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.

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  • Dolorous Jon Lester 1 min 17 sec ago (view)

    20s sounds about right. Considering they have gotten pretty much nothing out of pitching development in the last decade and only number one picks and Bote on the hitter side in the same time frame, that's pretty telling. I guess Contreras falls into that too but he had been around quite a while before Theo and Jed

     
  • Dolorous Jon Lester 3 min 29 sec ago (view)

    I was thinking that too, Phil. EJM failing so badly was another spectacular miss. Guess they should have let sleeping dogs lie when his first deal fell through (Dodgers or Giants, I think?)

     
  • tim815 55 min 49 sec ago (view)

    MLB.com rated the Cubs 22 out of 30.

    This season figures to tell quite a bit. No teams are terrible at player development anymore, and no teams look at the draft as a hopeless puzzle.

     
  • KingKongvsGodzilla 4 hours 9 min ago (view)

    Are these guys out of the org now? 

     
  • K Dub 8 hours 47 min ago (view)

    PHIL: Any velo readings on Ramos? Earlier reports also had him sitting 98-99. Thanks!

     
  • George Altman 14 hours 47 min ago (view)

    Phil, serious question: How good is the Cubs Player Development Department? Scale of 1 to 30 with 1 being best.  I mean, I can think of 5 teams right now who don't have near the Cubs resources but do better year after.

    I mean there are organizations across sports who seem to coach the crap out of their draft picks and signees. They just got 4 teenagers for Darvish, but do they have the coaches to get any of them to the show? 

    My pessimistic grade would be about 24.

     
  • Arizona Phil 15 hours 2 min ago (view)

    DJL: How about Eddy Julio Martinez as a spectacular miss? A $3M signing bonus out of Cuba and he never made it out of AA. 

     
  • Dolorous Jon Lester 15 hours 8 min ago (view)

    Wow, that's a pretty spectacular miss. He was so highly thought of when he signed.

     
  • Arizona Phil 15 hours 40 min ago (view)

    TIM: Richard Gallardo doesn't seem to be progressing as a SP, so he has apparently been moved to the bullpen.  He has a tendency to labor through innings and nibble too much and throw a lot of pitches. 

     
  • tim815 15 hours 54 min ago (view)

    Anything on Gallardo, of interest, from today?

     
  • Arizona Phil 15 hours 56 min ago (view)

    The Cubs have released LHP Ryan Kellogg, RHP Alex Moore, 3B Fidel Mejia, OF Jose Gutierrez, OF Eddy Julio Martinez, and OF Zac Taylor from Minor League Camp. 

     
  • Arizona Phil 16 hours 2 min ago (view)

    And despite what you might read elsewhere, It was - NOT - a "hot" gun.  

     
  • Arizona Phil 16 hours 28 min ago (view)

    He certainly could have forced the Cubs to release him with full salary as termination pay, so he must like it with the Cubs.  

     
  • Charlie 18 hours 19 min ago (view)

    Follow-up on last week's discussion of Baez's contact and plate discipline woes. Another Fangraphs article notes that he is among league leaders in combined positive change in zone swing rates (swinging at more pitches inside the strike zone) and reduction in chase rate (swinging at pitches outside the zone). See the last table: https://blogs.fangraphs.com/lets-look-at-some-earl...

    This makes his 45% strikeout rate and 1.7% BB rate all the more strange.

     
  • crunch 21 hours 20 min ago (view)

    he may not be worth much to us as fans, but every indication points to him being quite popular in the dugout.  nice to see him stick around as an emergency callup catcher.

     
  • Wrigley Rat 1 day 10 hours ago (view)

    Tony Wolters clears waivers and is sent to the Alternate Training site in South Bend.

     
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