Notes From The Cave

Chatwood should be the current closer for the @Cubs until Kimbrel gets back. He clearly has the best arm in the pen.

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The Chicago Cubs have one of the best home records and one of the worst road records, and they have the best run differential in their division. People seem to be scratching their head over how the same team can be so good at home and so bad on the road. The problem is not the hitting, although they could be more consistent. To me the problem is the bullpen, they are giving up too many runs in the 6 thru 9th innings. Nobody in the pen is reliable.

Twenty years ago the bullpen wasn’t so important because starting pitchers pitched more innings and more often completed games. Now, starting pitchers are only expected to pitch six innings and that means you got have more pitching than ever before.

The Cubs overall pitching staff is not good enough. You might see an uptick in performance if they make the playoffs because the starters tend to go longer and you tend to narrow the pen down to a handful of pitchers, but I don’t expect the Cubs to get beyond be first round if they do make the playoffs.

I don’t know what specific things the Cubs need to do for next year. I don’t think the problem is with the managing or coaching, it seems to point to the talent in pitching. Lester and Hamel will be a year older and there doesn’t appear to be any replacements coming from the minors. The window on the talent the Cubs do have is getting smaller and it will be a shame if they only make it to one World Series.

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At the bottom of this page are links to pages that describe all of the new items introduced in each of the Android Q betas. After a few days of use, I am can say that I like the gesture navigation, particularly the back navigation. My one wish is that they added a swipe down gesture that works within the middle of the screen, because swiping down from the very top is the one gesture that for me requires two hands.

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We appear to be within a few weeks of Google flipping the bit on Android Q that turns it in to Android 10, so I have installed Q on my Pixel 2. Enabled dark mode and navigation gestures. So far do not see any problems.

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Each year we try to celebrate our wedding anniversary on vacation to spend time together. This year we traveled to Marquette, Michigan, stayed at the Landmark Inn, took a tour of Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore in Munising, and then on our way back spent an evening at Headlands International Dark Sky Park near Mackinaw City.

Here are pictures that we took during the trip:

• Landmark Inn
• Pictured Rocks
• Headlands International Dark Sky Park

I defintely recommend all three venues. Pictured Rocks might be the closest thing I’ve seen to the Grand Canyon east of the Mississippi. The Dark Sky Park is a great place for star gazing, just be sure the moon isn’t too bright and you have clear skies.

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This happened at the Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore two days after our tour.

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