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Chapter 1: What happened in the Cubs' recent game against the Athletics?
yeah that was an informative discussion yesterday we found out a lot of things more than we bargained for Stares at the camera with a wink in silence. This is Rahimi Harrison-Grody on 104.3 The Score on this Thursday. It is a full show today. Mark Grody, Marshall Harris, Layla Rahimi in the house. We are happy to join you. And we're not going to talk about the Bears stadium today.
You already heard it. Our open, thanks to Tyler Biederbaugh. If you want to check it out, it's on our YouTube channel. You can see the interview in its entirety. And that was the big part of it. Understanding that April was the last time that... He and Mayor Brandon Johnson and the Bears spoke. And that, unfortunately, he left Bears Packers early because of the traffic.
Layla.
We got caught up.
Layla. Batman himself could not drag that information out of me. And he gave it to us unsolicited.
On a scale of 1 to 100 on your superhero and villain characters, where does that rate when it comes to coercion?
Well, Batman's just the best at getting information out of people. He's a detective. He'll kick your ass.
Yes. So 100, it sounds like. He'll put hands on you.
It was eye-opening is what it was, Layla.
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Chapter 2: Are the Cubs underachieving or simply overrated?
Five and 18 in their last 23. And unfortunately, if you look at the team that Craig Council has on the field, whether it's the pitching, bullpen, or starters, whether it's the lineup, this is kind of who they are. And there's no evidence that they're going to get any better.
Yeah, I mean, the A's for two nights in a row, in the Cubs' last chance, their last raps, if you will, the A's have put it on a platter for the Cubs. On Tuesday night, in the ninth inning, they're down by a run. And they have runners on first and second, and nobody out, and they don't come through. Does that sound familiar? Do you need more? Or did you need last night's game?
We're in the 10th inning. Alcantara is on third with one out. And look, PCA had a nice night, had a big blast of a two-run homer against a lefty earlier in the game. And he did work the count 3-2, but he struck out on a foul tip, caught by the catchers. And then Bregman got a nice piece of it, but lines out to right field. The game is over. So you're right.
It's the same old stuff going on with the Cubs not hitting in the clutch. And unfortunately, last night, A bit of a bullpen breakdown with our guy Caleb Theobar giving up those two runs in the eighth. That was a killer. And it just shows you the fine line that the pitching has to deal with on this team, whether it is Colin Ray, the starter, or the bullpen.
They simply cannot give up runs right now.
Well, and Colin Ray only goes five and a third, and after getting it out, they take him out in that sixth inning, and I understand that he may have not thought that he had everything in the tank, but it sure looked like he did. He was getting through, working well, and then we see him leave early. Hobie Milner didn't have a problem, goes two-thirds of an inning.
Jacob Webb comes in, and then Theobar, I think right away you could tell he didn't have his best stuff. I just, I don't have a lot of... The reliever being good every other year theory stays in my mind pretty heavily. And then you don't know which year. You can't always predict it. We understand these things. It's a numbers game. But Theobar just didn't look like he had command.
And after that first home run that looked like it was shot to the bloody moon goes out of the ballpark.
i it was it was hard to watch the rest i mean at that point like take him out as soon as you can because this wasn't going well for him he's been struggling and i know he's settled down a little bit but the propensity for him to have that kind of night this is a game of consequence and you had to use one two three four five six seven seven relievers after colin ray for the a series
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Chapter 3: What are the Cubs' current standings and recent performance trends?
I'm so tired of this crap. Same. We've got to be technically correct. No, we don't. Just because they want us to do something doesn't mean we should.
We're not going to give in to the band, Marshall. You can call them Sacramento.
I still call it the Willis. I don't call it the Sears Tower or the Willis Tower. I call it the Sears Tower.
The Bay Area and Backtown? Back to Sactown?
I still call it Twitter. Like, I'm not doing this.
I think it's the Bay Area and Backdown, not Backtown. Back to Sactown. Yes. Sactown, the Bay Area, and Backdown. He's saying... Because remember, he's from L.A. Oh, right. The Bay Area... And Sagtown. Wait, now you got me confused. All Ball. No matter what, it's All Ball.
Oakland is what I have ruled out of this.
It's definitely not Oakland.
I still call it the Sears Tower, and I'll say Oakland every now and then.
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Chapter 4: How has the Cubs' clutch hitting impacted their season?
That's right. They moved up old Swanee. I'll never understand that particular decision. I don't even care. I mean, just keep I don't care if it doesn't make sense. And I guess it doesn't. And Swanson is not. Go ahead. No, no, I'm just saying because Bush, he does all that, gets the at-bat. My issue is this. It's not like he hit that ball past the center fielder or the left fielder.
It's the right fielder. You, as a batter, out of the box, should be seeing as soon as it gets by, like, I can get an inside-the-park home run here. And you've got to be going for it. I didn't see the replay of showing him rounding the... Tell me he wasn't running full speed all the way around. Also, I get both sides of the coin because Quentin Barry's like, there's only one out.
If I stop him at third, surely we can get a run home man on third with less than two outs.
A's have some good outfielders, though. I respect the arms in the outfield on third.
But they both made blunders last night. Soderstrom badly misjudged the ball in left field. And then the right fielder, I guess that play, the Bush play, I guess that's kind of a suicide play. It's a do or die type. Did Michael Bush score? He did not. Yeah, he did not.
That didn't bother me. It's been such a struggle to get people on third base. I didn't mind that decision sticking.
If he had somebody else better behind him in the batting order, maybe I would have been on the side where you guys are saying, hold him. But because I knew that it was Pedro Ramirez and Miguel Amaya up next, I was like, you know what? Take your chances. And maybe that's the next.
next thing like they they have to take those chances they have to manufacture runs that they're not able to do that anyway though that's my point i guess i guess but i mean and that's where the craig council part of it comes in other than just changing the lineup uh you know how aggressive do you want to be how aggressive do you want to be with your coaches and obviously something has to change other than sitting back and waiting for the cubs offense to wake up are they going to wake up you know when you get right to the end of the season to be asking these questions oh
Oh, yeah! The reason why this one was just like every other game that they've lost during this 5-18 stretch is because, again, their opponent goes 3-7 with the runners in scoring position. They had more opportunities, but they go 2-11. You gotta... We know it. They can...
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Chapter 5: What role does the bullpen play in the Cubs' recent struggles?
You have to be better on any given night. And in back-to-back games, they were not better than the A's. And in back-to-back games, too, I'm thinking about Craig saying that they're not playing good enough baseball to win right now. But in back-to-back games, there's been bad pickoffs for the Cubs. On Tuesday, Kevin Alcantara caught in a bad rundown in the second.
Absolutely killed the scoring opportunity. Alex Bregman last night in the third inning gets picked off, albeit by the lefty. Jeffrey Springs, but it's just not sound baseball that's happening for the Cubs right now. It's not just the runners in scoring position, the bullpen breaking down. Colin Ray gets a pass.
He was good last night and he told the media last night that he was good to come out when he did. But yeah, it's just not good baseball right now.
Well, and this is a team that spent $488 million in the offseason. And I do look at the big money guys when I consider where a lot of the production is supposed to be because that's how they were paid. Dansby Swanson, I thought offensively was going to contribute more than what he's done. especially these last couple seasons.
Last year was a real realization and understanding that he had to move down in the lineup. Do we accept that now? Alex Bregman, do we need more slug out of him? We've talked about that. That's part of why they signed him to the contract they did.
And I know there were a lot of people worried about the numbers he had last year in Boston in the second half, thinking that that was going to be the case. But I don't know how you don't look at this as a whole and say this team is underperforming. So let's go to the calls. We have Monica in Western Springs. Monica, you're on Rahimi Harrison-Grody.
Hi, guys. I love your show. And I think the answer to the question is it's a both and. I think they are underperforming and I think they are overrated. And then let me put this out there. Do you think the same can be said for Craig Council? It's one thing to hear that he's an even keeled guy, but it's another thing when I listen to him. He just doesn't sound very inspirational.
Now, I don't know what goes on behind the scenes when he talks to his guys, but is he the right fit temperamentally?
Yeah, I think that's a fair question because people have asked, like, well, are you taking on the attitude of your manager in a way? How much does that trickle from top down? And I know, Mark, you and I examined it a bit last week because there were varying degrees of whether or not Craig Council sounded upset, like weird Ben Johnson upset yesterday at Hallis Hall.
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Chapter 6: How is Craig Council's management style affecting the team?
You don't think that for those who are paid more, more is expected, whether you're an athlete, a manager, or whatever the case is? I think sometimes organizations make bad decisions in terms of how much money they pay people to do different tasks. Here's what I'll say. I think it is more overrated than it is anything else. And here's why. I think Craig Council is a good manager. We know that.
He does more with less. We've seen that, whether it's here or whether it's in Milwaukee. And I think the real issue here is this roster is not good enough, not dynamic enough. And when they were winning earlier in the season, when they jumped out to first place in the NL Central, it's because Craig Council was literally pushing all the right buttons. He was. He was.
And you go back to last year, too, and talk about the bullpen usage and the way they kind of darted around that, not having guys. They just find guys to do stuff. But right now you're seeing a roster that's not good enough to compete with the best team in the division, clearly the Milwaukee Brewers, a team they were up three and a half games on, and now they're down six and a half.
That's a 10 game swing in what, the course of a month?
It doesn't mean he's above reproach. It means that he's getting the same sort of criticism that his team is getting. All of it is up for examination. And because he commanded this salary, the Cubs paid him based on the idea that he was going to be a game changer in this.
I thought it was one of the best managers in the league. This wasn't a fluke payment.
So when you need to light a fire under somebody's butt here, who are you going to? And, you know, I read that article from Joe Maddon in The Athletic talking about the three best leaders that he had worked with. And two of them we know real well in David Ross and Cliff Floyd, who was calling the game last night.
And I think that was part of the discussion was he mentioned the example of how he didn't even have to say something to some of the players that Ross was on them saying it. And Mark, you witnessed it. And I wonder who's doing that with this group. You know, we heard about Alex Bregman talking about helping people. And while that's all well and good, who's upset about this?
I think Alex Brigham's got to help himself before he can talk about helping other people. I understand setting an example, but the fact that he's got five home runs and none of them have been with people on base, that's a concern. And he needs to be out of the three hole. I think there are ways to fix this lineup and make it better. I told y'all PCA should be batting third.
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Chapter 7: What are the implications of player performance on the Cubs' success?
You get a day off in Philly.
Yes, they got. what I believe to be their best win of the season. Let me explain why. Okay. Several things come into factor here. We knew that the hitting... I'm sorry. I knew that the hitting would be good this season. Top 10 offense. Guess what? They have a top 10 offense. They have had so much success starting pitching-wise and so much more than I thought they would get.
But Eric Fetty's been one of those missing links in terms of if he could actually step up, they would be even better. Hadn't had a win all season long. Hadn't had a win as a starting pitcher in 10 months. But he gets his first win yesterday by getting into the fifth and not giving up a hit until there was one out left in the fifth inning. And does his job. The pitching after that, flawless.
It's not just a shutout win. That's the largest road win they've had all season. We know they are excellent at home. 20 wins already at the rate. But if you could start to win games on the road and play with this type of confidence, this could project them forward into the most difficult part of their schedule in a way that they really, really need.
Lucky for them, they don't have to face Christopher Sanchez, whose innings streak without giving up a run is over. This is good news. It wasn't his.
historic run for him listen he gave up a run and the people in philly gave him a standing ovation and they had to like pause the umpires to come out brush off the plate that's how historic of a run it is but back to this team you talked about sam antonacci he's the first player for the White Sox to reach base six times in a single game since 2017.
This man, not only four for four with the two doubles like you mentioned, Layla, got hit by a pitch because that's what he does. Draws a walk because that's what he does. This was just such a complete team win and they did it without their biggest bopper in the lineup. Jacob Gonzalez, what? Munataka who? He gets a couple of hits, gets his first Major League RBI. Andrew Benatendi again.
Andrew Benatendi with the Benny bomb for the exclamation point on it.
He's up to six already.
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Chapter 8: What changes could improve the Cubs' lineup and overall performance?
While this man go backwards, backwards. I'm not saying, you know what I mean? I talk to him a lot, not about hitting because he's on my bitch. I talk to him about whatever, fielding his glove. But... I wish when I go to the ballpark and we can talk about it like Ozzy. I say, no, people think I'm ripping him. No, I'm helping him. Rocking with Ozzy.
Well, and does that sound like a former manager and a former shortstop who's just happy with a 33-29 record?
No, not at all. That is terrific. I didn't know that there was this issue with Mr. Montgomery. I thought he was one of the golden children of the White Sox. Well, he's had a very bad series. 0 for 12. You mentioned the 0 for 6 with four strikeouts. It's hard to go 0 for 6 with four strikeouts.
So that's half of the 12, just in case you're counting at home.
Yeah, like yesterday. And before that... Remember, when Munataka Murakami goes out, he immediately responds with home runs the next two days.
Yeah, we talked about it.
And that's part of the reason why they get the sweep. So is this tough love from Ozzie or just doesn't like him? Here's the issue. And he would fit right along with the Cubs right now, right? Because no one's had more at-bats with runners in scoring position in the major leagues than Colson Montgomery. You'll fit right in around here. You're going to like it here.
You know who's stacking on the list? Wow. The way you just said that. I know. You're going to like it. I love that buzzer. He's hitting 192. And the OPS is 618, which is a lot better than the guys who hit, you know, 345 for another team in town.
Yeah, actually 192 I'd be happy with. So that's improvement. That's how you do it.
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