00:00The Chicago Cubs, like them to start the season.
00:03You know, you get one of those lineups that you look at one through nine.
00:05Boy, they should hit.
00:06Decent pitching staff, good enough bullpen here.
00:09And a division where you say, we don't know how good the Brewers are going to be.
00:12Cardinals are going to stink here.
00:13Reds, Pirates, Adler fight each other.
00:15This is our division.
00:16And you might be not all that upset by saying, well, wait a second, Donnie.
00:19They're 29 and 23 on the season.
00:21If you don't have to start the season, not a great start, but you'll take it.
00:24One run games, 9 and 3.
00:25Craig, they're hammering above 500 teams, 22 and 16.
00:28They just can't beat the bad baseball teams.
00:30It doesn't make any sense.
00:32But also understand this, coming into Memorial Day weekend on another losing streak for the Cubs.
00:37Boy, they go up and down, man, like a rollercoaster.
00:40It is true.
00:41The Cubs.
00:42Yeah, and I think they'll be okay.
00:44But I think when they were hot, it felt like everybody was like, oh, this is the year.
00:49You know, the Cubs are going to win a hundred.
00:50And I kind of felt like, I mean, they're probably good.
00:53But I don't think that anybody could have expected them to have the best home record in baseball
00:57and be as dominant as they were.
00:59I think they were winning, Donnie, if I'm not mistaken, 88 or 90% of their home games.
01:03I mean, you know that's not going to be the case over the course of the season.
01:07But look, they're still built to win this year.
01:10And I don't think that they're as good as Milwaukee.
01:13That I don't think.
01:14But I do feel like they are the kind of team that as the season goes on, they'll add players.
01:20Pete Crow Armstrong getting into it with fans.
01:22You know he cares.
01:23Nico Horner's still a good player too.
01:25But look, in the end, Cubs are good enough.
01:28They're going to be a playoff team.
01:30I would say that, Donnie.
01:31But how they, you know, sort of evolve here at this trade deadline in a couple of months,
01:37that to me will be the key.
01:38Because I don't think that just this roster built currently the way it is, is enough to
01:43beat the Dodgers.
01:44I'm not sure it's enough to even beat the Padres.
01:46And I'm not even sure that they could even hang anywhere close with the Atlanta Braves.
01:50And we saw that already.
01:51So for me, Cubs are okay in a decent spot.
01:55But I don't love the idea of like, for example, jumping on FanDuel or somewhere else and taking
02:00them to win the World Series.
02:01Shota Imanaga, what, 58 and two-thirds innings pitch so far, 3.38 ERA.
02:05Ben Brown, 38 and two-thirds innings pitch.
02:07Very good ERA, 2.09.
02:09Then you have four for Cabrera.
02:10Tyone, 5.20.
02:12Colin Ray, 4.83.
02:13But let me ask you a question about Pete Crow Armstrong.
02:15We saw him last year, Craig, in the MVP conversations and very good.
02:19This past week to week and a half, sometimes you struggle with the plate, which he's doing
02:23here, but also massively struggling in the field as a center fielder.
02:27And yes, we talk about him getting into the fans.
02:29You're having to apologize and move on from it.
02:31Boy, he's making some errors right now.
02:33It's almost like he's in his own head at this time.
02:35And so are the Cubs.
02:36Big time losing streak, Craig, coming into this weekend.
02:39Yeah, I'm not sure.
02:41You know, I think, Donnie, look, when you start losing games, excuses start popping in
02:46and you start thinking to yourself, maybe you're not as good as you were.
02:49Maybe that's just kind of what's going on here.
02:52But I do still think that the team is fully committed.
02:56I think their general manager is fully committed to winning.
02:59And you don't go out and get a guy like Bregman and pay him that kind of money and just
03:02expect
03:02to just, you know, kind of glide through the season.
03:04So Imanaga has been really good for them.
03:07I think their pitching will be OK.
03:08I do like their bullpen as well.
03:09It's just a bad run for them.
03:11And so this is one of those scenarios, Donnie, where it's like you're not as good as you
03:14were a few weeks ago.
03:16You're not as bad as you are now.
03:17And in the end, the Cubs will win their 88-90 games, probably somewhere along those lines,
03:21fighting for some other team in the wildcard.
03:24But I would suspect, based on what I look at right now in the NL, that the Brewers probably
03:30end up winning the division in the NL.
03:31And I think the Cubs are a wildcard team jockeying at the end of the season for one of those
03:37spots.
03:37I think the Brewers are better than the Cubs.
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