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Chapter 1: What were the Cubs' recent performances against the Rangers?
Rahimi Harrison-Grody. I don't want to break time. I want to yell at Marshall. Can we handle more Anthony Heron? Middays 10 to 2 on 104.3 The Score. Seah swings and misses and the ball game is over. And the Rangers, after losing the opener on Friday night, come back to win the series by beating the Cubs last night and today, both in impressive shutout fashion.
The final today, three nothing Rangers.
Nothing? And then the day before? Nothing? Wait a second. That's not supposed to be how this goes. This is Rahimi Harrison-Grote on 104.3 The Score.
Chapter 2: Why did the Cubs struggle with their offense in the series?
That was Pat Hughes on the Northwestern Medicine Cubs radio network. Rangers lose the first game. Cubs take game one in Texas, 7-1, but then fall 6-0 and 3-0 in back-to-back days on Saturday and Sunday. The Cubs are still doing very well for themselves. They just have cooled off a bit. But you don't want to see them cool off to the tune of back-to-back shutouts, Marshall.
Listen, it's one thing to have a rough day where, you know, the bats just aren't hitting. But I think here's what I believe happened. They had a situation where they had that rough day that I'm talking about on Saturday. And when you're on the road, you're playing against the Rangers, you're flying high with 10 straight losses, and then all of a sudden you come up with four hits.
Four hits on the day. And... Jack Leiter did his job. Cabrera obviously did not do his job, giving up five runs in five innings.
Yeah, that's the biggest misstep we've seen out of him all season.
Chapter 3: What impact did Jacob deGrom have on the Cubs' performance?
It was a rough day for him specifically. But for a Cubs team to have four hits, to get six walks, and then go 0-13 with runners in scoring position, that's one thing. But... Against a guy like Jacob deGrom, guess what? He can continue bad feelings in a hurry. You get three hits and only have four at-bats with runners in scoring position on a Sunday. And now all of a sudden, you're cold, cold.
Because you look at what the top five people, or excuse me, two, three, and four did after a two-for-four day for Nico Horner, who was kind of scuffling a little bit. Nico was the only person who got in scoring position. To go 0-for-11 with nine strikeouts, two, three, four. That's tough.
0 for 11, 9 strikeouts between Moises Ballesteros, Seiya Suzuki, and Ian Happ, who's on base streak, came to a screeching halt at 30 games. I think this was just one of those circumstances where you're not going to hit all the time.
But when you have a pitcher of Jacob deGrom's caliber going up and you're already, as a team, not getting it done, that's a lot of opportunities with runners in scoring position not to push things across. It struck me as, all right, this is just kind of how it goes.
Chapter 4: How did the Cubs' players perform with runners in scoring position?
This is going to be ups and downs. This was a down and a much appreciated, much needed, simply day off. Kind of hitting the reset button before you have to go to Atlanta.
Well, that's it, is reset the offense before you go to Atlanta. I think what we also saw is what this team looks like when the offense isn't hot, like we saw in the last 20 games before that. Ten straight wins, you lose three games, then another ten straight wins. That was a ridiculous clip. And you take it because it's money in the bank. But in the meantime...
This is a lot of times what it comes down to when you're talking about a playoff game. You know, you're facing Jacob deGrom, and how are you going to manufacture at-bats? And he sees his best game since 2021. Yeah, the slider was outrageous at 92. Then he had that fastball up in the zone at 98. That was fooling hitters.
Chapter 5: What signs of fatigue are showing in Edward Cabrera's pitching?
The plan was executed almost to perfection. Nico Horter was the one runner who was in scoring position in two opportunities all day. He's the only guy who got to second. That's one where you take it on the chin, but you're right, Marshall.
The Saturday game was more concerning, not just from a they didn't get runners across the plate, but also is Edward Cabrera starting to show signs of fatigue that he had last year?
Could he be going through a dead arm period? I know his velocity was down, and so you wonder if this is just, hey, this is that time of the season.
Spin rate on breaking ball, and we know his changeup is his bread and butter. Arm angle dropped. Are these all signs that the guy you need to be your stopper right now, because of what's gone on with Justin Steele and Kate Horton, may not be the guy who can be? And I feel like they may have found their guy, or he was at least answering the call de facto.
But this is ā given that he had injury history last year and he had thrown the most innings of his career last year, it's something I keep an eye on.
This is one of the reasons why I'm all in favor ā
in theory clearly it's not going to happen in practicum with the injuries that they've suffered a six-man rotation made sense to me from jump like yo just get six guys out there you'll be fine but of course starting pitchers start dropping like flies and you just have to make do with what you have i mean ben brown's out here giving people four no hit innings right you
you have to understand, and that's the, by the way, the most exciting part of this series coming up, Ben Brown versus Chris Sale.
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Chapter 6: How can the Cubs reset their offense before facing the Braves?
I'm here for it. Sign me up. I will not be interrupted while this is going on.
The revolution will be televised.
Yes, it will be televised. I'll be watching on the old marquee app through my Roku. Look, look, look, This Cubs offense, I believe, is going to be fine because there's just too many guys, as we've talked about it, one through nine, who can do something.
And even the guys that don't start a given game have proven that they can do something, whether that's Michael Conforto, whether that's Matt Shaw, whether that's Moises Ballesteros. I believe in all those guys as hitters.
But the thing is, in the meantime, when you have a series as big as this one that they have upcoming against the Braves, you want to feel like, hey, maybe you get the Braves best and you get your best. And we find out how they stack up against the rare teams who are actually out here at the top of the Major League Baseball standings overall.
The funniest part is, what if the Cubs were in the American League right now?
They'd be feeling pretty good about where they are.
You'd feel like they're winning the pennant.
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Chapter 7: What challenges lie ahead for the Cubs in upcoming series?
Because it feels like the entire American League is like 19 and 21.
They are underwater.
They're like fair to Midland. Everybody's got the same record somewhere around 500, but slightly below. Not the case in the NL. You play the hands you're dealt, and this is the one that they've been dealt. But it does give you some perspective.
The beautiful thing is I think we can start talking about all of these teams in Major League Baseball, Cubs being one of them, but all the rest of them, whether it's the division. Look, we talked about how hot the NL Central was to start the season, and we're like, okay, this is great, this is good, but, you know, it's a long season. We're at the quarter poll now.
Most of these teams have played 40 games out of 162 game schedule. And I look at the standings and guess what? Everyone's at least three games over 500 in the National League Central still.
We always knew this would be a challenging part of the schedule.
Yes.
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Chapter 8: How does the Cubs' current standing compare to other teams in the league?
I didn't think it would be the Rangers necessarily, but I thought it would be the Braves. The White Sox are here for it. And then you've got three games against the Brewers.
This is a key moment for both teams in town because of what you just said about that series coming up this weekend over on the south side. But yeah, against the Braves and the Brewers specifically, I can't wait to see what happens. This is theater.
You've got the Astros in town for three. They have been scuffling. They've seen some of their worst streaks, I think, patterns as a team in years. Then you've got four at the Pirates and three at the Cardinals. So you're going to learn who you are in the NRL Central really quickly. May is going to come at you in the second half.
May is going to be halfway over here in a few days.
The easier part of May.
Yes.
Now, the Reds didn't look easy initially, but the Cubs made them look easy.
You notice they bounced back and won a couple in a row after their eight-game losing streak. That's why they're sitting there. Tied for fourth in the division. They're not out of it by any means, even though the Cubs look like soul snatchers for four days.
Soul snatchers. That title belongs to Jordan Vanderberg.
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