NLDS Game 1 Recap: Cubs vs. Brewers

A 9–3 gut punch can turn a fanbase into a furnace. We felt it too. Instead of yelling into the wind, we unpack what actually went wrong, why one rotation decision stole the Cubs’ margin for error against a relentlessly patient Brewers lineup, and how we turn that frustration into a smarter Game 2. No scapegoats, no mythology—just cause, effect, and the best path forward.

We start where the night bent: Matt Boyd on short rest versus a lineup that thrives on line-drive contact and seven-pitch at-bats. With the bullpen rested and multiple off days baked into the schedule, the bullpen-first plan was sitting there. We lay out the alternative blueprint—Colin Rea for 12–15 outs, then a prepared relief ladder—to protect contact quality and keep Taillon lined up as a Wrigley weapon. Along the way, we kill the Nico error narrative, spotlight the real silver linings (Michael Busch setting tone, Peralta stretched to 95 pitches), and explain the lineup tweak that blunted Milwaukee’s ability to stack their lefties.

If you’re wondering about Shota, we dig into his recent form and why giving him a full turn—and a real bullpen to rediscover life on the splitter and ride on the four-seam—beats forcing tired-arm precision against a team that refuses to chase. We also talk Pat Murphy’s clubhouse aura and how to counter it: win the contact war early, control the running game, and trade “hero swings” for disciplined gap work that builds innings instead of hoping for lightning.

The loss stung; the series is very much alive. We’ve got a clean map to steal one before Wrigley and tilt this thing back our way. If you’re a Cubs fan who wants less rage and more reason—plus a plan that fits the roster you actually have—this one’s for you. Tap play, share it with a friend who needs the reset, and if you value the show, drop a review to help us keep building.

Thanks for tuning in!

- Carl & Mahoney

Chapters

• 0:00 Setting the Stage: Cubs Routed 9–3
• 6:34 Frustration, Perspective, and Chicago Sports Pain
• 10:54 Why Not Rage? Playoff Context Matters
• 18:30 Sponsor Thanks and Community Shoutouts
• 25:46 Rallying Cry: From Movies to Mindset
• 31:56 Silver Linings: Bush HR, Peralta’s 95 Pitches
• 39:04 The Case Against Starting Matt Boyd
• 46:20 Debunking the Nico Error Narrative
• 52:56 Lineup Nuance vs. Brewers’ Bullpen
• 1:00:10 Murphy’s Brewers: Purpose and Pressure
• 1:04:48 Game 2 Paths: Ray, Shota, or Taillon?
• 1:08:34 Reset, Urgency, and Closing Notes

Transcript

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Good morning, good afternoon, and evening Chicago Cubs fans. Welcome back to the Monday Morning Cubs Show. Today is Saturday, October 4th, just a shade after 8 p.m. The Chicago Cubs got Mollywapped, Game 1 of the NLDS against the Milwaukee Brewers 9-3. This is a game one recap. There will be a Game 2 Scouting report in your traditional Monday morning cub show slot. I understand this is a Saturday night. I understand this is not your traditional programming format. We do have about four to eight hours until first pitch for game two. I figured at the very least it would be a good exercise for me selfishly to get some shit off my chest. At least for the last hour or so, taking notes on game one, preparing what I want to talk about, and just kind of like how do we come out of this with a shred of positivity so we can be positive about game two and really just like enjoy this, right? Like that was a huge theme as we went into the playoffs. Can we enjoy the fact? Can we find just an opportunity to take a step back and say, you know what? We don't go to the playoffs very often. Not just the Cubs, but Chicago sports in general. I mean, if I'm reaching people that give a shit about the Bears, the Bulls, where the Blackhawks are right now, maybe you cross over, you got a White Sox fan in the family. I mean, really honestly, without trying to be too over the top, it is. Whew. It's, you know, like it's so bad. It's so bad. I mean, don't even get me going on the Chicago Bears. We can stay focused on the Cubs right now. And the purpose of the show is really let's just turn a page on game one. Let's do our best to bitch about the stuff that like we really want to bitch about. But let's turn the page. Uh, and I got some teasers for game two. The game two preview, I'll have Mahoney back for Monday morning. Uh, that's a plan for a standard schedule show. And just as I have attention on programming, I have to do two things right now. I have to say one, thank you from the bottom of my heart to everybody that has reviewed the show for that call to action, which I do sneak in like mid-show, later show, and I thought, you know what, fuck it. It's Saturday night off the top. We just got smoked by the brewers. I should just give a sentimental one here to just say thank you to the people that have done it because it's very helpful every time I publish an episode and I see the review has gone up more. Because, again, as you're telling a story about it'd be nice to do the Monday morning cub show in perpetuity, part of what helps that is obviously finding, you know, a couple partners and sponsors that allow us to do this. And the review aspect is without a doubt the most important thing. Because the alternative to this is like a year from now, I come to you guys and I'm like, hey, if you guys subscribe to this and it costs this much a month, that is that's like something I would just desperately like to avoid. Because then it's impossible to share, it's impossible to share the show, get people on board, etc. So this is just a long-winded programming note, which is also just a phenomenal distraction from how mad I am. And I'm happy I'm recording this at 8 p.m. and not right after the game, or not like during the game when it was obvious we were getting blown out. Because I just it's and I'm not trying to let people down that know me and it and and have an expectation I'll come in here, flip a table, you know, watching the F-words, but like if you expect me to motherfuck Craig Council, you know, it's it's hard to do that right now. It's hard to get mad right now. We're in the middle of battle. 2015, we lose game one against the Cardinals. One of everyone's favorite teams in Chicago, period, didn't win a championship, didn't go to the World Series. If I said, which are some of your favorite favorite Chicago teams? Obviously, some of the Blackhawks hockey guys, you guys, you guys got your cups. You know, I'm 38, I can go to the Jordan era. The first three Pete's tough. I have sons memories, and this is just an interesting sidebar here. If you have memories about the Lakers championship or the Blazers championship and you're under 40, that's badass. I got sons. I got sons pretty sharp. The Paxson three, I got tight. And then obviously, you know, the repeat repeat have that crystal clear. Uh, but if then if we had to get into an argument about like, well, did I enjoy those teams? I don't know, it was in grade school. Go to bed. It's the third quarter. You know, the Blackhawks, you lived and breathed and die, you went out, you partied, you your social life revolved around that. Right? So then I'd go back, 2015 Cubs were a spark because we had 03, then obviously 07-08, um, which those those things were over before they started. 07-08 was over before it started, and half the people listening to this hated Alfonso Soriano. Half the people listening to this value like drastically undervalued Carlos Ambrano. You know, there's a lot of things about that 07-08 team. I mean, it and unfortunately forgettable because you get swept in back-to-back postseasons. So then what do we do? We say 16. So if I asked you guys between 15 and 17, which team did you like more? 17 was under 500 at the first in the first half of the all-star break, before the all-star break. I believe they were 43 and 45. That was 17, 15. And now, my point in all of this long-winded history of the Cubs. Do you notice I have to go 03, 07, 08 to even draw relevancy? Do you know how much life would just think how different life was? What was it, 18 years ago? How fucking different was that's so long ago. That's uh that's so long ago. So what do we have to draw from? 15, 16, 17, a cup of coffee in 18, whatever bullshit you want to call 2020, and so here we are. And this is all working into why are we just not gonna flip a table right now? Why am I not motherfucking Craig Council? Why are we gonna talk about Ian Hap and not necessarily bury Ian? There's no reason to bury Ian Hap, right? So generally, God, the first note of it, I I'm so down a rabbit hole here, and I'm not gonna promise you guys how long this is gonna go. I will say I would like it to be 35 minutes. Last time I said 40, 45, I think it went an hour seven. That's the problem with these solo shows because sometimes as we're going through this, I'm uncovering stuff. I'm like, wait a second, this is there's almost a voice in my head saying, this is important. We got to dig into this for a second. We have we absolutely have to talk about Matt Boyd's usage tonight. Barry of fucking leads, six minutes and thirty seconds into the episode. We're gonna talk about Matt Boyd's usage, we'll talk about where we stayed on Craig Council. I really I'm gonna go through the first inning. We're gonna talk more about the first inning. Because people are simplifying this shit to just be like, well, if Nico doesn't make that error, it's one out. Matt Boyd was getting his shit rocked. You know, there are good observations. I counted five good observations. So I think that's a fair starting point if I'm gonna operate under the theme we like to set themes on the Monday morning cub show that we're we don't need to be too mad about this off day, bears by week. Everybody enjoy yourself. Maybe you got a project around the house tomorrow, maybe you got to do laundry, maybe go see your parents, family party, something something like the fact we do have a 24-hour window here, and I know I'm just assuming people listening to this are you know also partial towards the Chicago Bears. So this is, you know, my apologies. I know there's Packers fans listening to this, you know. I know we have a huge representation in Dallas. Cowboys fans show up like crazy for the Monday Morning Cub show. Um, I understand that not everybody's a Bears fan, but just my general point, the fact that we have a bye week and an off day in the middle of an MLB playoff series is a huge opportunity. Go for a walk. Go for a walk. Or how about this? You know it's coming. You know it's coming. If you're listening to the Monday Morning Cub show, you know it's coming. You can go for a walk. You can you can do stuff to take your mind off of the misery that is getting blown out game one with bad strategy, not just getting blown out. That's not Matt Boyd full day rest, and who was your other option? Ben Brown. We had options. We have off days, we got room to play with. You know, that stuff's gonna eat us alive, right? So, like tomorrow, Sunday, huge opportunity to clear the head, right? So you can do a lot of things. I'm gonna ask you guys, encourage everybody to do this. Go to Amazon and get some Thirsty Vaquero. That's a Tuddle sponsor of Monday Morning Cub Show. A Mexican-style soda with a signature spicy finish, ship all 50 states, no excuses wherever you're at. They'll ship it to you. Now, huge in Texas, which is a great story. Huge in Austin, huge in El Paso. You can you can go into a bar, ask for a thirsty vaquero, um, and there's everybody's serving it down there. Big distributor stuff going on, and also big in the quad city. So I want to shout out to my guys. You're in that quad city area. Uh you can absolutely, I don't know the name. Oh, this is a this is a fault of mine. The regional grocer. Who's the regional grocer in the quad cities? They're carrying it. Now, the interesting thing too is it's also available at Yagsi's, and I'm saying this because it's important to me. All right. It's Saturday night. Uh Mrs. Carl's on the couch right now. We ordered a pizza, it's just getting colder. You know, I have COVID's winding down. Um, I will eat cold deep dish. She'll be halfway through almost famous. I don't give a shit. We gotta sit here and get through game one. I had to do my homework. Do you want to come up pick up the pizza? I can't. I gotta watch Council's press game. Do you know what that's like? I mean, just imagine am I talking to anybody who's got a significant other? Just imagine tell your roommate that then. Eat the guys who aren't married, fine. You got a girlfriend. Forget it. You don't have a girlfriend. You're divorced. You know, you're on to a better thing, and it's a better version of you, anyways. It's a better, it's and if it's not right now, it will be. That's the process. But we're not talking about that type of stuff. What I'm saying is whatever you're whatever, just imagine your friends, whoever it is in your life. It's Saturday night. You guys have plans. What are you guys gonna do? Roller skate, paintball. Do they do night paintball? That'd be a weird thing to do. But I'm appealing to everybody here. I'm saying, whatever, you're going to the movies, you're going to dinner, axe throwing. Um, you know, in those circumstances, imagine someone goes, I have to talk into the void solo about the cubs getting their fucking doors blown off. What do you think the person you're telling that to says? I'm lucky. My wife's like, you bet get it off your chest. You go right ahead. Go do that Monday morning cub show. But in in just response to that, I'm just pushing it back to you guys to say, fuck it, Thirsty Vacaro, baby, is behind the show. We have a great campaign going here as the official beverage of the 2025 Cubs. And I hate to spoil it, the guys behind it. I mean, they're diehard baseball fans. These guys are this is an Anheuser, these guys are there's they're but they're butt-heavy guys, corporate, born and raised. I'll say it, diehard Cardinal fans. That's how much they like the Monday morning cub show and they like what we're doing. We have Thirsty Vacaro available in Wrigleyville before we do around Bush Stadium. And I love rubbing that in my buddy's face. But you can go to Yaksis, you can go to Sluggers, you can go to Amazon signature spicy finish. I drink too much of it now because I have the product to do it for the lineup previews in the postgames, but then I'm just going through it lunch, dinner, light refreshment. The other thing, too, obviously, listen, I like drinking cold beers. I am a cold beer connoisseur. End of the night, you know, I'm not, you know what? I've had sometimes, sometimes I've had too many double IPAs. You know, sometimes you're just sitting there. No, I'm being dead serious. It's Tuesday, it's Wednesday night. I like having a little something to sip on. It's a non-alcoholic beverage. You can mix something in there. And I'm going to do a long Thirsty but Caro ad read if I want to, because it means a lot to me that these guys have partnered with me going down the stretch for the playoffs, which is why we've been able to pump out a show every fucking day. Which is why I love sitting on this mic talking about the Cubs because these guys prop me up. They came to me, they said, we're going to do this. I said, we do one episode a week. We're thinking about two. They go go to two, and when the playoffs roll around, however, however many episodes it takes for you to reach the guys and let us know, we're behind the Monday morning Cub show. So when you go into Thirsty, when you go into Yexis, you say, Hey, can I have a Thirsty Baccaro? They reach into the cooler, they will hand you a Thirsty McCarrow. It's fucking crazy. I'm very lucky. This is a Mango habanero. All right, so that's it with the ad read. I know that went long, guys. I'm sorry. I'm being sentimental. Cubs lost 9-3 today. Got absolutely fucking smoked. It's Saturday night. It's now, what is it, 8 15 p.m. Saturday night? Now, this is gonna go out Saturday night, and I get the report every hour on what sources and who's listening to what? So I understand this is crazy. We're sitting here Saturday night. We're gonna be back here Monday morning with a thorough game two preview, but as it pertains to game one, as it pertains to game one, it's Saturday night. And I gotta say, if you're listening with me on Saturday night, you are a certified maniac. When we say Monday morning maniac, I'm talking about a guy on a Saturday night. What are you doing? Driving, smoking a sig? Got into a fight with your old lady. Maybe you're falling asleep, had a long day working, and you're like, I gotta get the fucking, I gotta get it off my chest. We just lost 9-3. I'm furious with counsel. Are we mad at Matt Boyd? Not necessarily. I'm gonna give some good stuff to talk about, and then we got some bad stuff to talk about, some neutral observations. So those are the three things we're gonna do: the good, the bad, the neutral, not the ugly. Good, bad, neutral. Neutral stuff to think about. And then if I forget anything, we'll do a grab bag at the end. But like, I gotta obviously open up, say again, thank you to the maniacs for tuning in. You know, it's Saturday night. If you're with me, you're you're you're you're there's just maybe maniacs not strong enough. But you're my guy. This is like Braveheart. Battle of Sterling, William Wallace. He's giving that big fucking speech. He's riding up and down, they're clacking the scores. You know, the swords, the spears. You know, these guys are just ready for fucking battle. What's the force in it against England? They're down. They're down worse than the Cubs, 1-0. You know, with a couple tricks up their sleeves. They got the Holy Father, right? They got the sharpened poles underneath them. They're ready for battle with the English. That's who we are right now. I'm not William Wallace in this hypothetical, by the way. I'll get on the fucking horse if you guys want me to. I'm not much for heavy sword play. I do, I'm not huge into territorial conflict, you know, but I will get on this horse. I will make this speech. I will be, I will rally the troops on a Saturday night as severe underdogs. If that's what this ball club needs, and the rest of the maniacs are coming with me. I'm being dead fucking serious right now. Saturday night, solo chopping up a cup's playoff loss into the void for no literally no other reason than just love of the game. And an opportunity to get better, prepare. So if you're with me right now, 15 minutes into the show, Saturday night, you you are. That's who you're the big bastard. You're Hamish. If you're if you are listening to this right now, now Sunday, I'm not if you catch this on Sunday, I'm not trying to isolate you out as a bad person. I'm just more drawing, you know, I'm just really just trying to give credit to the Saturday night crew here. You know? So if you're with me. And I mean, you can really just pick any railing cry. I'm not like a I like movies. But then if someone says movie buff are people, they go way too deep. Someone starts talking about the angle, the shot, the cinematography, the sound. The sound's beautiful. I did not know that. I'm not a buff, but I like movies. You know what I'm saying? And right now, this moment that we have maniacs in this show, as we get ready for game two, as we get out of game one, and this is like original Independence Day, 96. Commander in chief, President Thomas J. Whitmore. Who is it? Who's the actor? Pop quiz, Bill Pullman. He's got that militia level air raid. Third act of the movie. You know what I'm talking about? It gets on the speech, gets on the horn. In less than an hour, aircraft from here will join others around the world. And he gets a whole fucking speech. We're launching the largest aerial attack. History of mankind, right? There's like fucking six planes in that airfield. One of them's Randy Quaid. You know? That's another you're Randy Quaid. Um or you maybe you're Bill Pullman. Paxton? Pullman. I'm Randy Quaid. Up yours. I'm ready for the Brewers. Herb Bruce. Talking about the Rooskies in Miracle. You know? Where's my where's my Rusioni? Remember the Titans. This is what it is. Saturday night, getting ready. I gotta stop these hypotheticals and just do the fucking show and talk about game one. You know? We just lost 9-3. I don't need to be talking about President Whitmore. There's no reason to go down the miracle on Ice Path. It's not that serious. We're just getting ready for game two. We're coming out of game one of the NLDS. There's eight teams left in the playoffs. You know. But gun in my head, this is very similar to Remember the Titans. You know what I mean? Like, I'm not doing analogies. We're gonna get to the show. But this is very where I feel right now on a Saturday night doing a Monday morning cub show where we're gonna talk about Matt Boyd against the Matt Boyd against the Brewers. What an illogical decision. But first we got to get everybody together. We gotta rally the troops, right? We're going 13-0. Right? I'm co I can be Coach Boone. Who's the defensive coordinator? I'll be him. I'll be both of them. I'll call the defense and the offense. I don't give a fuck. I know it's 3 a.m. and we gotta take a jog to Gettysburg. 1971, we're getting ready to go 13-0. Bertir's crying his fucking eyes out. Who's the other guy? Who's buddies with Bertir? Who's the guy who doesn't block Verpete? You know the Jagoff I'm talking about. Buds. I think his name's Buds. Buds or Buds? Buds! That fucking guy, he's crying his eyes out. We're running to Gettysburg. Coach what's he say, Coach Boone? Coach Boone gives a speech. Tells the boys we gotta come together. I don't think it wasn't the get it's shorter than the Gettysburg Address. It was not a huge speech. But that's basically what I'm trying to do. And I'm distracting everyone from the fact that we got absolutely fucking destroyed today through bad strategy. But what we're gonna do is come out of this, right? That's where we're at right now. It's a Saturday night. We just got smoked 9-3 in game one of the LDS. Same time it's 1971. I'm Coach Boone. We are a recently integrated high school in Northern Virginia. Is that where it's at? We're a football team. We're on a 20-mile run. I'm fucking Coach Boone. I'm here with you guys. I'm doing the run with you guys. Not an ideal situation, but we gotta come together for something bigger than ourselves. We gotta win state. We gotta beat the Brewers. Alright? That's the most ridiculous introduction. That went on so fucking long. But again, distraction here, guys. Little bit of a distraction. That's kind of the point of the show. I kind of get your heads, because now we're in a position to do what? Let's talk about some good stuff. Right? We're 48 hours away from game two. We got plenty of fucking time. We got plenty of time. Somebody had some bad what what bad shellfish? What are you eating, Milwaukee? It's on the water, which could have confused somebody on the team. Right? Maybe Matt Boyd. He's he's on the water, he's at a dinner, somebody comes up to him, they're like, hey, we got the what's a good f what fish is Matt Boyd eating? And this guy went to Oregon State. He knows fish. What's he eating? Not a sturgeon. I don't know. Snapper? And he's probably thinking the snapper's fresh. It got bust in from Miami, buddy. Didn't even fly it. Ice melted. Bad shellfish. What a rid what an absolute ridiculous tangent for me to go on. But my point is, if he did have bad shellfish, you got 48 hours to get out of your system. We got 40 hours to get a lot of stuff out of our system. Which here's my first serious note. We did not need to celebrate the the we need to have the fucking Welches. This is not a meatball take, I'm being dead serious. We need the non-alcoholic Welches. The shit you your father gave you on New Year's Eve at 9 p.m. Then put you in bed and then got the good stuff out. The fake shit. The stuff you drank at the kids' table, Thanksgiving dinner, and your older cousin hogged all of it, and you just got a little bit. And when you wanted to get more, there was none. And it upset you. And it created a trauma traumatic experience in your life. Uh, you know, that one day led you to be an extreme extrovert. Not that I have any experience in cousins taking children's wine from me, but my point is the Chicago Cubs are not qualified to have booze in that clubhouse and come out and play baseball. We saw it. They lost 17 fucking games in a row after drinking a bucket of Bud Light in Pittsburgh. Heaven forbid we put the champagne down. Not because we don't celebrate victories like that, save it, you know, whatever Yankee bullshit it is. Or if you remember there's a college baseball team, Rice, that never dogpiled unless they won the national championship. And to be honest with you, I gotta look this up. Rice National Championship. Based this important thing. This is just a this is 2003. They won it in 2003. And because Rice won the national championship in 2003, for the duration of their postseason play under Wayne Graham, famous Hall of Fame coach, Rice refused to dog pile. They refused to celebrate regional championships, super, super regional championships, conference championships. There was absolutely no celebrating going on for the Rice baseball team. And I thought it was the lamest thing in the universe because they won regionals. They win super regionals. You know what they do? They would shake each other's hands. And I'm sitting there going, these pussies. Because rice is a good school. Rice is a good school. If you're gonna call a group of guys pussies and they happen to go to rice, you're in safe territory, my friends. It's up there with Cornell. It's up there with Brown. Emmet James. You know? It's up there. And I thought these guys are pussies. Alright? I was wrong. Those guys were right. They were right not to celebrate. Mostly because I'm watching the Cubs celebrate and then come out flat as fuck. Just flat. Just baloney sandwiches here. So that's on the top of my mind. Now, how serious is that take on a scale of one to ten? It's like a seven. Like, I would argue that with someone. That like we don't need to be fucking, we can't. Because we don't. Now here's the thing. The 15th team, 16 team, 17 team, I've talked about this before on the Monday Morning Cup show, those guys got after it. Alright? A little champagne here. We've guys get the breathalyzer out in game. We be flagging motherfuckers. Remember in 19, one day they show up, this was a story, and then it didn't get reported on afterwards. This was a story, this should have been a story. Of all the dumb shit that's a story, 670,000 pickup stories. One day the Cubs stopped putting booze in the clubhouse. And did anybody stop to ask why? No, because 670 has the broadcast rights. Did anything bad happen that you know of? No. There's no stupid, it's not like somebody did anything. No one got hurt. No one hurt anybody. There wasn't an issue. So why'd they get rid of the booze? 2019. Does anybody know? Does anybody know? There's a alcohol ban in the clubhouse issued by Theo Epstein mid-season. Mid-season? No. Pre-season. Which again is so far beside the point of just maybe I'm looking for an excuse here. We just looked like shit. Again, though, we'll just get into it. It's Mapboy. I mean, it was Maploid. It's Maploid. It's not the fucking booze. You know, I'll just completely contradict everything I said. Because who wouldn't be up to play the Brewers? You know? Freddie Paltz is a good pitcher. We didn't get smashed today because we were having Budlights. I'm just saying, you know. That's a meatball take. I'll stand by it. I'm not deleting it. It's out there. I think I'm trying to appease the meatball side of me that's just mad. Why did we get our asses kicked? But then it's the logic in me. And this is a good exercise to do the show, open it up to the community. Obviously, I'm going to be talking to a lot of you guys when this thing gets posted. And just the general idea that, like, you know what? Here's the reality. Mapboy just fucking got rocked in the first inning. We'll get to the Nico air. It kind of bothers me a little bit because a lot of people are hanging their hat on this. Like, well, if Nico, because he struck the next guy out. Like, there's just completely different circumstances after the air. You've there's absolutely no way after one play in occurrence that then you can assume that anything that actually follows would happen. So you'd say, well, if Nico made the play, there's two outs. You have absolutely no guarantee that Sal Frelex's going to strike out because you just have no idea what the situation is, how he's going to get pitched different. There's just, it's just a complete, it's a different reality. I don't know. Go to a different fucking multiverse and make that argument. Alright? So let's start with good though. I'm all over the place. That's because it's a Saturday night to just shout out maniacs. You know, we're going to get through this. Here's some good stuff that happened. And it's the starting off with is the Michael Bush leadoff homer because he homered against the Padres, and this is a guy who like does get hot. Not necessarily like say a Suzuki where it's like light a match and step back. But the fact that the foot's down and he's hit homers off of good pitchers in back-to-back games, this is very encouraging. This is very encouraging, particularly for game two when we're going to see a ready and he should be leading off again. So I think it's just like silly before I get into this, you know, bitch fest about use a Matt Boyd or just how that first inning went down. Like, let's let's give some good credit here. Michael Bush did hit a leadoff homer off Freddie Peralta. And then the second good thing is Freddie Peralta throwing 95 pitches. Because in the back of my head, when they're smashing us, I'm thinking to myself, well, the Brewers haven't played in forever. We're off tomorrow. They can get some good usage from their bullpen when they had a commanding lead. And I thought there was an opportunity that Freddie Peralta would come out. I mean, they're up 9-0 in the fourth inning. So I'm thinking to myself, like, they might just limit Freddie in his last two appearances. He threw two innings on September 28th, and I believe he threw five innings on September 22nd. So I'm thinking, like, they can just throw him four innings on what is this, October 4th, and then bring him back, which would be I mean, I understand this would be crazy, but like in the back of my head, I'm thinking like fuck, they could take Freddie Peralta out here in like the third or fourth inning at however many pitches that is, 30-40, shut his ass down, and then in just like a nightmare, just in like a literal nightmare scenario, we would see Freddie Peralt in game three. Now that's a ridiculous take. Don't crash your car. I don't work in a front office. I didn't fucking go suggest this at Pat Murphy. But in the back of my head, I'm thinking they're up nine-nothing. Pat Murphy could play a sick joke. We don't play game three till Wednesday. That's Sunday, Monday, Tuesday. That's three days' rest. And if he's only throwing 30 or 40 pitches here, this would basically register like two degrees above a bullpen day. You know. That was floating in my head. But then it got further, and I was just like, all right, they're not gonna do that. We're gonna see him at game three. We'll just see him again in game four, and then he just kept going. So like 95 pitches. 95 pitches. Is he gonna be ready for Thursday? Would you he threw 95 pitches? It's Saturday. So he has Sunday off, Monday, Tuesday? Yeah, I guess it's regular. I guess it'd be regular work for him to pitch game four. But to me, they had limited him down the stretch. They were trying to tighten up his just just make sure the pitch counts for the arms fresh and shit like that. And so I just thought, I don't know, and maybe I'm overreacting to this. He's a great athlete. He's obviously one of the best pitchers in Major League Baseball. You know, maybe 95 pitches is just a fucking cup of coffee to the guy. But like, it is his fifth start against the Cubs. We will have six starts against him the next time we see him. And the fact that he threw 95 pitches when I thought he could have comfortably been out of there at like 55-60 having a cup of coffee and a cigarette in the clubhouse. Like, this is good stuff. Like, it I'm again, I'm reaching for good silver linings when we're we're literally we were down nine nothing in the top of the sixth inning. So, like, sorry if the silver linings are shitty, but like Freddie Proults for the 95 pitches. Uh another good thing, and this is like weak good thing, is that eight of our nine stars. You know, so it's not like two guys are walking around feeling good about themselves. Like you basically have Matt Shaw two walks. Like he has reason to be taking a shower, being like, all right, I'm alright, I'm seeing the ball well. You know, Bush has a lead-off homer. Like he can, he's he's he's sitting at the hotel right now being like, all right, what about the other ones? Like, I got that one, which is a better scenario than these guys being like, fuck. Fuck. Like, really, the only person who is hanging on to this is Boyd. You know, Siroka, fuck him, whatever. He's lost. And Craig Council can't be bothered to give a shit about losing game one. But Matt Boyd, chip on his shoulder, this is the other good thing. If we're gonna lose, get let's get our asses fucking kicked, folks. If we're gonna lose, just fucking drag me out back, you know, and just well, I guess I don't know. You've already dragged me out back. What are you gonna do now? Like, you're gonna s what are you slap me? You're gonna beat me up? You know, kick my ass? You know what I mean? Like, what are you gonna do? We are we're already down nine. You are drill, it's nine-nothing game one. Like, the worst is there. So there's nowhere but up. And then with this is silver lining. Isolate it to there's only one person in the clubhouse who's like, this is on me, and it's Matt Boyd, and it is on Matt Boyd. There's no Negle Horner's not remember, it's there's no Negle Horner's like, I made it or whatever, I make great plays. It happened, went under my glove. It's not on Nico Horner. It's not. Someone's gonna be like, well, it's a two-one game. Okay. Did you see what they were doing to Matt Boyd? So now there's two outs. This motherfucker, I'm staying positive here. My good thing is that if there's 26 guys on the roster, 25 are ready to go. There's only one guy who got his ass kicked today, and it's Matt Boyd. Like fans, we all got our asses kicked. We had to sit through and watch that shit. But if the players are like, whatever. And that's because as I'm going back to this, everybody, you know, has a little something they can hang their hat on, even though Kyle Tucker shouldn't be hitting third. All right, fine, whatever, buddy. You're seeing the ball well. You got you got on base. You know, Ian Hap with a home run.

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SPEAKER_00: 32:18

Core Armstrong with the hearts. Again, does this matter in the fact of the we just got our dicks kicked in? No, but as it pertains to game two, like this is a small silver lining. Most of the lineup, except say Suzuki, got on base today and has a positive plate appearance to reflect upon against negative plate appearances as they prepare for game two, which I think is huge. Alright, you don't have to believe me. You could say this is an overblown point. I don't give a fuck. And then the silver lining to this silver lining is say Suzuki's our hottest hitter. So if we have one guy go over four, it's like, well, fine, whatever. Because his foot's down. Six homers in six games. Like the guy's foot's down. He died he was our best player against the Padres offensively. So, okay. We've got some momentum. We have no, I mean, we got our asses kicked. But again, these are the good things. We're gonna get the bad in neutral. But if I'm gonna get my ass kicked, I want to lose bad. You know, Matt Boyd's the only mopey guy in the clubhouse. And furthermore, this chip, the drive, he'll have a chance at redemption. I understand he had a 4.3 area in August, a 5.3 in September. I know he was a little poopy pants, but historically speaking, you've asked for something from Matt Boyd. Back fully up against the wall, the guy comes out and delivers. So, you know, these are silver linings. I mean, this isn't like these are much easier if we win 9-3. This is much easier if we win 9-3. Last thing, urgency, you know, like the guys, it's like we got smoked, like there's urgency here. Now, if we lose a late game, umpire fucks us, bad call, you know, we lose an extra innings, you lose three to two. There's plenty of ways where a loss carries over into at least one of the players' heads. Where they're mad or there's some lingering, we should be up one game. That was bullshit, etc. There's literally nobody is everybody's like, we just got smoked. We gotta get together right now. Almost the NFL. You see a team get smashed one week, next week, bet him. That's an analogy, not maybe not a great one, but the bounce back here, you know, partnered with the urgency of the circumstance, of like, we need to get one before we go back to Wrigley. And then the come down is like Quinn Priester from Freddie Peralta. That's great. Quinn Priester is good. I will give you the best guy to report on this guy on Monday morning. Right now, the high level is pounds a ton of sickers. But we're not talking about game two right now. We're just talking about here's some bad observations. From game one, as we move on, everybody just move on. We're just moving on. And we're just talking about how I don't understand why Matt Boyd started game two. I needed 35 minutes into the show to do this because I am watching the F-word. I also want to be respectful and shepherd a good conversation. I don't need to come in here and complain too hard. I don't understand this. It really bothers me that. I mean, there is a pure fact here, I don't understand why I started, but I'll do my best to understand. But here's why I didn't like it. First off, these off days have stacked up where bullpen has maximum availability. Like I mentioned using Kittridge today, and somebody was stupid enough to say that's a bad idea. You know, Kittridge threw 20 pitches game one, 14 pitches game two, five pitches game three. He threw 39 pitches in three days, then took a day off. Alright? This is the pinnacle of this guy's athletic career. If you're telling me Andrew Kittridge isn't fucking ready today with 25 pitches going into an off day tomorrow, when that would be in his throwing schedule, it would be at least just get some light fucking not a full bullpen at all in the least bit. But he's working his arm, his arm's conditioned to this. One, two, throws a sinker. Sinker's gonna be better after multiple days rest. Everybody or multiple days of usage. Everybody knows this. So you'd be increasing the movement on his, he would want to pitch this opportunity. So I don't understand for the first reason of using Matt Boyd. Our full bullpen availability would dictate that Matt Boyd, we don't need to use Matt Boyd in any type of let's match Freddie Peralta. We took our best starting pitcher right now. I should say not our best because probably Jamison's our best starting pitcher considering it has a 1.52 ERA over his last seven starts. Matt Boyd's ERA over his last seven starts is somewhere in the six-ish reason region, you know, only two earned runs today. But Matt Boyd started game one in the wild card series. So you're taking the that guy, whatever you want to call him in a rotation. We don't have Kate Orton, we don't have Justin Steele, you know, we don't have we don't have I get it. So I don't know what number he is. I just know he started game one against a wild card. We ran him out here game one against the NLDS on short fucking rest when we could have saved him for game two and used one of our depth starters, like Colin Ray, or we could have been smart enough to put Javier Assad on a ro Oh gosh, this kills me that Ben Brown is on the playoff roster and over Javier Assad. It kills me. It kills me. I have to be respectful, but that kills me. Michael Stroke today does not belong on a major league mound. Like, you're telling me those guys are better than Javier Assad. Fine, I won't even use his name for this argument. Colin Ray can go throw two innings, and then we can go heavy bullpen. Colin Ray can go three innings, and then we can mix and match our bullpen. We have we have so many, we could use all three of our lefties, even if I don't give a fuck if you hate Rodgers. It's better than using Matt Boyd on short rest. It would be better to turn it over to the collective of the veteran bullpen, which we have, all old established guys except for Palencia throws a hundred. We could have done that. That makes so much more sense. Or if you were going to start Colin Rain, just be like, fuck it, we're going against Freddie Peralta. The chance of us winning a home game against Freddie Peralta is 30%. Say Matt Boyd pitched his ass off today. The chances of us winning that game are like 44%. It's Freddie Peralta at home in a playoff game. I know he hasn't pitched that well. Like it's Freddie Peralta against the Cubs. I know we've seen him five times. I'm just being realistic here. I'm trying to think about the decision making from is it Jed? Is it Craig? Is it Carter Hawkins? Is it some statistical, you know, fucking whiz from Caltech? Doesn't know shit about baseball. Matt Boyd. Because it's sweeper, you know. I don't know. And that's what kills me, because of the off days. The people that think I'm crazy for this bullpen stuff. Dude, you could max out your pen. We were off yesterday, we're off tomorrow, we're off tomorrow. We're fucking off on Tuesday. And then we're, oh I mean, I'm like, I'm like clawing my eyes out here. We're off on Tuesday. We're off on Friday. It's October. You're off all the time. They do that, it's not, it's like, ugh. Anyways. I had to get that off my chest. And people think I'm stupid for this, whatever. I start with the thing I'm most most passionate about. Most passionate about. And the thing I'm most passionate about is the you the decision to use Matt Boyd. Because game two, he's fully resty sharp. Now he has been good against Milwaukee. He's much better at home against in Wrigley. But so is Jamison Taeon, and his his line he lines up way better for Wednesday. So you're in a situation where you say we can keep Matt Boyd for long rest and use him on Wednesday and Jamison on Thursday for game four. So then who pitches game two? Shota? I don't know. I don't know who pitches game two. We're gonna get to the game two preview. There's a couple considerations here. I just know Matt Boyd starting today fucks with all of that. Instead of having Matt Boyd for game two and then rolling out of Jameson for game three and feeling good about ourselves, or at least saying, fine, we're gonna push the advantage on Boyd and Jamison because they're very good at home, instead of having some sort of strategic outlook towards like finding big time advantages in the series, we were just like, fuck, we'll take out, we'll take Matt Boyd on our on their number one on home turf, a well-rested Freddie Peralta. Before that game even starts, you got to feel like the dumbest fucking person in the world. What's the difference? If Colin Ray throws you two scores, there's a what do you have there? A 42% chance to win the game with Colin Ray? A not sharp Matt Boyd is a 0% chance to win the game. And the fact that I mean, I don't want to prop my. I've watched a lot of baseball. I was a pitcher, I played in college. I am serious about baseball. I love this game. I've just I've always been way too serious about baseball. This is a very serious teammate. I kept serious scouting. I was just serious about all the fucking teams we were playing against, the different players, who was good, what stats were what. I've always been wired to identify fucking players and what makes what guy different and all this shit. I am categorically obsessed with the players who make up this game. I have absolutely no fucking clue how the people who get paid millions of dollars were like, this is the best way forward. Because now the next time Matt Boyd can pitch is when. He threw 30 pitches tonight. We're probably gonna run him back in game four. Which makes game two so much more important. I have a ton of confidence in game three. Wrigley's gonna be rocking. Jameson, if Jameson Taeon gets a ball in game three, even though as I speculate this, I'm just gonna get fucked on this. I think that's a huge advantage. But just on short rest with Boyd, and it's not like he's been dominant. Like if he was coming on the stretch with like Taeon, 1.5, shutting people down, it's like, alright, we're gonna stretch him on early because he's just been elite and he wants the ball. He's been struggling. He's had Tommy John in 2023. This is the most innings this guy's pitched in like fucking when? Since before COVID? When was the last time Matt Boyd threw made this many starts? Let's find out, folks. 2019 with Detroit pitched to a 4.5 ERA, led the league in home runs, surrendered. That's the last 2019. That was before I motherfucked Cody Parkey. That's crazy. Was it? No, that was after. I'm just trying to think of reference points here. What was the 2019 year? Look at Anthony Rizzo was starting for the Cubs. Chris Bryan was playing third base. No, come on here, guys. What is that? Matt Boyd's 33rd start of the season. They decided to do it on short rest. And again, the reason we complain about this is because we have the off days for the bullpen. That's really it. Even if people want to say our bullpen sucks. Like, I don't give a fuck. They're off yesterday, they're off tomorrow, they're off on Tuesday. Like, yeah, a lot of times these guys suck because they've been pitching fucking 11 out of the last 13 days. They're just grinding. Just grinding away fucking meaningless June and July baseball. All right, dude, this is the biggest, most meaningful baseball you'll ever fucking play. I'll guarantee you, every single guy in the bullpen, sign me up for an inning or two. Just look at Aaron Savali today. It's like I just wanted it. Just wanted to be on that field, competing fresh. Not calling Matt Boyd a pussy. Matt Boyd just wasn't fresh. It's bad team management. This is the last thing I'm gonna do is shit on Matt Boyd for leaving the ball over the plate. That said, all he did was leave the ball over the plate because he's not sharp. So, you know, I am baffled about game two. That's the bad thing. I have like no sniffer sense on game two. They start showed, I mean, God help us. I mean it. Showta has gotten rocked his last seven starts, and he has absolutely no competitive edge against the Milwaukee Brewers lineup for the sole reason people shit on me all you want. I don't have the splits in front of me, how he's performed against him this year, or historically speaking. But the problem right now is that Soda's a tick below with a tired arm. He cannot get swing and miss. And if you can't get swing and miss against the Milwaukee Brewers, if you are not a threat to get they will fucking grind out these seven pitchit bats, they'll hit the ball hard the other way, they'll do exactly what they did to Matt Boyd. They will shit on us, they don't hit home runs. Most of these are just hard-hit line drives, just guys trying to hit the ball as hard as they possibly can without being an asshole. That's the most important thing. I said this before in the pregame. I can't, I hope people believe me when I say this. The most important thing about the Milwaukee's Brewer Milwaukee Brewers lineup, save for Bryce Tarang, who does it half the time. Nobody swings like an asshole. Not William Contreras. I know that guy plays fiery and passion and all that stuff. That guy's a controlled approach. Everybody in that lineup is controlled. Nobody is trying to do anything they can't do, which playing into Shoda is like, oh shit. Because Shoda feasts off of people who are always trying to do so much. Like Tatis Jr. And I know people are gonna say, well, Machado, that's a mistake. And Shoda is at a significant discounted version of himself. But even just imagine the best version of Shoda, the guy who goes out and dominates. And maybe he would absolutely do that against the Milwaukee Brewers. The unique feature to Shoda's approach to pitching, which allows him to dominate, is the fact that he can make you be more aggressive. I'm gonna square, I'm gonna I'm gonna fucking crush this. Then go back to the dugout, and they're like, that was 92, that felt like 99. Because he's a deceptive, sneaky motherfucker when he's healthy. Right now he's not. That's a delicious thirsty vaquerol, by the way, which you can get on Amazon. I love this mango habanero. Showda's not that guy to get the swing and miss. Not right now. He's been lit up. I think he's got some stuff in his head. Because he hasn't been in the this is a unique first-time struggle in this guy's fucking career, which drives me crazy. That's the most sensitive thing I am about Shoda right now. In his life, he has not put together seven bad starts like this. Certainly not on this stage. So then the people want to turn back and go, well, this guy's got great experience in Japan, you know, whatever, champion, world baseball classic, big stage. None of that shit matters if his last seven starts have been dog shit and he's in the bullpen looking for it. I'll guarantee the last fucking thing on that guy's mind is when he went out and pitched well in the 2000 whatever 18 world baseball. He's not going to be out there and going, well, I've done this before on a big stage. He's going out there and going, I got my ass rocked against the I gave up that big home run of Machado. And I've been getting my shit slapped around. Now the alternative to that is he's made an adjustment and that the Machado was just a mistake, and that he's actually a very good pitcher, and he's he's chopping and he is a good pitcher. But is he tired? If he gets the ball game two, that's crazy. That's bad. I don't I don't know if that's crazy. But and then just last thing on the bad stuff, shut up about the Nico Horner error tonight. Every ball was hit extremely hard except for the opening leadoff double, which even then was still hit hard in play for a double. Like, go watch. There's not anybody slap dick shit around. I think he walked two guys in the inning. So, like, you're gonna go out there and issue multiple walks, give up multiple hard-hit extra base hits. Someone's like, well, if Ian Happ caught that ball, were he laid out? That would have been one of the most amazing catches in the history of left fielders. So shut up. If Nico Horner fields that ball, makes the out, fucking la di-da, two outs, still gave up multiple hits and put multiple guys on base after that. Siroka still looked like shit. So trying to just write stuff up, write stuff off as well, if Nico Horner makes that play, we're fine. I think that's fucking lazy. Alright? And I also hate that Ben Brown played tonight. I hate that. I hate that. That's an indictment. People want to indict the trade deadline and get mad at we should have traded for more starting pitching, this is what happens. You stupid, stupid, stupid, kind-hearted people. I know you mean well. I'll be nicer. But you're stupid. Okay. We didn't trade three of our top ten prospects. Instead, we let Cade Horton become the NL rookie of the year. He's ten times better than any pitcher we could have acquired at the deadline. One, two, Cade Horton ultimately was the best pitcher in Major League Baseball in the second half. Now, the argument is we acquired the wrong starting pitcher in Michael Sorroga, which I will absolutely have that argument. I love that. I think that's a great argument. But I don't think there is a single player available that we could have traded for for the same capital that we were giving up. I hate talking like that. For the same players we gave up for Soroka, there's no way you can get who were the pitchers available that would be performing better in these circumstances than Soroka who could have started game one. Or like, give me a pitcher. Whoever we traded Soroka for, a bag of fucking balls. You know, nobody. Guys got a bum shoulder. The Nationals hate his guts. Who who that's where I get kind of lost with this trade deadline stuff. Who the fuck were we gonna get? The most important thing that happened was not giving up a ton of guys so that Cade Horton could flourish and we could have a ton of fucking young guys. We could still have Moises Ballesteros. We can still have Owen Casey, who by all measures people are very high on right now. We still like these guys a lot. We could have given those guys up for Mackenzie Gore, who throws five innings, gives up three runs, and walks four guys every single fucking start. Would that make you happy? So as we lose nine to three game one, and you want to sit around and be like, well, that's what happens with the trade deadline, because what, we need a better bullpen. Our bullpen just dominated the fucking San Diego Padres. I don't know where you've been. Our bull the best bullpen in the world. The San Diego Padres gave up the number one prospect in Major League Baseball for Mason Miller. And Mason Miller shoved the ball up our ass. And guess what? They still fucking lost. Because our bullpen is better, I guess, or played better. Played better, I should say. Because our bullpen played better. Pitched better. I'm on a tangent here, folks. I'm on a tangent. But I'm trying to make some clear and concise points as we clear and concise. Long-winded points as we get into game two. You know, so if I got to come down to the bullpen and be like, I'm sick and tired of hearing people, this is bad. I'm sick and tired of hearing people complain about how we didn't do enough at the trade deadline when we beat the Padres and we're in the NLDS against a team that's 18 and 20 over their last 38 to finish a regular season, now 19 and 20. A team that we're better than on paper. No, I'm not gonna do that. I'm not gonna shit on Jed Hoyer because Kate Horton cracked a fucking rib. What I am gonna shit on Jed Hoyer for is somehow paying a paycheck or authorizing someone or being involved in the fact that Matt Boyd started game one tonight. And I hope that's enough we've talked about Matt Boyd. All right. Because I gotta get into some neutral observations for the Chicago Cubs, and then we gotta wrap it up because it is a Saturday night, and and it is I'm a categorically insane person for I'm we're at 53 minutes. Why I do this to myself. I'm gonna throw in a Zen here. I'm gonna say thanks everybody for tuning in. We're gonna talk a little bit about some neutral observations from game one. Some stuff about game two. I'm not gonna edit out that cough. Normally I would. I'm sorry. It's been a long day. We lost nine of three. Um, we're gonna go through some neutral observations that I think are fair for the series. We're gonna go through some game two questions, and then I have a grab bag. It's empty right now. If I add anything to it, I'll be absolutely fucking surprised. And you know what? Here's one thing on the grab bag. Just the F-word. Like, there was no reason to drop that one there. That's just that's you know, that's inappropriate. So I would like to apologize. I'm sorry. All right, here's neutral observations. I just have five. I'll go quick here. We made a lineup change today. We moved Kyle Tucker from the cleanup to the three-hole, Ian Hap from the three-hole to the five-hole, and then say Suzuki from the five-hole up to the four-hole. Now, a small change, but it's mostly significant because of the fact that Burrews have two lefties that they use out of their bullpen, where the Padres just really had one. Now I know they have Juan de Peralta, but the Padres really only use Juani Peralta in late game situations when they're losing. You know, if they're down by two to five runs, then Juani Peralta would see like an eighth inning or a ninth inning. I think he had a cup of coffee in like the middle, late May as like a setup guy, but that was just more out of like a need-based thing. As far as the playoffs are concerned, the Padres really only had one lefty, Morant, Morant, Morejan. I can't I can spell it, I can't say it. And he wasn't like really necessarily a high-leverage guy that they wanted to use. I think there's a I think there were three pitchers above uh the lefty and the Padres bullpen that they knew Schultz would go to. So you're basically only going to see right-handed pitching. So they had, I think that's what council was doing, and they knew that going into the Padres series, which is why we saw that lineup down the stretch for a couple games in a row, and then why it was the way it was for the first three games of the series, or for the first three games of the playoffs. Is because they knew there isn't, there's just one lefty. So what you're trying to do with Ian Hap is much better from the left side. So this is it's just a nuanced observation here about lineup changes and why the Cubs made a lineup change today. Is because by moving Kyle Tucker to three, you're going lefty Bush, righty Nico, lefty Tucker, righty Saya, then lefty on righty and hap, into righty with Carson Kelly. And we talked with the Joey Molinero show about how like necessarily from like a I guess from a purely statistical standpoint, it doesn't necessarily matter how you stack the righties and lefties, but in a game-by-game basis, I it does matter with the subjective, it does matter with your bullpen usage to a certain extent, because they know if you have back-to-back lefties, this is I'm going way too long on this, but I want to be specific because I think this is going to be I think Kyle Tucker's going to hit three for the entire series. And that's because if you have Ian Hap hitting three, I know people are bitching about that, they don't want to see it. Not that Kyle Tucker's any fucking better. But if you have Ian Hap in the three-hole, you can double up with the lefty. You can bring a lefty in to see Ian Hap because it's going to flip him to ready, and then you're going to get lefty Kyle Tucker. And so the Brewers have two lefties that they use. And so it's actually a small but like strategic advantage from council to flip it around a little bit. I don't think it's because Ian Hap sucks or he slumped against the Padres. I think it has more to do with the fact that if they hit Kyle Tucker three and say a four, they they basically take away the opportunity to have a lefty come in and see back-to-back lefties in the first five hitters of the Cubs lineup, which is something the Brewers would be able to do because they have two competent lefties in their bullpen that they're willing to use at just about any time. Whereas the Padres have one guy and they don't actually really care about him that much. So it's easier for the Cubs to just give, I'd be like, we don't give a fuck. We'll put the lineup where it makes most sense. And I actually do think it makes most sense to have Ian Hap hit three. And I will die on that hill. And it has a ton more to do with the fact that like you can't move Michael Bush from the leadoff at this spot. Nico Horner has to hit two, P. Crow Armstrong has to hit seven, Carson Kelly has to hit six. So now you're kind of stuck in this area of like, well, you have Saya, Kyle Tucker, and you have Ian Hap. And so then the options are like, do you want Seya to hit three, or do you want to have Ian Hap at three or Kyle Tucker hit three? The problem if you hit Saya three is then you have the opportunity to bring in back-to-back ready's against Nico and Seya. So and I think, and not necessarily that's a problem, like my own personal philosophy is like, I don't, you know, they have to face three hitters anyways. But just in this is in the neutral observation category, lineup change and why. And I wrote lengthily about how my guess is to mix better against the Milwaukee Bullpen because they've got two lefties where the Padres only had one, which is why you saw the saw the lineup we did against the Padres and why they flipped it this time. And I think it's way more nuanced than just saying Nico Horner was 0 for 9 with six strikeouts. Because he has been the lineup's best player since August 1st. And I just don't I just don't see how they could go, well, Kyle Tucker injured is a better three-hitter. I think it has more to do with how Milwaukee will then counter with the lineup. Now, do I like that? I don't know. If that's true, let's assume that's true. Because I spent a lot of time reasoning myself through that, and that's the best I could come up with. So just say assume there's some truth to that. I would prefer to just see the same fucking lineup, and I like it when they just roll it out and they're like, here it is, boys, ain't changing. This is how we fucking go. Because in my experience being on a baseball team, the highest level I played, sure, whatever, Big Ten baseball, whatever. That's so insignificant to the grand scheme of this sport. It's been a nice personal experience, and I learned a lot about the game, but heaven fucking forbid I compare one thing I did on a college baseball field to any of the shit that's going on in the NLTS. What I will say is this when a manager or head coach is rolling out a lineup and it's the same lineup, and it's just like, this is it, boys, it's time to eat. Like, you do get some momentum and you do build a little bit of identity of being like, I'm the five hitter, I'm the four hitter. And so council has completely, completely been against that, which I thought. Was cool down the stretch where it's like, oh, it looks like we're putting together just like one solid playoff lineup to roll. And we did that three games a row against the Padres. They made the change against the Brewers, and I think it has to do with the Brewers bullpen, which is such a long neutral observation. But I saw people talk a lot about the lineup and like, well, if they're gonna move in, move them out of it. Like, I think they're only moving in because of it, because of the because of the matchups. Um, I've touched on a lot of the other neutral stuff already. We talked about the Padres bullpen, how it compares to Milwaukee, how Milwaukee likes to use their bullpen. You know, they'll fucking throw anybody anytime. They don't give a shit. Pat Murphy, Pat Murphy has convinced every person on the Brewers roster that it is their moment to shine at every single moment of their life. There is not a single person in professional sports who inspires more confidence from those undeserving of it than Pat Murphy. The variance between the way you feel about yourself playing for Pat Murphy versus how you should feel yourself as a professional athlete is greater than any, you gotta go to like Popovich with the Spurs. You gotta go, you gotta go to Belichick, and even then that's all scheme, that's all prep. Pat Murphy has these guys walking around. So here's a last neutral observation. Pat Murphy has these guys walking around. Like, there is nothing that not only you can overcome, but everything that's gonna be sent your way is for a reason. So you can't overcome it. Each challenge builds itself into a greater opportunity so that you can ultimately define yourself on a bigger stage. And each moment, each pitch, each game, each plate appearance, each fucking rep and practice, everything is building you towards the ultimate moment of you being a Milwaukee brewer and you being a part of this organization and how ultimately you contribute to us reaching our goals. That's Pat Murphy for every fucking guy in that team. Walking around, I got a purpose, I'm meant to be here. Look at Ben Brown. You kidding me? I'm joking. No, we don't have they don't have the Ben Browns. They don't have guys walking around second guessing themselves. They have every person on that squad plays with a purpose. And that's important to recognize as we go into game two because we need to pitch the weak contact, we need to catch the fucking ball, we need to hit the ball. So who starts? It could be Ray, it could be showdown short rest. If it's Taon, I'm gonna throw a fit because I think Taeon at home on Wednesday, I've said this a thousand times, is a luck. Colin Ray, fine. He's got experience, he's pitched in Milwaukee a bunch. Put him on the mound. I believe it's a contract year. I'm pretty sure he's out there being like, man, five scoreless goes up. Five scoreless is worth about five extra million dollars, pal. Five scoreless is probably worth five extra million dollars and an extra year. So you want that two-year 14 million? What's he on now? 1.45? Why don't you go get a two-year 14 million with five scoreless? Why don't you go do that, Colin? Shoda on short rest, I don't like. He's still probably a little mad. He's gonna look for stuff. I would like to keep Shoda on full rest so he can throw a bullpen. I would like Shoda on full rest, if not longer rest, so he can take the time he needs to get in the bullpen. I think just throwing him back out there. Now, good thing to remember about Shoda, he will have a big chip on his shoulder. My only problem, again, I have to emphasize this this is the worst stretch in his entire life, which sucks. Most guys go through that freshman year of college. You know, you're fucking awesome. Small town school, go to college, get rocked in fall ball. You're like, damn, I suck. Shoda's never been rocked. Nope, not in Japan. Nope. One of their best pitchers ever on the national team at a young age, just dominated his way through Japan, had a great first year in America, until he got hurt this year. So his last seven starts would be the most adversity he's ever faced. The most adversity he's ever faced, I repeat. So do we throw him on short rest game two when we absolutely know we need to go out and have a competitive start with sharp stuff on the edges? That's why I'm leaning towards Colin Rey and again. I'll ride if it's Jamison Tan. And it's hard to piggyback Shodan short rest. So someone goes, well, why don't we just do, you know, Colin Ray go three, Shoda go three. They're two righty lefty variant. In Shodan short rest, his shit needs to be sharp if he's gonna go righty, lefty, ready, lefty. Shoda could get through a Padres lineup if he got to the back end that 6'78, that's all weak lefty. Not weak lefty, but like he can get through those three lefties and the shitty Freddie Furman, even though he had a good series. The Brewers lineup's different because they'll feast if he's not sharp. Padres won't feast. It's not like that with the Padres. They're just completely different teams. You know, Padres can hit the ball 7,000 feet and do all that jazzy shit, you know, and throw the fucking bat. The Brewers will hit the ball in the gap and run their dicks off. And we saw it today in spates. So I think it's hard to piggyback starters. I think you've got to go to Colin Rain and say, give me four, give me five. We have a great bullpen. We got a ton of rest coming up. You just give me four, give me five. Can you give me 12 to 15 outs? Because if we do that, then I think we go Jamison on Wednesday, and then when we get to Thursday, we have Shoda on long rest. Or this is nah, we could save Boyd for game. The question is, Boyd's so much better at Wrigley after 30 pitches. Would you pitch Boyd game four and save Shota on full long rest in Milwaukee? Because Shota's way better home and away in the splits, way more neutral. Where Boyd had Boyd's way better at Wrigley. So that's a question for us. I think the easy answer is what the Cubs are going to do is just go Boyd game four, show to game five. I think they're I or I should repeat myself, Showday game four, boyd game five. We're way ahead of ourselves here. I'm gonna do a better job. We'll be back Monday morning, Cubs show. We'll be back on Monday morning with a scouting report on Quinn Priester, and then follow-up to the news that's gonna come out. So there'll be news cycles, there's gonna be some story stuff on Sunday. It's a dead day in Chicago sports. So a lot of chatter around the Cubs playoff. Try not to get too overhyped about the fact we got our ass kicked because again, it's really only one guy, Matt Boyd. And I know we talked about the Nico Horner error, but you guys got to get your heads wrapped around the fact that Boyd was getting his fucking shit rocked out there. Two walks, unacceptable. I don't give a fuck how many errors there are. Two walks, unacceptable. Not sharp. Now, do I blame Matt Boyd? He shouldn't have been out there in the first place. But don't you dare be walking around in the group chat tomorrow telling guys, well, Nico Horner doesn't make that error. We got a chance. Fuck off. We weren't ready to play, they shoved it down our fucking throats, right? That's how it is. And nice thing is, we all have positive stuff. When I say we, the guys in the clubhouse have positive stuff. The guys who played, they can reflect. Guys got on base. I know that sounds shitty. I know it's like, well, we played like shit, we got our asses kicked, but but there isn't a there aren't multiple players walking around that went 0 for 4 with three fucking strikeouts with runners in scoring position. Nobody in the position, nobody blew it. There's no position player that made a huge, huge fucking, well, I guess Nico Horner, we want to point that out. But again, it's in the first inning, and Boyd's getting his fucking shit rocked. It's not like eighth inning, and like you didn't miss the you missed the cutoff guy, and now we're all depressed. And there's huge the controversy is why did Matt Boyd start this game and what were other options? The controversy is in the strategy, and that's easy to move on from. That's where my head's at. This has been a long Monday morning cub show. This has been a long Saturday night show. Pete's is so fucking cold. COVID's alright. It's been alright, you know. I bounced back. I had a negative test this morning. I don't know what that means. I still feel like shit. So, you know, bounce back Monday would be huge. Last thing, just say again, everybody enjoy a Sunday, get a chance to get away from stuff. Thank you guys for tuning in. You guys get a chance to review the show, that would be really nice. I love doing this stuff, talking cubs. You guys have questions, stuff I should get into more for the preview. We'd be happy to open it up and do a mailbag. Um, you know, so if you guys have see that on Twitter, maybe keep your eyes peeled. Otherwise, just want to say thank you again for tuning in. Love you guys and go Cubs.