Who Can The Chicago Cubs TRUST To Start In OCTOBER?

Who Can The Chicago Cubs TRUST To Start In OCTOBER?

We got a Cade Horton update kind of and then showed Emanaga had a really really rough night. You are Locked on Cubs, your daily Chicago Cubs podcast, part of the Locked On podcast network. Your team every day. You are Locked On Cubs, part of the Locked On Network, your team every day. Hey, I’m Sam Wolver. I’m a lifelong fan taking my passion into a discussion with you on all things Cubs. Today’s episode is brought to you by FanDuel. Right now, new customers can bet just $5. And if your bet wins, you’ll get $300 in bonus bets to use across the app. Download the app today. And before we get into the show, don’t forget to join us this Saturday, September 27th, 11:00 a.m. to 100 pm at Almost Home right there on Clark Street, right by Wrigley. Matt and I will be there for a pregame hangout. Matt has some giveaways and and things that uh uh he’s got in store and and you know, we’ve done this a few times. almost home’s been great to us and we’re just excited to uh meet you, talk to you, and uh you know, I’ll probably be watching the Ali game. You guys will get to see me in action live of how I am uh uh during one of my team sporting events, but it should be a good time. Uh I also will be doing some sort of watch along for the first game on Tuesday. Just don’t know the time and the details yet. Um if it’s the middle of the day, it won’t be a a full watch along, but it’ll be something. Uh so look out for that. And uh on today’s program, we have uh a lot of fun stuff. We talk about uh potential playoff heroes and just how subtle one three-game series can be. And and and tonight’s a great example of, you know, a guy like Seiya who was struggling. You snap your fingers, he could become a playoff hero just like that. We’ll talk about that. Uh this Cubs Mets game showed his struggles. But we start with the news of the day. We knew it was coming. We didn’t really know what it was going to be. And I’m going to be honest with you guys because um I’m always honest with you guys. After getting the update, I’m basically in the exact same place I was before the update. It really felt like a non-update update. I will read it. Uh I will read some quotes and then you guys of course you interpret it uh the way you think. I I’ll tell you how I interpreted it and that’s and that’s the best I could do because it’s really tricky. Uh the these are are are from Sahadav Sharma from the Athletic, Mattie Lee from the Sun Times. These are just their tweets uh um reading off uh some of council’s quotes. Uh Kate Horton’s MRI showed some areas of concern around his rib cage. Council said the Cubs are going to have another physician take a look at the imaging, but Horton is scheduled to resume throwing tomorrow. Council said quote, “Right now, Cade is a go.” Um you know, uh Horton’s on on track still. I’m just reading all these kind of paraphrases, but there are some areas of concern. Like I said, we’ll continue to get info, more docs to look at it. Uh expected to throw tomorrow. So, you know, kind of, you know, the same type of tweets from from there, just a couple of differences. Um here’s more directly from council. There’s stuff to monitor still, but the fact that he’s going off to throw tomorrow, he’s optimistic he can pitch. Those are very good signs. Council says as days go in, we’ll rule stuff in and rule stuff out. Folks, I’m reading all this in a in a kind of a a jibberjab way, if you will, because I have no idea what any of it means. Um, the best that I could tell you is that if somebody if it were me and I got an MRI and the response was, “Hey, you could go back to resuming activities tomorrow, but we’re going to get a second opinion and there are some areas of concern.” That would be a pretty high anxiety day for me. the next day I I wouldn’t feel very good about the results even though I was cleared to resume activities. So that’s where I’m at with Cade. I don’t feel great about it. Um I’m not a doctor. I I hate playing doctor on the show because we have to do it a lot because it comes it’s just the you never get a direct update and I get it. There’s there’s strategy in this. You have to be careful. So, you have to do your best to interpret it and quite frankly, I’m exhausted doing that this year with Tucker and, you know, there’s just been so many guys that we’ve had to do this. Um, but I’ll say anytime there’s a second opinion that comes in, I just don’t feel like that’s particularly great. And anytime that’s paired with areas of concern on an MRI, I don’t feel like that’s particularly great. And I’ll tell you my biggest concern. My biggest concern isn’t what you think. Oh, well, you gota, you know, be careful with the long-term health of Kate Horton. If this isn’t an armed thing here, I think he’s going to be okay regardless. Um, my concern is these games that are about to be played, and we’re going to talk about this later in the show next week, every single pitch could change the entire outcome, not only of the game, but of the series, right? How many times have we seen a three-game series come down to one play where it shifts, right? And I don’t want a guy pitching where he is 75 80% and and he’s got his mind on his rib cage so he’s compromising somewhere somewhere else and you know he ends up going four innings gives up four earn and we find out after he was pitching kind of hurt right that’s what I’m concerned about. I don’t want to waste it. Like don’t get me wrong I want Kade to be out there. Kade’s a great pitcher. He he he’s a superstar in the making and I believe in him. but he’s also, you know, a young a young guy that’s hungry and that’s going to tell you he’s fine no matter what. So, you really got to trust the doctors and trust the process here because I just don’t want to lose this series two out of three and we find out later on that Kade was pitching really hurt in game one and that was the difference, right? It’s it the margin of error in a three-game series between two teams in the Cubs and Padres’s where if they were to play a hundred times on a neutral field would probably go 50 and 50. It’s it’s really really small and you have to be really really careful. So yes, you want Kade to pitch, but you also don’t want him going out there 75 80%. Because Matthew Boyd game one at 100% regardless of what you think is still better than a guy, you know, fighting something or battling through something. So that’s my take on it. It’s it’s very very hard. There’s so much gray area. We’ll find out more as we go. The good news is is Tucker’s expected to DH on Friday. So, that’ll be fun to see. Watch how he uh looks and competes at the plate. And um you know, I’ll just I’ll just wrap up the injury stuff by just saying, hey, look, Cubs have done a lot of good this year. There’s been some bad. There’s been some great moves by Jed. There’s been some things they regret, but they have been bitten by the injury bug with some major major names. You know, Justin Steel beginning of the year out for the season, right? That’s a huge huge thing. it seemed a little bit less huge because Kade Horton came in in the second half has been arguably the best pitcher in all the major leagues. Now he’s injured. Uh Kyle Tucker has dealt with two major injuries this year. Shota Imanaga has dealt with a major injury this year. It hasn’t been a ton of volume. Knock on wood hat for the most part. Danby, Nico Bush, uh, Kelly, those guys have been able to stay healthy, but the guys that have missed a large quantity of time are some of your best players. Steel, Tucker, K now, uh, uh, Shota. Tough. It’s tough. And give the Cubs credit for working around it and finding a way to make the postseason, but it’s also at the same time frustrating, especially as we go into this now. you know, really wanting to be at our best and it’s frustrating. You know, you want to watch Kate Horton pitch in front of 41,000 people at Wrigley Field in the postseason. Um, a and see that. Maybe we still will. Um, but but right now, I would I would put it at best as a coin flip. It’s it’s very it’s a very weird situation. And today’s update honestly did not bring me much clarity. I know other people could interpret that differently. Hey, he’s throwing tomorrow. As of now, he’s a go. That’s great. you know, I’m more on the side of just like, okay, that that’s awesome, but then why does he need a second opinion? What are the areas of the cons of concern on the MRI, etc., etc. Uh, but you know, I I I I I hope for the best and I want Kade to be out there and uh it feels more important than ever uh that Cade be out there because Sha Imanaga is uh uh really starting to well not really he has been struggling and uh had one of his worst starts of the year on uh Thursday night. We’ll talk about that and the Cubs loss to the Mets coming up next. Today’s episode is brought to you by Rouette. Guys, you’ve probably heard of Viagra Seialis, but maybe you’ve even tried them. But if you’re looking for something beyond the usual pill, it’s time to meet Rouette Golong. That’s exactly where Rouette Golong comes in. This isn’t just another ED pill. It’s a total game changer for confidence. Go Along combines two doctor trusted medications and one dualaction formula so you can get hard and go the distance. The effects can last up to 36 hours. That’s confidence all day, all night, and even into the next day. The process is simple. Connect with a board certified doctor 100% online. And if prescribed, your treatment ships discreetly right next to your door. If prescribed, your treatment ships discreetly right to your door. Ready to level up your confidence in the bedroom? Head to rouette.com. rug gi.com and use promo code lockdown MLB for 15% off your first order. That’s rouette.com. Promo code locked on MLB. Make sure to use our code so that they know we sent you for Rouette. We are back here on lockdown cub. Shout out to the everydayers and you could become a locked on Cubs every day by joining us for every episode throughout the week. Uh tough night at Wrigley for the Cubs. They lose another series. Got swept by the Reds. Lose two out of three to the Mets. Magic number still sits at two in the wildcard standings and they lost. The Cubs actually played a good game uh tonight, believe it or not. Um Seya hit a couple of home runs. was amazing to see exactly what he needed before Tuesday uh in the postseason. Uh Dansby at a homer. A couple unbelievable plays, one by Pete, a couple by Dansby. I thought Dansby was really close to making one of the plays of the year. If you didn’t get a chance to see it, uh in the first inning, uh Shawn and Danby kind of ran into each other. Danby made a catch, slipped into the stands with a runner on third and one out. And so when he went in the stands, it’s an automatic, you know, next base. So the run scores, but he actually looked like he flipped it almost simultaneously landing in the stands uh to Shaw. Then they threw out the runner home, but the ump ruled it that he was in the stands. The Cubs challenge it. It would have been one of the better plays you ever saw. Check it out if you haven’t seen it. Um yeah, I I guess the Cubs probably struck out too much tonight. Um if if you really want to be picky, I mean, and and that’s not being picky. They struck out 14 times, but you know, it was a good day to hit for the most part and they hit some home runs. They played some really good defense, but u they lost because Shamanaga had a really bad start. He went five and two/3, nine hits, eight earn RA on the year all the way up to 373. And the question now is, do you trust him to start one of the three playoff games? And you know, I I don’t I don’t react much to this because this is first of all, it’s a bad matchup for show. They gave up 10 runs against these guys last year here, eight this year. So clearly his his repertoire just doesn’t work against these guys. It’s all weather dependent, man. I know it sounds so lazy, and I feel like it is lazy. I wish I had more to it, but if if it’s a neutral day at Wrigley Field, he’s going to get he’s going to give up three, four home runs. And there’s nothing the Cubs could do. You can’t, you know, I don’t know. Like, can the Cubs do something where they look at the weather ahead of time? So, so let’s let’s assume Kade doesn’t pitch for right now. Can the Cubs do something where it’s like, hey, J and Shota be ready to go game two. Depending on the weather, we’ll figure it out. But then whoever doesn’t pitch, what if that person has to pitch game three? You just can’t throw off their routines. And no offense, but JMO is really weather dependent, too. Like this whole pitching staff, a lot of the reason they had a lot of success, no disrespect to them, is that Wrigley, it it’s weird. July, August, it played real small. Now the weather here is a lot better. It’s in the 70s, which is kind of unseasonably warm here. and you’re getting some some some much higher scoring games, so much bigger output. You’re seeing the offense at Wrigley come alive again because the weather’s better. It’s easier to hit. And so, you know, and I’ve looked ahead of the the the forecast next week. It’s supposed to be a little bit cooler. You know, it doesn’t have to be like howling in, but you know, wind blowing in at 5, 7, 10 miles an hour. That’s what needs. And unfortunately, he’s he’s probably one of your three best options if Cade can’t pitch no matter what. And so he’s going to pitch and um I still trust his competitiveness. I still trust his ability and his smarts to figure out a way to be successful um in in the biggest stage. I know that sounds a little bit crazy after how bad that he struggled, but I still trust Shod to pitch well next week. I I do. Uh it’s a better matchup for him. I think it’ll be slightly better conditions for him to pitch. He’s usually better after a really bad outing, which I kind of joked with Matt, if he was going to have a bad outing, might as well be terrible so he could bounce back. And um I I I think he’s a guy that really understands the moment and will rise to the occasion. That’s my gut. I have no real evidence on that. I just I just think I trust him out there to to to be able to compete. I don’t think he will have an outing like this next week. I don’t I could be wrong. I don’t think so. Uh Boyd’s going to be the other guy that pitches for sure. Um, again, very similar to Shota, like I I trust Boyd to really compete and give the Cubs a chance, but you know, I just think that this team, you know, one of the reasons I wanted home field so bad is in my head I was thinking October, Wrigley, mid to high 50s, wind blowing in, 321, 43 type game. And I think we’re more suited to play that game than a team like San Diego. But it’s shaping up to be more of a pretty good day to hit. might be 6’5, 75. And I just I don’t love us in those games. Now, Sei hit a couple homers today. Dan’s beat a couple homers, but we’re just I I don’t I don’t know if I trust this team to outslug the Padres’s. And if that’s what they have to do, that’s what they have to do. But it’s just, you know, you’re going to really need Kyle Tucker and Seiya and Bush and Pete to be at their best. If they’re at their, you know, if they’re hitting, and Pete, by the way, is start starting to show some signs. I think he’s going to hit number 30 this weekend. Maybe they’ll do do it verse Michaelis tomorrow. Um, you know, you’re going to need the old Cubs to come out. Then you’re going to need the the the March, April, May Cubs to come out, put up seven plus runs twice in order to beat this team. Now they’re starting to score some runs a little bit, right? They what do they lose? They they put up seven in the first game, a bunch yesterday, they put up five today. So maybe the offense is slowly starting to come around. And unfortunately as that’s happening because the weather is changing the the the you’re seeing the pitchers regress a little bit. So we’ll see what happens. I I have I have trust in Shota and and I and I understand like trust me I understand that it feels hypocritical because it’s like Sam yesterday on the show you were saying if Seiya doesn’t show something bias should start verse right he’s sea showed something he’s earned that he’ll start now it’s fine like like Seya’s upside when he gets hot he could carry a team. What? So, Shota hasn’t showed anything. Why do you trust him? That’s a totally fair question. I’m just giving you my gut and and every big start had, he started home openers and, you know, he’s just he just he he seems to deliver more times than not. And I just I’m playing the math and I just don’t think he’s going to have another really bad start. And so, I I I would still give the ball to him. If if Kade Horton can’t go, I would go Boyd, Sha, Tyion. Um, if Cade can go, I would go Cade, Boyd, Shota in a in a decider. Uh, that’s where I’m at with with Sroka ready to go a as a first option if somebody’s in trouble. Uh, and go from there. Um, you know, the velocity was a little bit down for Sher today. Whenever he’s bad, it looks like he’s potentially tipping pitches because it looks like they know what what’s coming. There was some of that it felt like today, but uh, you know, it’s a really complicated situation. It’s a very challenging situation and um I don’t envy Craig Council, Jed Hoy or Carter Hawkins to make these decisions because as we saw last year in the postseason like with the Brewers, right? You’re one pitch away. You know, Devin Williams executes that pitch better. Who knows how far the Brewers go, right? The the margins are so thin. you play 162 games and then it comes down to one three-game series to see if you move on to the NLDS and and all these decisions are going to be scrutinized and probably overanalyzeed because it matters a lot and um that’s the nature of it. But uh tough loss for the Cubs on Thursday. Like I said, magic number is still two. If they win two out of three this weekend, that’s the easiest path. They host the wild card game. They lose two out of three. Um I’m not even going to throw out if they get swept. They lose two out of three. They’ll need the Diamondbacks to beat the Padres’s once uh in order to clinch the series being at Wrigley Field. But uh like I said with Shota, these playoff decisions are huge because I it comes down to just one moment, one pitch um where everything could change. and we’re going to talk about some potential playoff heroes um and guys that could step up for the Cubs really more for this first series than the whole postseason, but we’re going to talk about just just how quickly things could change and how special it could be. Coming up next, this episode is brought to you by FanDuel. The NFL season is here and FanDuel is making sure you’re ready for kickoff with a can’tmiss offer. Right now, new customers can bet just $5. And if your bet wins, you’ll get $300 in bonus bets to use across the app. If you’re going to be joining us at Almost Home on Saturday at 11:00 a.m., I’ll be watching my Alii host the University of Southern Cal uh as 6 and a half home underdogs. Um, this was the preseason number nine team in the country and one week later they are now uh almost a touchdown underdogs at home. I don’t really feel great about that. Bears are one and a half point underdogs right now on FanDuel in Vegas. That’s a really weird trappy line. I have no idea what to do with that. Uh talked about that on yesterday uh yesterday’s show. uh Cubs Padres’s. My guess is if it’s Boyd Paveta to open the series, I think Cubs minus 118 120ish would be where I would go. Uh will be really fascinating to see uh the odds on FanDuel when those come out. So, are you ready to play? Download the FanDuel app today uh app now by visiting fanduel.com to get started. That’s fanduel.com to place your first $5 bet. Do that today. We are back here on Locked on Cubs. Make sure you’re subscribed to the Locked On Cubs. That way you don’t miss any of the great Cubs content we’ve got for you. That includes the Cubs postcast with Joe George live after the final out of every game. Joe does an awesome job. Can’t wait to see what he does in the postseason. We’ll be up. We’ll have shows up right away, too, after uh uh the playoffs. Uh assuming that the times make a little bit of sense. Um I can’t wait. I can’t wait to cover a playoff series. I’m so excited for it. Some pre-show stuff we’re going to have, some in-game stuff we’re going to have, of course, post shows. I mean, regardless of the path, you can’t take uh making the postseason um for granted. And and that’s what I want to close the show with. I did this a little bit last week, I’ll do it again tonight. The Cubs need to look at this three-game series as a tremendous opportunity because everything in sports, really in life, but in sports is all kind of based off your expectations, right? We we’ve talked about this, right? If you have like a a brutal 12-h hour workday tomorrow, you wake up on a Friday and you have a brutal 12- hour workday and that 12-h hour workday turns into a 9-h hour workday, you’re going to feel pretty good afterwards, right? But if you had an 8 hour workday plan and it turned into a 9-h hour workday, you’re not going to feel that good even though it’s still a 9-h hour workday both ways, right? My point is this. The Cubs raised expectations to a level um that probably was unsustainable in April and May. We were talking World Series. We were talking best team in the league because at one point they had the best record in baseball. But deep down we all knew they weren’t that great, right? We knew that PCA probably like him being the best player in baseball just was like really this is actually happening. No, it wasn’t. Right? It wasn’t. It was for a minute. Now it wasn’t. And hey, Seiya is going to be 125, 130 RBI guy. No, he’s not. And so what the Cubs have done unintentionally, but this is a a little positive way to look at it, the expectations now have lowered, right? They’ve been a 500 plusish team now. Basically, you know, since June, whatever it is, right? Few games over 500. Second half, they’re a 500 type team. So, what that’s done is it’s really kind of decreased the expectations. Well, Sam, that’s not a good thing, is it? No, it’s not. But, if you look at it from a a Cubs players perspective now, you could kind of go in here, you you could kind of fly under the radar a little bit. Nobody in in baseball is expecting you to make a deep run. Most people have you as like the fifth or sixth best team in the NL, whatever it is. So now you you could kind of go with I’m not saying a nothing to lose element because with the whole Tucker situation, there is a lot to lose, but a little bit more of that. I I just don’t think there’s as much pressure on this group than there probably would have been if they won 97 games or 95 games, whatever it is, and came up one game short of Milwaukee and had to play this threeame series. They get to play with a little bit of the nobody believes in us, let’s rock and roll. And it’s so small. What could change the narrative, right? Like I’m going to use Suzuki as an example. If Sean Suzuki has the game that he had Thursday night at Wrigley Field where he hit two homers and drove in a bunch of runs, whatever it was, if he has that, let’s say he has a two home run, four RBI game on Tuesday and another home run on Wednesday. Let’s say it’s three homers in the series. Drives in six and the Cubs win two out of three. They win both those games, right? That’s not like that’s not a crazy prediction. If he were to do that, every single narrative around him as a Cub completely shifts the the negative narratives. Oh, well, you know, I don’t know about Sea. Oh, he’s too streaky. It if you’re streaky and you get it done in October, you’re a hero. It matters. Matt Shaw right now, you know, he’s kind of been not struggling terribly, but you know, he’s not having the month that he had in August. If he hits two home runs or hits a homer and a double, you know, and I’m not saying every guy’s going to do this, it just takes one. Or he hits a walk-off double to right center field with the Cubs down one hero. You know what I mean? Like, it’s unfair to say this. Like it’s not like I I don’t look at it the other way where it’s like all right, you know, uh um who who’s a good example? Nico’s having a really good year. I don’t look I’m not going to look at that like well if Nico goes 0 for8 in this series that doesn’t change his season. It doesn’t go both ways because that’s not fair. But that’s why it’s an opportunity because you know you take a guy like Justin Turner had a you know he’s had a fine year off the bench but it hasn’t been super impactful. he gets a couple late pinch hit opportunities and he delivers, whole season changes, right? You have you have the opportunity to shift narratives a and be remembered um for a really long time. I remember every good Cubs playoff moment of my life because uh um you know I don’t have many of them. I I I’m I’m doing trivia on the air, but if I actually remember correctly, and I was four years old when this happened in the wildard game in 98, I think I I I got I’m going have to fact check myself after the show, so if I’m wrong, I’m going to look bad. But I think the guy that had a big home run to left field was Gary Guyedi. I I think he was the guy and I was four. And I I just recall my dad talking about, you know, big home run from Gary Guyetti, Cubs found a way to win, you know, like you otherwise I wouldn’t remember Gary Guyetti in a as a Cub when I was four, you know, you remember those things. So whether it’s Shaw, Dansby, Nico, Bush, Kelly, Pete, Seiya, Boy, Bisteros off the bench, Tucker, uh Ian, whoever it is, Boyd, Shota, Keller, like you got an opportunity to be remembered and to do something really special because Cubs postseasons don’t come around often. And it’s a three-game series, and it could be one pitch, it could be one play that changes everything. And and look at the Mets last year. They were they were an out or two away from being eliminated. Alonzo hits that home run and they they almost made the World Series and and if the Cubs could do that, that’d be a pretty cool year and and something special. So, you know, go seize the opportunity, right? Go take it. Like, I want I want the Cubs, especially if it’s at Wrigley, go take it. Like, be hungry. Don’t be tentative. Swing. If you want to swing at at first pitches and be aggressive, like I’m all good. You want to try and steal bags. If you’re going to go down, go down swinging. Don’t go down because, oh, we’re just waiting to see if somebody could get a homer. Hit a homer. We’re just going to wait and see. You know, if you want to play a little hit and run, do something. Go be creative. Go be aggressive. You know, uh uh be the aggressor. I I know that sounds kind of lazy in a baseball sense, and I know all the baseball people are like, “Man, this guy has no idea what he’s talking about because, you know, it comes down to a B and C. It’s just baseball. It’s not It’s not football. It’s not basketball.” I get it. I get it. But in a three-game series, is it that much different? In a three-game series, you you learn less about teams in a three-game series in baseball than you do one football game. You know what I mean? So, it’s it’s so random. Go have fun with it. Go be aggressive. Go, you know, if you’re Seiya, I’m using Sey a lot as an example. If you’re Seiya and you typically don’t like to swing at the first pitch, swing at the first pitch two straight times, three straight times. See what happens. Toy with the analytics. toy with what what what the trends say because you know one or two things could totally change the outcome of a series, the outcome of a season. And I’m not kidding when I say it. The outcome of a career, right? Remember Joe Carter, right? We all remember Joe Carter. I wasn’t even alive when Joe Carter hit those walk-off home runs. You hit a walk-off home run to end the World Series, you’re going to be remembered by everybody, right? So, I just think the Cubs need to have fun, be aggressive, go take the moment and win a series, gain some momentum, and see what happens. And that’s the best they could do. Um, it would be a really nice start. I didn’t do a a Cubs Cardinals preview. Um, because I just I that just needs to be business, right? Just take care of that series. Find a way to win two out of three. I don’t really, you know, care. The big the the the big story here is getting home field. Take two out of three. And how does Kyle Tucker look? That’s your your Cardinals preview. Um, but uh let’s enjoy this, man. I can’t wait to do these shows. Matt and I will be back Sunday for Monday. And then uh we have our first ever uh uh playoff week of baseball for the Chicago Cubs. Come say hi to us at Almost Home on Saturday uh as well. And uh let’s have fun with this. This is Locked On Cubs, part of the Locked On podcast network. Your team every day for your second listen. Check out the allnew Lockown MLB game night every game, every night, all season long. Get local analysis on a national scale. Find MLB Game Night on the Lockown MLB channel, on YouTube, or wherever you listen to your podcasts.

On a day where the Cubs found out so up and down news on Cade Horton, Shota Imanaga gave up 8ER. Sam Talks about the bad trend for the important Starters and discusses some opportunities for the Cubs players in October.

Follow & Subscribe on all Podcast platforms…
🎧 https://lockedonpodcasts.com/podcasts/locked-on-cubs/

Locked On MLB League-Wide: Every Team, Prospects & More
🎧 https://lockedonpodcasts.com/leagues/mlb/

#Cubs #ChicagoCubs