, he’s not pressing because he’s getting all these walks. He’s not pressing at the plate like sometimes like we see Suzuki do or even what Michael Bush has been doing. Um but that’s the one who ultimately I think really is going to dictate where the Cubs season is going to go. It’s not just for starting pitching but you traded for Kyle Tucker for a reason and I will defend him because I think he deserves it but he has to get this thing going quickly. whatever’s going on, like whether it’s the foul ball off the knee, like it can’t be a broken finger injury that happened earlier in this year. Um, he moves fine in the field, he moves fine on the base pass. Like, I don’t think he is hurt. Um, I just think he hasn’t been good. But, um, it’s been he he’s the he’s the key like of everything besides Jed Hoyer making moves at the deadline to get this thing really rolling in the right direction on a consistent basis. Um, Kyle Tucker has got to be a better baseball player than he is. There’s been there’s been no no question about it. Um, and I I don’t think Cubs fans that don’t want anything to do with Kyle Tucker being a Cub after this season. I would I would say let’s wait to see how it goes the rest of the year. But to be honest with you, how you feel right now, um, I don’t blame you. I don’t agree, but like I I don’t blame you. Um he’s just he’s just been terrible and and again, if the Cubs are going to get this thing going back in the right direction on a consistent basis, um he’s got to be much much better. So, we’ll see how it goes tomorrow. We’ll be back here uh live here on the Locked on Cubs YouTube channel after uh the day game between the Brewers and the Cubs. So, remember to come on over uh while you’re at work or on your way home. Catch us live here on the channel. Matt and Sam will have their show coming up here a little bit. Um, obviously I did not do a show yesterday. So before we go go, uh, just want to take my my second here, um, to talk about Rhino here for a second. Uh, since I didn’t have a show yesterday, uh, obviously, you know, I’m 33 years old, so I don’t have any memory of watching Rhino play for the Cubs. But what I do know and what I have seen, and what I know is from my dad, and it’s why I am a Cubs fan. It’s because of my dad and what Rhino meant to him and means to the Cubs fan bases. Um, this is tough. It was a tough loss. Um, to lose him last night and it obviously felt like when we were seeing Lester and these guys come in the jerseys, it really felt like that that was, you know, something that felt like it could happen soon and it’s still surprising. Uh, really thought it was cool. Uh, if you have a chance, if you live in the city, I highly recommend, you know, going out there to the statue. There’s a lot of flowers there. Um, so it’s a it’s a sad sad day for for Cubs fans, for the organization, for his family. Obviously, our thoughts are with them, but just a a sad loss for for all of us, for someone that loved the Cubs so much uh and was loved so well um by all the Cubs fans as well. So, we’ll end it there. So, thank you for watching. Be back with you guys tomorrow. Hopefully a much better result for the Cubs than the last two days. So, thank you for watching. Be back with you tomorrow. Peace.

Seiya Suzuki, Kyle Tucker and Michael Busch are struggling, Colin Rea wasn’t at his best and the Chicago Cubs are limping into the trade deadline after another loss to the Milwaukee Brewers, this time losing 9-3.

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