the Cubs stunned the Pirates yesterday with a thrilling come from the high Victory to end up winning 14-10 in a game that they once Trail 10 to three however the Cubs are still struggling to make up some ground in the playoff race as they are chasing the Atlanta Braves in that third spot we're going to talk about P Armstrong Miguel Amaya Christian Beth and court and how they fueled this Cub's run but also if they're unable to catch the Braves if it'll be all for not that and more on this edition of the Cubs Baseball channel make sure to like And subscribe get in that comment section let us know how you feel about this team's chances as we approach September here's your invitation to our show [Music] [Applause] [Music] what's up everybody Welcome to the Cubs Baseball channel my name's Anthony Pasqual you can find me on Twitter at antore pasquali 3 you can also find the Cubs Baseball channel on Twitter on Instagram and on Tik Tock so make sure to follow us along on there join us as we continue to chop it up and talk Cubs on all those different platforms so make sure to find us on those different social media channels but the Cubs stunned the Pirates yesterday to complete the sweep um a truly awesome game that we saw them play obviously Trail 10 to3 at one point end up winning 14-10 in a series that the Cubs put up 41 runs against the Pirates most in the MLB across the three games spanned this season um so you got to give the offense some credit but we're going to talk about some different pieces of the offense we've been giving them a lot of credit as of late but truly and I believe this the Cubs are not where they are two games over 500 making a little bit of a push toward playoffs without their bottom of the order really stepping it up as of late so let's talk about it Christian Beth court and Miguel Amaya have been terrific in the nine spot in the Cubs order and we've talked about it at various points this season how bad the Cubs catchers are how they have the worst catchers in baseball back when it was Jan Gomes and Amaya and then the Cubs waved Gomes and the Cubs made Amaya take some adjustments and since then it's really been a lot better but let's just let them know numbers talk for themselves Christian Beth cour yesterday had seven RBI he's the seventh Cubs catcher to ever do that the first out of the nine spot in the order and in his 11 games since joining the Chicago Cubs he's batting 407 with 15 runs driven in in just 11 games as your number two starter that production is beyond what you'd expect now let's talk about Miguel Amaya Amaya in his last five games is hitting 667 he's 14 for 21 with two homers three doubles and 13 RBI but it doesn't stop there if you go back to July 7th for miguela Maya he leads all catchers and weighted runs created plus which is one of the the best offensive stats that we have um furthermore if you go back um to that Plateau the July 7th Day Miguel Amaya's hitting 352 with an Ops of 991 five home runs 20 RBI and just a 12 12% strikeout rate he's been phenomenal since that period of time and it hasn't been just those two guys you go back to the eighth spot Pete K Armstrong is putting on an absolute offensive clinic in his last 25 games he's hitting 333 with four homers seven steals 17 runs 16 runs driven in five doubles two triples all while playing excellent defense out there in center field just think about the weak peaker Armstrong has had earlier this week he had the second fastest in the stat cast era home toome time on an inside the park home run the very next day he had his longest home run in his career 437 foot bomb then he goes three for three with three steals in a game earlier this week and then yesterday he had four hits and came around to score four times that's the PE cor Armstrong experience this guy is turning into a star right in front of our eyes and the numbers don't lie when you're looking at P Armstrong since July 27th he's hitting 311 with an Ops of 928 only a 133% strikeout rate 15 RBI 15 runs four homers three doubles uh excuse me three triples and five doubles the dude just does it all on the baseball field Hollywood Pete has been RedHot as of late and because of the type of performance that we've gotten out of Pete cor Armstrong and out of um the catchers Miguel Amaya and Christian bethan Court at one point when the Cubs had the the worst Ops among eight and nine hitters in baseball all the way from the beginning of the Season through June 30th the Cubs had an Ops of 534 out of the eigh spot obviously that didn't always include peer Armstrong but it typically always included the catchers Jan goes Miguel Amaya 28th in baseball third to last since July 1st which is pretty much when peer Armstrong started getting regular playing time and pretty close to when Miguel Maya took over um after his adjustments the Cubs Ops out of those spots in the order 835 number one in baseball it's no coincidence that through those last 47 games the Cubs are playing much much better baseball in fact they're 29 and 18 in their last 47 games including winners of seven of eight Series so let's go back to it the Cubs won three of four from the Cardinal probably should have been a sweep uh but that one game they blew because peer Armstrong and niik horer had that miscommunication out in center field but he still won three of four then you win two or three against the twins sweep the white socks for two games then you get swept in Cleveland that one stings and it's going to sting for a while because if you took even one of those games this conversation could be a lot different but then you win two out of three from the Blue Jays the Tigers the Marlins and then you just sweep the Pirates seven of your last eight series have been wins two of them sweeps really strong performance from the Cubs as a result they stand two games over 500 these are all good things this is good news right the only issue is the Cubs are really struggling to make up ground the Cubs have played 700 ball in their last 10 games and have not gained even a half game on the Atlanta Braves because the Atlanta Braves are RedHot in their last 10 they're eight- two so they've picked up a game on the Cubs even though it's hard to imagine the Cubs playing any better baseball than right now The Good the good news is the Cubs do have the easiest schedule in the National League remaining but what you have to understand is the Cubs are chasing five games from the Atlanta Braves who are a really good baseball team they're injured they're obviously not as healthy as they could be um they had expectations of being a 100 win team so they're obviously underachieving a little bit to their standards but they're a really good baseball team so trying to pick up five games against a team like that means the Cubs are going to have to play and continue to play practically Flawless baseball for the rest of the season obviously easier said than done however to do so you cannot afford to blow games or give games away or lose games that Kyle Hendrick starts you just have to go out there and give your team the best chance to win because whenever the Braves do lose and they're going to eventually lose you got to gain ground on them you got to put pressure on them and you have to start climbing up those standings obviously the Cubs are two games over 500 they're finally over that 500 Plateau then now they could start making that push but the fact of the matter is you don't make the playoffs unless the Braves or the Brewers or the Diamondbacks or the Padres start to struggle and it's hard that the Cubs put themselves in this position they played themselves into this position of we need to rely on other teams struggling for us to get where we want to go if they took care of business better in May and June it wouldn't be that way but that's just uh the cards that we are dealt currently you need other teams to struggle and you need to continue to play almost perfect baseball but like we said the good news is they've got the easiest schedule in the National League remaining um and that continues tomorrow against the Nationals they play at 545 Central a three-game series I believe the Nationals have announced their starter um for this series it's going to be col Irvin or Jake Irving excuse me on Friday um on Saturday it's going to be DJ hers the former Cubs Prospect who they traded in the jamer cand delario trade and then on Sunday at 12:35 it is going to be Mitchell Parker on the bump for the Nationals the Cubs do not have their starters announced but the plan is simple right keep winning and hope the team's ahead of you lose and if you can do that for a whole month maybe you're going to have a shot to squeak in this thing but for now guys thank you so much for joining us here on the Cubs baseball Channel always fun to chop it up Cubs had a signature win yesterday let's see if they can do something with it but make sure to keep liking and subscribing getting on those comment sections and then following us on Twitter on Tik Tok and on Instagram but for now thank you guys for talking some Cubs baseball hopefully we're talking to you tomorrow after a Cubs win Go Cubs [Music]