Bruce Levine breaks down Cubs & White Sox losing again

0:00Good morning, Bruce. It didn't look like a dirty slide to me. How about you guys? Well, I think that it had intent. I don't think it was dirty. I think Brandon Lau sound soft. Nonetheless, it did create quite a bruja. You were there. You heard from Sam Antonacci post game. We heard his explanation earlier. How did you think he handled the whole situation? I think he handled it great. And I think he's a refreshing player. He's not out to hurt anybody. But he's out to beat you. And I think when a player like that brings an attitude to a clubhouse like he does, along with his teammates, I think it's refreshing. When you see the brand of baseball, he plays even on the north side. They play a hard brand of baseball. No one's out there to hurt anybody. But the game should be played in a hard way that you're trying to win. And you don't have any friends on the other side. There's way too much fraternity like atmosphere in baseball these days.

1:01I like to know that there's just like on the other side. I like the fact that Christian Yalich hates the cubs and tries to go out there every time and beat him. I like rivalries. And to me, it transcends baseball. It's football. It's basketball. I like that idea. So that's my perception of it. Maybe I'm a little prejudice because I get to watch this guy play every day. And I see how much he's brought to the White Sox in the way of excellence and attitude. So that's my take. Bruce, good sign. Davis Martin, another solid start for him yesterday? Absolutely, absolutely, Jerida. He threw five really good innings. And they're looking for stability in the rotation. A rotation that's thrown the fewest of any in baseball. All you're long and you hope that with him getting straight now,

2:01you hope that Burke comes back and pitches well again because it wasn't really good the other day. Bullpen is strong. The league is not strong. The White Sox still maintain a three game lead in the lost column. Okay, so you can talk about halves and you know, game and they have two and a half, one half. It's all about with, you know, 16, 17 games left. It's the lost column. And the White Sox are there. They just have to start winning games. I said about a week ago if the White Sox continue to play 500 baseball from that point on, they're going to be okay. Well, they haven't quite done that recently, but that's all they have to do. They have to be consistently average in the American league till when their division and go on into the playoffs. They're two up with 17 to play. They're two up on the green and the lost column. I know you say that Bruce, but like they're two up in the standings

3:04with 17 to play. Game in hand means something. Doesn't it? Yeah, but you can't deny though. You say that they've lost three out of four. They're not playing very well right now. Okay, we'll agree on that. Okay, what effect does pressure? You talked at Will Vennel about, you know, the mounting pressure as September gets older every day. You get closer to the end of the month. Do you think it's a product of that? Or why is this team picking this time to not play at its best? Well, I don't think, first of all, it's a good team. It's not a great team. There aren't any great teams in the American league. Point them out to me if I'm missing. Tampa's a very good team. The Yankees are a very good team. After that, you know, point me out the great teams. The White Sucks have been in first place since July the 4th. It's a long time, right? Two months. So that there's been time for teams to catch them, pass them, move by them.

4:06They haven't done it. So when you look at the White Sucks, you ask that question again. Sure there's pressure. There's pressure on every team right now. And the White Sucks have a bunch of young guys that haven't faced this type of pressure before. You have a manager that hasn't managed a team in the playoffs as of yet. I think they're handling it pretty well. Honestly, you know, the questions asked every day to multiple players. I'm one of them that asked, as you said two days ago, I asked, well, then, a bowl the same question. And I think he was pretty honest about it. Again, they're going to deal with pressure. They're going to have to fight their way through it. I think they're about an inch and a half away from us talking about a different outcome yesterday with my draw line, dry with the bases loaded. You can talk about that in a lot of games, but I don't see them playing sloppy baseball. I don't see them making horrible mistakes that tells you the pressure has gotten to them.

5:07If I've missed anything, let me know. They're getting beat. And they're getting beat by some better pitching. They're not scoring as many runs. The thing that came out yesterday, which is great is you hope Murakami is starting to feel like Murakami because they certainly need the offense from him at the top of the order to make a good push here and finish strong. I mean, that was kind of the glaring thing other than Davis Martin last night. It was really, where was the offense? They had chances with runners in scoring position but they just couldn't really get it done, Bruce. Yeah, you're right, Jared. They did. And they'll admit they had chances. Again, one night where Nukum, who's been one of the best relievers in the game, just didn't get it done. A lot of few runs, but you have to score more than two, right? So they weren't able to. They move on to today. I think that they have a good chance, you know, to at least salvage one game from this series.

6:09And we'll see how it turns out. But I think intriguing baseball this time of year might be too exciting for you, David. I'm sorry, but it is exciting baseball and an important part. Bruce, stop picking on me. All right, I'm grumpy. I did not like with the way the Cubs game ended last night. I did not like them going with the rookie instead of Carson Kelly, especially with Tyrone Taylor and the Benches Dustin, a stutely pointed out. I know you were preoccupied. You were doing your job. You were at the rate, but I'm sure you have caught up to the Cubs situation by now. What did you think of that last sequence? And how big of a rut are the Cubs stuck in? I mean, look, you're down. How many runs going into the ninth, right? Eight to one. It's a it's a hail Mary, isn't it? I mean, and they they they hadn't brought on their top reliever. I mean, sprout was like probably the worst pitch on the team with all due respect. So there was a point where people were saying it's seven

7:11and nothing and the brewers in the fourth inning were bunting and stealing, right? They try to steal a base. People were saying you're piling on. You don't think there's anything such thing as piling on in baseball. The Cubs made a valiant effort to come back. They almost did. I guess you can nick pit on the usage of the players right there. That game was lost really early by a good starting pitcher. He had a bad night and the brewers had a really good plan against them. But the brewers are their 10 games ahead. I mean, we're back to two years ago when they finished 10 games ahead of the Cubs. So they're no longer in the equation into the playoffs. It's it's now about the Arizona Diamondbacks and the San Diego Padres watching them certainly Philadelphia as to where you end up and hopefully you do end up because you only have a couple game lead on San Diego, two and a half or three on Arizona.

8:15You know, it's going to be tough. They're going to have to play a good baseball here in the end. Last 15 games. It's a pretty graceful way to give Cric console pass. I didn't even see your arms move. I'm I'm nobody gets the passes time. Me or do they know I mean so nobody it was eight to six Bruce PCA was on deck. I don't care how far back they came or who was on the mount. They had a chance to tie the game extend the game one at bat and they went to BJ Murray in that situation. A playoff atmosphere. It's a lot to ask of a and a rookie with one major league hit. The game yesterday was a playoff atmosphere for one one team. And that was the brewers who clobbered them in the early innings and made made it pretty much a joke out of the game until the pubs decided to rally and make a game of it late. But honestly, they were they were beaten early.

9:16They were swept in a series that they had a sweep and and you have to move on. You know, everything isn't going great for them right now. Certainly you had no discovery last night on the bullpen right. There was no discovery to be to be had in a in a blowout game until the ninth inning. So again, that's going to be the major challenge here. You hope that a Gosman had just a bad one here. You hope that homes is back to having a better start the next time out. But there's always there's never that reminder in the visiting teams. Clubhouse store and there's never a sign saying. You are expected to lose today, right? The cup fans and the sax fans are expecting you to lose. So please cooperate. Thank you. Management. Well, I'm going to pick you back off of David's question Bruce because we were having this discussion earlier in the show. It's I mean, the numbers everybody is hijacked by the numbers and handcuffed

10:16by the numbers. Do you would you if you were making that decision, would you go by the numbers or the experience of a guy in the night? Yes, just in that making that BJ Murray switch right there and taking out Carson Kelly. Do you go with the numbers or go with the experience? I mean, that it's you know, it's it's crying in your beer. You know, it's just it's it's it's such a waste of energy to talk about that. Isn't it? I mean, it's it's we're on the moment here. Four and a half hours a day, Bruce. We do a show every Saturday for two hours. David, I absolutely not. It's not a waste of time. I apologize. I apologize. I apologize. But you know, nitpicking that, you know, it's really not the point. It's okay. It's not the point of the game. They got blown out. Okay. They lost a series. Come here are the numbers you really worry about in games. There are last 21 games. They've had the lead in ten of them and lost right. Those are those are the numbers you worry about because the pitching has not been

11:21good enough. We know it's a it's a really good offensive team. We know it's a great defensive team. We know there's a lot of heart in the team. Now without pitching at the end of the game, none of that is really going to matter. And they have to get that straightened out. Are you going to have a power in like Palencia at the end of the game now? Are you going to have a side who's up who's a ground ball pitcher at the end of the game now? I'm going to get away to Craig Council go to get his outs. You know, the one thing that's interesting, I'm going to talk to him about this tomorrow. He's never used any of the terms set up man or closer in the entire year. He doesn't have that in his vocabulary. It's fascinating because his mind doesn't work in the way of you have this role and you have to get it done. But now when he had Hader with Milwaukee, he had a closer because he struck out two out of every three hitters.

12:23They don't have that luxury with the cups. So outgitters is his term for, hey, do your job when you go in there. We expect you to get outs. But he has his fingers behind his back cross just like everybody else right now. All right. Well, he needs to get some outgitters up from Iowa. We talked about Shelby Miller yesterday. But on Wednesday, Edward Cabrera came out of the pen for two innings and he hit a hundred miles per hour or a hundred MPH as Pat Hughes would say and look pretty sharp. He gave a one-on-run. He had a strike out and I wonder Bruce by the time that the Cubs all get back to Riggly Field to play the Pirates on Friday afternoon, would it, will Edward Cabrera be in that bullpen getting outs for Craig Council? You know, David, it's a great point. Actually this time you don't talk about experiments and when Council was asked about whether there were help is at AAA two days ago, he said no. But right now, you try anything. If you got a power arm and you think it's a possibility that he can go in there and blow

13:27people away because that's the one element that the Cubs don't have at the end of the game. The other team does do. And that is power arms just strike people out rather than the ball in play. You know, hoping with a slider or a change up, the answer is sometimes at the end of the game with three outs left is 98 plus and striking people out. So when it comes to him or Palencia, I think you have to try. You know, again, it's experimental with two weeks left, but they're in the situation where they have to establish some people at the back end. And I know one thing, Craig Council is not afraid to try. He will if he has to hear this week. Great stuff, Bruce. Look forward to seeing you later. Maybe I'll stop in the press box at the right and I'll cry in my beer some more. Maybe come into the ninth inning and tell me what the Venable didn't do right. Okay. See you, Bruce.