Reds @ Cubs: Stephens vs Lester (Game 161)

Submitted by CTSteve on Sat, 09/30/2017 - 5:43am

CIN (82-77): RHP Jackson Stephens (2-0, 3.86) 
CHC (91-69): LHP Jon Lester (12-8, 4.46) 
First pitch: 3:05pmCST

Lester rebounded from whatever that was in Tampa Bay to beat the Cards on Monday, giving up 1 ER in 6 innings. In three 2017 starts, he’s 1-0 with a 10.13 against the Reds. Overall, they are 46-166 (.277) against him. Hamilton is 7-17 with 2 HR, and Suarez is 8-25 with 2 HR.

Stephens chalked up his first Major League win in his debut against the Cubs on July 1 (5 IP, 3 ER, 8 K, 1 BB). He had a 6-inning, 1 ER no-decision against the Red Sox his last time out. The Cubs are 6-18 (.333) against him. Jay is 2-3 with a HR.

It’s McGuire (0-1) and Montgomery (7-8) in the final game of the regular season tomorrow at 2:20pmCST.

Go Cubs! 
 

Tags: 
2017 Season Game Thread

Comments

Submitted by crunch  on Sat, 09/30/2017 - 3:09pm  
the A-team backing up lester. maybe he can move that ERA below 4.40 :( what a waste of a season for lester...worst since 2012. it's not a useless performance, but it's some real end-of-rotation quality stuff.

Submitted by billybucks  on Sat, 09/30/2017 - 3:50pm  
Strange year for Lester: - Remove his 3 terrible starts and his ERA drops to 3.67. - 10 starts allowing 1 run or less -- including his first 3 and 2 of this last 4. So, not consistently terrible, but not reliable either.

Submitted by crunch  on Sat, 09/30/2017 - 4:06pm  
working deeper counts (and more walks to show for it) chipped away at his innings, too. 32 starts and he'll finish 25-ish IP off his usual workload...that's nearly 4 starts worth of innings. hopefully he'll turn that around in 2018...oh, and the post-season.

Submitted by Cubster  on Sat, 09/30/2017 - 5:30pm  
that's nearly 4 starts worth of innings. ---- Here are the four worst starts: Approximately 20 of the 25 innings can be accounted for if you project 6-7 IP for these games. The 10 spot in 0.2 IP vs Pitt and the 9 spot in 1.2 innings vs Reds. 6 runs in 3.1 IP vs LA and 3 runs in 4 IP vs Snakes (even though they won that game 16-4. http://www.espn.com/mlb/player/gamelog/_/id/2...

Submitted by crunch  on Sat, 09/30/2017 - 3:38pm  
schwarb gets HR #30...crushed to CF. bryant on #29 coming into the game today. if he gets #30 today or tomorrow that will be 3 30+ HR guys.

Submitted by billybucks  on Sat, 09/30/2017 - 3:41pm  
Nice for Schwarber!

Submitted by crunch  on Sat, 09/30/2017 - 4:18pm  
the current "bleacher culture" sure is something we didn't see in the 80s and 90s...and probably before, but that's before my time since i was a toddler for my chunk of the 70s. there's a "suburban-family-looking" mom out there with 2 small children and a baby. one of the children is holding up a sign announcing it's the baby's first game. the mom is busy digging around in a diaper bag while messing with her cell phone. *shrug* the classic oldschool bleacher creatures seem to have left the bleachers long ago, anyway. things change.

Submitted by crunch  on Sat, 09/30/2017 - 4:46pm  
la stella with a 17 pitch AB for a K. 12 foul balls. longest AB of the season by a cub.

Submitted by crunch  on Sat, 09/30/2017 - 7:19pm  
"Max Scherzer left Saturday's game in the fourth inning with an apparent leg injury." a 2-week injury would be nice about right now.

Submitted by crunch  on Sat, 09/30/2017 - 9:26pm  
it's supposedly a "right hamstring cramp" 2 hours to report it was a cramp...okay, then.

Recent comments

Subscribe to Recent comments
The first 600 characters of the last 16 comments, click "View" to see rest of comment.
  • Charlie 2 hours 57 min ago (view)

    Yeah, it seems like I lean more toward overvaluing Bryant than most commenters here. Also, I completely stopped following prospect lists once the Cubs were good again, so I'm out of the loop on Pache especially. I had imagined that the Cubs would be looking more for immediate major league value rather than a projectable prospect, but I guess if you really like Pache you don't mind waiting a couple years.

     
  • K Dub 9 hours 41 min ago (view)

    PHIL: Excellent breakdown, Phil. Thanks. 

    I'm sure you heard. QO value was set at $17.8 million the day after you made your post.

     
  • K Dub 9 hours 49 min ago (view)

    Pache, Wright, Muller and Riley feels light to you, Charlie? I respect your opinion, but I would jump at it. I highly doubt the Braves would do it, though. Were talking 2 years of Bryant at what could be 18 million and 28-30 million in his last year of arbitration. 

    The Cubs would be hurting their chances next year and building for 2021 in a deal like that, but that's rebuilding/retooling in one fell swoop. 

     
  • Arizona Phil 2 days 14 hours ago (view)

    CHARLIE: Austin Riley is actually a third-baseman but he had to play LF for the Braves in 2019 because he was blocked by Josh Donaldson, and Cristian Pache is considered to be the best defensive centerfielder in the minors and his bat has improved enough over the past year or two to where he is now rated in or just outside the top ten overall prospects in MLB.

    So a package that includes Riley and Pache and one of the Braves young MLB or MLB-ready SP would probably be more than enough to get the Cubs to bite.

     
  • Dolorous Jon Lester 2 days 16 hours ago (view)

    Max Fried or Bryse Wilson

     
  • crunch 2 days 17 hours ago (view)

    https://www.espn.com/espn/otl/story/_/id/27828247/...

    t.skaggs story keeps getting deeper.

    allegations the team knew about skagg's drug abuse (also his family).  teams are required to report this to MLB.

     
  • Charlie 2 days 19 hours ago (view)

    Except for the headline, the linked post reads more like a trade hypothetical than a trade rumor. I like the idea of looking at this package as a discussion point for expected return for Bryant. I would say it feels a little light to me. It's deep, with two decent outfield prospects with upside and two OK pitching prospects. But Riley doesn't help the team solve the CF problem right now, so he's either redundant to Bote or sort of a Schwarber replacement. Muller's inflated BB% at AA this year worries me a bit too.

     
  • Cubster 3 days 2 hours ago (view)

    I might have missed something and it's been talked about regarding a KB trade rumor from about 10-9-19. 

    https://apple.news/AJUMyEWodQ2GX1cj1gE4ENQ 

    Braves receive: 3B Kris Bryant 

     
  • crunch 4 days 16 hours ago (view)

    they get 3 guys and the cubs get 1 guy.  sounds like a slam dunk for the angels.  pencil trout in the cubs lineup.  he's got upside.

     
  • Jackstraw 4 days 18 hours ago (view)

    I'd hate to part with both Kemp and Chatwood, but if it will bring that Trout guy back, we could even throw in Almora.

     
  • crunch 4 days 21 hours ago (view)

    the ricketts got a brazillian dollar tax break...they need to trickle that down and flex on the entire league.

    we gonna get grandal, rendon, castellanos, g.cole, strasburg, ryu, a.chapman...maybe sign bumgarner and odorizzi to work the pen.

     
  • Arizona Phil 4 days 21 hours ago (view)

    CHARLIE: If the Cubs trade Quintana and his new club pays 100% of his 2020 salary his new club assumes 100% of his salary AAV liability, but if the Cubs agree to pay a portion of Quintana's 2020 salary as part of the trade, whatever portion of Quintana's 2020 salary that is paid by the Cubs would count against the Cubs 2020 AAV. 

     
  • Charlie 4 days 22 hours ago (view)

    PHIL: Thanks for that Boston context--I hadn't realized the trend there. If the Cubs did decide to pick up Quintana's option and then trade him (assuming the Cubs would not agree to pay part of the contract as part of the trade), do they have to do that by a certain date in order for Quintana's contract not to count against them for the CBT? I haven't been able to find any dates attached to the CBT in a quick internet search.

     
  • Arizona Phil 4 days 23 hours ago (view)

    My presumption in the Cubs declining Jose Quintana's 2020 club option as well as declining the club options on the veteran relievers who have one and non-tendering Addison Russell (and this also applies to Joe Maddon not returning as manager in 2020) is that after the monumental late-September collapse of 2019 on the heels of the 2018 Game #163 and Wild Card game defeats Ricketts will no longer accept the Cubs payroll going over the CBT threshold ($208M AAV in 2020) or extending a manager making $5M a year.   

     
  • crunch 5 days 4 hours ago (view)

    i actually like ATL the team...the fans and the 3+ hours of tommy hawk chawpin' non-stop is beyond annoying before even getting into how messed up it is they're still doing that in 2019.  it's all they do, just that 1 single thing...for hours...

    fans were so upset about not getting foam hatchets pre-game yesterday (that was the club's way to "dial it back") they were busy letting the "PC police" know they're here to chant and chop as loud as they could before the first pitch was even thrown.

    it took about 10 runs to shut them up.

     
  • Dolorous Jon Lester 5 days 18 hours ago (view)

    Damn. Atlanta was the only team in the NL I was hoping would advance. I don’t know what I was hoping in LA vs WAS series. Cataclysmic event? (Side note, I live in the DC area, what a dreadful group of fans. They deserve nothing good ever.)

     
more
Click "More" for the last 50 comments in full.