NL CENTRAL PREDICTATRON 2019

pirates are out here defying pythagoras

my prediction of jon lester's decline appears to have been premature

Bryant has been absurd lately, i was out for dinner and the cubs game was on and i pointed out to my kid that Kris Bryant was up and mentioned, "he's been on fire lately" and he immediately hit a home run.

keston hiura comin up (to milwaukee)

drink every time someone calls him 'a professional hitter'

#Brewers prospect
Keston Hiura is a hitting machine.... Look at this beautiful base hit spray chart from all his @milb games 😍😍😍 pic.twitter.com/TOIjZ9AzmS

— Daren Willman (@darenw) May 14, 2019

could be the end of the road for Travis Shaw, who has put up -0.7 WAR so far

he seems to have conveniently developed a wrist injury, but yeah. lets them move moustakas back to third too

almost killed a pitcher for his first hit

I pitch in softball and that shit hurts

NL central has the top three wildcard teams

BDIB

Kris Bryant, 3 HR tonight...

i know willson contreras can't catch every cubs game but why have they consistently paired yu darvish, the wildest pitcher they have, with back-up back-up catcher taylor davis?

oh wait, back-up catcher victor caratini is back and catching tonight, that's a little better

1915 Reds threads are pretty nice I think.

http://cdn1.creativecirclemedia.com/kentuckytoday/original/20190519-214256-reds.jpg

ooooh yeah

this reds/brewers game is odd (luis castillo and zach davies both out after three innings) but entertaining

these two teams have played some weird-ass games over the last couple years, I love it

just like that we've got an RBI HBP to bring it to 9-11

so much MANAGING going on in this game

Something Wick This Way Comes (to the cubs)

Fugly game by the Reds pitching. Hernan Perez and Orlando Arcia deserve today's Bill Hall Award (tm) for down lineup Brewer to hit like they are going to the Hall of Fame against the Reds.

Thames seems to like hitting Reds pitching. I think a couple of years ago he hit like 10 HRs against him.

And all of this is without Braun, who is a long time Red nemesis.

Jay Bruce used to be the guy that hit a ton against the Brewers.

Yelich was out too

Anthony Rizzo hit one out that would have gone about a mile if the Budweiser sign above the Wrigley video screen hadn't gotten in the way.

https://www.mlb.com/video/anthony-rizzo-homers-12-on-a-fly-ball-to-right-field-kyle-schwarber-scores-kris-?t=most-popular

<3 david freese

who told yadi that neck tattoos and white hair was a good look

bengie

His new neck tattoo is actually a lot better. Before it was just a set of music notes 🎵🎶

I'd like to know how much the Reds team batting average went up this weekend as they went (42-116) .362 at the plate in the 3 game series. Cubs now have lost 2 series to the Reds in May.

Not that it matters in the big picture as Derek Dietrich has pretty much emulated his success in some ways both with the home run power and certain panache, but Scooter Gennett must have been hurt pretty bad in spring training. He was out 1/2 of spring training and is heading into June, out two months without starting back playing yet. Don't think they expected it to go this long.

yadi looks like he’s seen attack ships burn off the shoulder of orion

when he makes his big league debut tonight, génesis cabrera will become the 2000th player to appear in a game for the cardinals since they joined the NL in 1892

(mitch keller recently became the 1979th player to appear for the pirates)

cubs sign carlos gonzalez to a minor-league deal. local sports radio dudes point out this shows how the team feels about ian happ.

just a head's up - one of the cardinals top prospects is Dylan Carlson, which is the same name as the Earth guy.

could be cool

génesis cabrera will become the 2000th player to appear in a game for the cardinals

"Cards! You've got Genesis!"

I could see Carlos Gonzalez as a nice platoon player and pinch hitter. It's kind of an old Yankees type signing. Might hit or miss, either way they can afford to give him a shot. Cargo's stat line is a pretty classic peak around age 30 so far, but hey he hit the lottery with one big deal. I'd figure after that kind of deal, baseball is a hobby (albeit that pays well). I'm sure Cargo would like to play in the playoffs and have a shot at winning a ring.

The Cardinals have lost seven consecutive one-run games in May. You have to go back to July 1970 to find that many one-run losses and zero victories in the same month.

not sure if the second sentence is MLB-wide or just cardinals history - probably the latter

I would imagine - assuming these are 50/50 your odds are 1 in 128 out of any given 7-game stretch of one-run games, I would guess some team accomplishes that misfortune every year

pretty sure this is the first time since jason thompson circa 1982-85 that the pirates' best hitter is their first baseman

in between there have been a couple serviceable guys and an astonishing number of flat-out awful ones

3+ hour rain delay. this trio must have been ragin

https://i.imgur.com/JmI64CS.png

Brewers/Pirates yesterday was nuts

The Brewers placed Gio Gonzalez on the injured list with a dead arm.

that's pretty ominous, doesn't "dead arm" usually mean TJ? not to mention Chacin is *also* on the DL, though he's been fairly garbage in nearly every start thus far. on the flip side Jimmy Nelson is set to return Wednesday, the Brewers could potentially have a decent starter in their rotation for once

nah, 'dead arm' is pretty common. not a good sign or anything, but it happens.

I kind of always just took it for basic over use inflammation.

"pretty sure this is the first time since jason thompson circa 1982-85 that the pirates' best hitter is their first baseman"

Bell starting to hit like he looks. He's built like Frank Thomas, football player build.

Pirates have had a lot of formerly serviceable guys at the end of their careers playing first who are most known for playing with other teams.

The move Brewers fans have been dreading. Hiura goes back down to make room for Travis Shaw’s return from IL. https://t.co/L7ciO1hak2

— Adam McCalvy (@AdamMcCalvy) June 3, 2019

seems like a dumb move

idk. i mean shaw did hit 30 homers the last two seasons, but he also did not look cured in his triple-a stint

tough all around when every team needs 15 relievers

I am sure he'll be back fairly soon but yeah, pretty disappointing. he looks big-league ready.