Chicago Cubs

 Chicago Cubs.. Where do we start

good wn,although Henricks and smiley are both goingto the IL. hopefully not long. Well played game and good victory!!!

Good win to start the series. Quality start for Wicks. 
Go Cubs!

Good win.  Bellinger removed, hopefully nothing. Big road trip east coast after this series.

Nice win!  Keep er rolling!

Lots of moves, Cooper for assignment, Smyth and Kyle 15 day dl.  Need to finish out this one

Cubs put up a 5 spot in the first. Happ with a nice double in his first at bat after missing a few games. Wicks needs to keep the Astros off the bases.

Go Cubs!

 I'm tired and not going to post pro or con what happens tonight. Let's see where it goes and then tomoorow maybe a comment or two.

If I remember correctly, the Brewers got swept in all three games in the series against the Athletics who were the Leagues worst team last season. They went on to win the division. I’ll take the split with the Fish if the results are the same.   

Yeah,the Fish are the best 6-17 in the league! No embarrassment losing to them!  

I wouldn’t put all the blame on Morel. He struck out at a bad time, but he wasn’t alone. The Cubs had 11 strikeouts and were 3 for 16 with RISP. Morel only struck out twice, as did Swanson, Cooper and Canario. That strikeout total isn’t going to win you games. It didn’t help that they were playing from behind for all their at bats.

Z-man I kind of agree with you to a point. Henricks in deed looks like he may be washed up however the cubs had plenty of chances to make some noise today if a hitter would of come through when needed. And that hitter IMO  is Morel. Mor4el came up in a few crucial times when a hit would of really helped and all he did was strike out looking or swinging at a pitch that would kill a worm. I'm not a big Wisdom fan either but Maybe he could of done better in these situations. Anyway another tough one to swallow however a well deserved day off then  Houston rolls in for three. A tough upcoming road trip lies ahead starting with Boston then the Mets. Hopefully our cubs can weather the storm. GO CUBS!!! Oh yea one more thing. Good-night everyone

  

There’s a lot of baseball yet to be played in this season. It takes the first month, month and a half to figure out how lineups will work. Even then it will change depending on streaks, slumps or whatever you want to call it. 
I’m not going to panic about anything that happens early on because it’s going to evolve over time. 
What’s clear to me at this point is that they can’t rely on Hendricks as a rotational starter. He’s cost us every game that he has started to this point and I don’t see him working out of it by staying in the rotation. The problem is that we are down one of our best starters and until he returns we will be using guys that normally wouldn’t be in the rotation. The Cubs are lucky to have a very deep roster with some of the top prospects in their system. To this point they are limping through the first part of the season with what they have available.
I will say that they haven’t played a team that they couldn’t beat or couldn’t compete with.
 By the numbers, we should have walked all over the Fish and been able to take every one of these four games. That didn’t happen because we couldn’t keep them from having big innings. Whether it was the starter or the relievers, it was a failure by the pitching staff. Cubs aren’t the only team going through this right now. Our next opponent is having the same issues with their pitching and they aren’t winning as many games. 
As far as the lineup goes there’s a few things that I would provably do differently, but I’m not the one with the pencil. Let CC figure out what he has and what he needs to do with it.
There’s been a lot of positives to the season so far and I think you have to let it play out. This is a very good ball club with a lot of talented players. No panic from me even though I’d like to win every game.

Go Cubs!

Here's the lineup I would go with 5 times a week at least:

1 Hoerner 2b
2 Swanson ss
3 Bellinger cf
4 Busch 1b
5 Cooper dh
6 Happ lf
7 Morel 3b
8 Amaya c
9 Tauchman rf

Maybe losing Suzuki hurts more than anything. Until Morel can find more consistency at the plate, he needs to be down in the order.  Need to find a consistent leadoff also.

Still a great start to the season especially considering the good teams they have played on the road.

Go Cubs Go!

Well we got a split with the fish.  Hendricks pitched a little bit better today, 6 hits, 4 runs, 5 k's, and 0 walks in 4 innings.

Our hitters struck out 11 times today......way too many!  CC needs to figure out who his best 9-10 position players are and stick with them and stick to a more consistent lineup.  You'd think by this point in the season you'd have a more consistent batting order!  I'd be glad to offer my advice but so far he hasn't called me. 

Rest up for underperforming Astros coming to town on Tuesday!