When Governor Scott Walker and the Wisconsin legislature pushed through Act 10 in 2011, it was to address the state’s continuous budget problems when the Democrats were in control. Since then, Wisconsin taxpayers have saved over $5 billion.
However, a new study by the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty (WILL) shows that Act 10 may have had a positive impact on student performance as well. The peer-reviewed study, “Keeping Score: Act 10’s Impact on Student Achievement,” shows Act 10 led to improved math scores in Wisconsin’s schools while having no negative effect on the state’s graduation rates.
“Act 10 is arguably one of the most consequential pieces of legislation ever enacted in Wisconsin,” said WILL Research Director Will Flanders, an author of the study. “While opponents have tried to scapegoat the law as harmful to Wisconsin students, this study reveals that the innovation and staffing flexibility spurred by Act 10 has served students better than the previous system.”
In the study, Flanders and co-author Policy Analyst Collin Roth point out that Act 10 was more than just a budget bill in its impact. “It was nothing short of a revolution,” Flanders and Roth wrote.
“In fact, it served to fundamentally alter public education in Wisconsin by empowering decision makers to put the needs of students first,” the study’s authors wrote. “Superintendents were allowed to make staffing and budget decisions that best served students and schools. A marketplace emerged that rewarded quality teachers, replacing the antiquated system of seniority. Schools were also unshackled from the administrative handcuffs.”
The study contradicts the finding of a previous study by an opponent of Act 10. While that study claimed Act 10 had a negative impact upon student achievement, Flanders and Roth point out that the study did not control for student disability rates and did not include the state’s two largest school districts, Milwaukee and Madison.
The WILL study finds that the positive impact on schools was “consistent across small town, rural, and suburban school districts.”
“The effects are strongest in suburban and small town districts, and somewhat weaker in rural ones,” Flanders and Roth wrote. “However, we do not observe a positive relationship with Act 10 in urban school districts.”
One of the possible reasons for the lack of an impact for the urban school districts could be how they fought implementation of Act 10 and have not taken full advantage of the reforms offered.
This study follows previous research by WILL on Act 10 showing the possible benefits of the landmark legislation. A 2016 study by WILL showed Act 10 had no effect on student-teacher ratios or any significant effect on teacher experience. Earlier this year, a WILL report showed how school districts used merit pay to incentivize teachers.
The authors of the study hope that it debunks claims that Act 10 has had a detrimental effect on education in Wisconsin. Instead, by freeing school districts from the restraints of the pre-Act 10 era, students have actually done better in school districts that embraced Act 1o.
“In education debates, all sides claim to be acting in the best interests of kids,” said Roth. “What is clear from this data is: Wisconsin students benefitted from Act 10.”
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No comments on An A for Act 10
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Just over a month away from critical elections across the country, the wide Democratic enthusiasm advantage that has defined the 2018 campaign up to this point has disappeared, according to a new NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll.
In July, there was a 10-point gap between the number of Democrats and Republicans saying the November elections were “very important.” Now, that is down to 2 points, a statistical tie.
Democrats’ advantage on which party Americans want to control Congress has also been cut in half since last month. Democrats still retain a 6-point edge on that question, but it was 12 points after a Marist poll conducted in mid-September.The results come amid the pitched and hotly partisan confirmation battle over Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court. Multiple women have accused Kavanaugh of sexual misconduct when he was in high school and college. He categorically denies all the allegations. The FBI is conducting a supplemental investigation into the accusations that is expected to be wrapped up by the end of this week.
With Democrats already up fired up for this election, the Kavanaugh confirmation fight has apparently had the effect of rousing a dormant GOP base.
“The result of hearings, at least in short run, is the Republican base was awakened,” noted Lee Miringoff, director of the Marist Institute for Public Opinion, which conducted the poll.
While Democrats and Republicans are now equally enthusiastic about the midterms, the story is very different for key Democratic base groups and independents. While 82 percent of Democrats say the midterms are very important, that’s true of just 60 percent of people under 30, 61 percent of Latinos and 65 percent of independents.
Democrats need to net 23 seats to take back control of the House, but if those groups stay home in large numbers, it would blunt potential Democratic gains. With 34 days to go until Election Day, it all points to another election dominated by party activists.
Maybe Rasmussen Reports explains this:
An angry Judge Brett Kavanaugh told the Senate Judiciary Committee late last week: “This confirmation process has become a national disgrace. The Constitution gives the Senate an important role in the confirmation process, but you have replaced advise and consent with search and destroy.” Most voters think he’s right. Even Democrats are conflicted.
The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone and online survey finds that 56% of Likely U.S. Voters agree with the U.S. Supreme Court nominee’s statement. Thirty percent (30%) disagree, while 14% are undecided. (To see survey question wording, click here.)
Seventy-seven percent (77%) of Republicans and 51% of voters not affiliated with either major party agree that Kavanaugh’s confirmation process has become “a national disgrace.” Even among Democrats whose senators have been leading the charge against the nominee, 40% agree, and only slightly more (43%) disagree, but 17% are undecided.
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Today in 1957, the sixth annual New Music Express poll named Elvis Presley the second most popular singer in Great Britain behind … Pat Boone. That seems as unlikely as, say, Boone’s recording a heavy metal album.
The number one British song today in 1962, coming to you via satellite:
Britain’s number one album today in 1969 was the Beatles’ “Abbey Road”:
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First, for those who didn’t stay up, a little bit of rivalry schadenfreude from the Chicago Tribune’s Mark Gonzales:
After taking a collective shot and sharing some hugs early Wednesday morning, Cubs players reflected on their sudden elimination from the postseason in which they failed to reach the National League Division Series for the first time in four years.
Despite the team winning 95 games, breakout star Javier Baez pinpointed a flaw that seemed apparent even when the Cubs led the NL Central by five games with four weeks left in the season.
“We were never in a rhythm of winning games,” said Baez, whose two-out single scored Terrance Gore in the eighth inning for the Cubs’ lone run in a 2-1, 13-inning loss to the Rockies in the NL wild-card game. “And I think it was because were paying attention to other teams as we were going down because we lost so many people from our lineup that we were paying attention to other teams. That’s not how it works. That’s how I look at it.
“Next year we’re going to come back and fight again and make adjustments about that. I don’t want to hear nothing about other teams. We know what we’ve got.”
After pitching six innings of four-hit ball but receiving no run support, veteran left-hander Jon Lester believes the sudden elimination can serve as a learning tool.
“Sometimes you have to take the bad with the good,” said Lester, owner of three World Series rings with two years left on his contract. “Now, we’re taking the bad.
“Sometimes you need to get your (expletive) knocked in the dirt in order to appreciate where you’re at. Maybe we needed that, maybe we needed to get knocked down a peg or two to realize nothing is going to be given to us.”
Left-hander Cole Hamels hopes the Cubs will pick up his $20 million option for 2019, in part because of his positive experience after getting traded from the Rangers on July 27 and the desire to be part of a rebound.
“Hopefully this is something I can be a part of next year,” said Hamels, who threw two scoreless innings of relief in the loss. “I was very fortunate to make the postseason when I was very young (in 2007 with the Phillies). We were swept by Colorado, and that taught us what the postseason really was. And what it was to not just play to the end but play to the end of the postseason. And we won the World Series the next year. This is a tremendous experience for a lot of guys.
“You have to go through the hardships before you get to the big moments. I know there are a lot of players here who won the World Series, but there’s also a lot who didn’t have that certain participation that you look for. That’s great for them.”
But the cold reality is that the team will not stay fully intact because of free agency, payroll considerations and the need to address shortcomings.
“There’s going to be new guys in there,” pitcher Kyle Hendricks said. “That’s just the nature of the game. That’s unfortunate. There are guys we’ve grown close to. We wish it could be the same group to go back to battle next year, but there’s got to be changes.
“You got to keep the relationships close. Whoever ends up being here, they’ll be all in and remember this feeling going into next year and use that as motivation and march all the way to the end, hopefully.”
Next season could result in a bigger leadership role for Baez, who led the Cubs with 34 home runs and 111 RBIs and likely will take over at shortstop if Addison Russell doesn’t return.
Commissioner Rob Manfred told reporters before the game that a decision on Russell, who is on administrative leave while MLB investigates his ex-wife’s allegations of domestic abuse, could come shortly.
“What hurts me is the teammates that are leaving,” Baez said. “I like to learn a lot from my teammates, even if it’s good or bad.
“We have a lot of free agents this year. One is Stropy (reliever Pedro Strop), who is one of my best friends in my whole career.”
The Cubs hold a $6.25 million option on Strop with a $500,000 buyout.
That’s the Cubs’ problem. The Brewers had a different problem this year — attendance, The team with the best record in the National League finished 10th in attendance, at 2.85 million, averaging 35,195 fans (many of whom came dressed as empty seats based on visual evidence) at 41,900-capacity Miller Park. If you measure by my preferred metric, percentage of seats sold, the Brewers tied for seventh, selling 84 percent of their tickets.
The 2018 Brewers did better than last year, when they averaged 31,589 to total 2.56 million in attendance, which still was 10th best in baseball. But between 2017 and 2018 the Brewers made two huge acquisitions, outfielders Christian Yelich and Lorenzo Cain, and during the season made several acquisitions (as I did not predict) to improve their roster.
Perhaps this is what happens when a team appears to be a world-beater, trails off, and then suddenly picks things back up in the last month of the season, as the Brewers did. And there is another view …
… that claims the Brewers did better than everybody else when compared by market size. That, however, strikes me as coming up with a statistic to justify what you want to claim. Like it or don’t, fans who don’t show up (including those who bought tickets but don’t use them, which baffles me given how much money tickets now cost) don’t pay for parking or buy concessions or swag in the gift shop. Miller Park is built to extract as much money from fans as possible (as is the case with every ballpark built since the 1990s), so when that’s not happening management should be concerned.
Greater Milwaukee (including Green Bay) is considered the 36th biggest market of the 53 U.S. markets with at least one team of the four major professional sports leagues, and the smallest Major League Baseball market, as well as the fourth smallest National Football League market and the fourth smallest National Basketball Association market.
Baseball’s perpetually screwed up economics means that small-market teams (including but not limited to the Brewers) have to get practically every player acquisition decision right, because they lack the financial resources to go out and sign whoever they want to sign, as the Yankees, Cubs, Red Sox and Dodgers can do. Fortunately the big-market teams don’t always get those decisions right (see Darvish, Yu, Cubs). But we wouldn’t be discussing postseason baseball at Miller Park had the Brewers not acquired position players Yelich, Cain, Mike Moustakas, Jonathan Schoop and Curtis Granderson and pitchers Gio Gonzalez. Wade Miley and Joakim Soria.
What this says is you better enjoy this postseason however long it lasts, because it took a lot of work to get here, and the future is never guaranteed, especially when your two archrivals (the Cubs and St. Louis) had underwhelming seasons and therefore expect to make major changes to get better.
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I’ve spent much of the last couple of years decrying the increasing partisan tribalism of our politics. I’ve earned some strange new respect from liberals (and at times regrettable new enmity from some conservatives) because I’ve been willing to call out my team. A case in point: I don’t like President Trump’s “enemy of the people” rhetoric about the “fake news.” I don’t think it’s true or helpful or presidential. “Enemy of the people” is a totalitarian and authoritarian term of art unfit for our country or our president, and employing it gives license to the press to indulge its worst instincts.
Which brings us to the current moment. Democratic senators who announced they would never vote for Kavanaugh under any circumstance keep getting asked if the FBI investigation they demanded will be “enough for them.” Enough for what? To still vote no? I’m not criticizing the Democrats themselves — though I obviously could — I’m criticizing the people who interview these senators. Time and again, these journalists interview the Democrats as if they were open-minded about this investigation when in every breath they insist that the investigation will be illegitimate if it doesn’t prove what they want it to prove.
I listened to an MSNBC host [Tuesday] morning sound almost panicked about how the FBI might not be able to confirm Julie Swetnick’s — absolutely ludicrous — charges against Kavanaugh even as she reported that NBC couldn’t confirm any of it. The urgency wasn’t that the media let Michael Avenatti play them all for suckers, but that it might be just too difficult to prove allegations Swetnick herself walked back almost entirely. In other words the fear, palpable in many quarters, is that the charges might unravel prematurely, and so the press must start raveling them.
Or, in other cases they must spin new ones. Hence the New York Times’ decision — for which they’ve now apologized — of assigning deeply (and openly) partisan reporter Emily Bazelon to go spelunking for the latest bombshell: that Brett Kavenaugh threw some ice at a bar scuffle while in college.
Meanwhile, whole panels of pundits and experts on MSNBC are made up of people who cannot imagine why Kavanaugh might be upset at the unverified, uncorroborated, and literally unbelievable claim that he ran a rape gang when he was 15. Instead, we get hours of hand-wringing every day about his supposedly unjudicial temperament, as if any judge or justice on the bench, now or ever, would be expected to remain calm under such circumstances.
Jeff Flake is celebrated as a hero for wanting the FBI to investigate the more credible charge from Ford and the sketchy tale co-reported by the famously partisan New Yorker writer Jane Mayer. But when the FBI was reportedly limited to what Flake wanted investigated, one senator after another said the investigation was a sham. And nearly all the interviewers simply nod.
Print publications are flooding the zone to get to the bottom of Boofgate and Ice-Throw-Gotterdammerung. As if proving that a yearbook quote meant some other juvenile thing, or that if he threw some ice cubes in a bar tussle, that would prove . . . something. Kavanaugh, fully aware that he will get no benefit of any doubt, offers lawyerly and arguable evasive answers — mostly about trivialities — and, like a self-fulfilling prophecy, these ambiguous answers are taken as proof of perjury and drunken perfidy that the press must get to the bottom of.
Interviewers respond to Republicans who decry the defamation and innuendo being brought to bear on Kavanaugh by asking, essentially, “Didn’t Republicans start this by blocking Merrick Garland?” As a stand-alone question, this is defensible — barely. But while I have heard this question asked over and over again, I’ve yet to hear anyone ask a Democrat, “Isn’t what Mitch McConnell did to Merrick Garland very different from what you have done to Kavanaugh?” Republicans didn’t try to destroy Garland personally and professionally. Denying a nominee a hearing isn’t akin to fomenting a witch-hunt or having Chuck Schumer say that the presumption of innocence was an irrelevant standard (it’s actually entirely within the Senate’s constitutional authority). It might be irrelevant for partisan Democrats, but since when is the burden of proof irrelevant to journalists?
I could go on for pages about all of this, but here’s the point: On nearly every question and issue, the tenor of the press — shockingly — mirrors the tenor of the Democrats who insist that it falls to Kavanaugh to disprove these allegations. That is an understandable (albeit morally grotesque) position for partisan Democrats who’ve made it clear they will do whatever it takes, again, as Chuck Schumer admitted, to block Kavanaugh.
But that’s not your job, you supposedly objective journalists. You should care every bit as much about disproving the allegations of Swetnick, Ramirez, and — yes — Ford as proving them. Your job — as you’ve said countless times, preening in your heroic martyr status in the age of Trump — is to report the facts. If Swetnick is lying, you should want to report that every bit as much as you would if you could prove that Kavanaugh is. Because you’re not supposed to have a team. It’s fine if you support the #MeToo movement in your private time, but you’re not supposed to lend any movement aid and comfort, never mind air cover, in your reporting.
Now, I get that most journalists are liberal, even if they deny it. I understand that most think they’re just seeking the truth. But, dear champions of the Fourth Estate, you might take just a moment to understand that you need to be fair to the other side of the argument even if you disagree with it.
You might also consider why millions of people love it when Trump says you are the enemy of the people: It’s because of how you are behaving right now. You’re letting the mask slip in Nielsen-monitored 15-minute blocks of virtue-signaling partisanship. You’re burning credibility at such a rate, you won’t have enough to get back to base when this is all over.
Yes, Donald Trump has done the country a disservice by how he talks about the press. But so have you, because you have made it so easy for him — and you’re making it worse right now.
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Joseph-Marie, Comte de Maistre, coined the phrase “Every nation gets the government it deserves.”
That came to mind when reading Salena Zito:
In the spring of 2011, then-Gov. Mitch Daniels of Indiana announced he would not seek the Republican presidential nomination, ending months of excitement among conservatives around his possible run. His family’s reservations under the spotlight far outweighed any political pressure he may have been feeling, and he gracefully bowed out.
His decision was a low point for conservatives hungry for that Midwestern sensibility and sharp wit that he embodied. As former senior political adviser to President Ronald Reagan and head of President George W. Bush’s Office of Management and Budget, Daniels was a rock star in the conservative movement. But the Daniels family had a complicated past. He and his wife had married, divorced and eventually remarried each other.
Most people would have called that a happy ending. But on social media, you can imagine, that story would have been told very differently.
Fast-forward seven years. Daniels says that if he’d had to make that choice in today’s political climate, he would have reached his conclusion significantly faster.
“At the time, it was a decision that took months for me to consider, one I put great thought into with my family. Today, it would take me less than 10 minutes to decide not to run,” he said from his office at Purdue University, where he serves as its president, a position he took in January 2013 at the conclusion of his second term as Indiana governor.
Daniels’ decision was a very high-profile example of when good men and women decide not to run for office not because they aren’t capable or they lack leadership qualities but because of the personal cost to their lives, reputations and family’s stability.
Yesterday’s goofy yearbook, Facebook likes and posts, or ironic tweets are now analyzed and distorted into falsehoods by thousands of anonymous Twitter trolls hired by opposition forces manned by professional digital teams and disguised to look organic. These trolls attract mobs and irrationality take over social media, eventually making their way into traditional news stories that can destroy not just candidates’ political careers but also their lives.
One of the most common complaints heard on the campaign trail in 2016 was this: Of all the inspiring, hardworking, bright men and women in this country, how did it come down to a choice between two people who were not exactly the paragons of virtue?
The answer two years ago was that people in this country had such a low viewpoint of government and institutions it was hard to get good people to be willing to be involved because they lacked faith. In retrospect, two years ago may seem like a kinder, gentler time. Why would any good person jump in today, given that character assassination comes first and facts come later?
As a country, we are only as good as the men and women who choose to run and serve on school boards and city councils, and as attorneys general, sheriffs, treasurers, state representatives, members of Congress and presidents of the United States. And while we have always enjoyed an abundance of men and women who answered the call of service and ran for office — most of them for the greater good of their community, some for the greater good of themselves — we’ve mostly figured out in short order whether we’ve picked the one called to serve or the one who is self-serving.
But in this age of vicious politics, good people will step back and refuse to upend their personal lives because the other side is politically set on winning at any cost.
“That you will be personally attacked, marginalized, humiliated, and physically threatened is terrifying,” said Republican strategist Bruce Haynes, vice chairman of public affairs for Sard Verbinnen & Co. “I fear we have reached the point where many smart, reasonable people with the desire to serve instead choose to stay outside the system because they don’t want to expose themselves and their families to the reputational risk of participating in elective or appointed politics.”
The result is what businessmen describe as a crisis of talent acquisition. “In any well-functioning enterprise, the people who run it and do the work — the ‘talent’ — are the key ingredient to success,” Haynes said. “But through our collective words and actions, we have hung a sign on the American political system that says: ‘Welcome to crazy town, reasonable people need not apply.’”
This is not just about the rhetoric of interest groups and voters. We also need to ask more of the people in the system. Describing citizens in our republic as “deplorables” and “irredeemable” is completely unacceptable. Politicians can’t expect the consent, much less the respect, of the governed when they can’t afford them dignity and respect in their basic rhetoric.
Politics doesn’t have to be puppies and flowers every day, but in a civil society, we should argue ideas instead of assassinating character.
It creates a chilling effect on political participation at all levels.
“If good people are not motivated to run, then the public is turned off by their choices, and politics becomes an exercise in supporting the lesser of two evils, voting against the enemy, or, worst of all, not voting at all,” said Haynes.
We get the social media we deserve. We get the elections we deserve. And if we continue to let the former run the latter, we will get the candidates we deserve — and they won’t be the good ones.
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We begin with this unusual event: Today in 1978, the members of Aerosmith bailed out 30 of their fans who were arrested at their concert in Fort Wayne, Ind., for smoking marijuana:
Britain’s number one single today in 1987:
Today in 1992 on NBC-TV’s “Saturday Night Live,” Sinead O’Connor torpedoed her own career:
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Today in 1953, Victor Borge’s “Comedy in Music” opened on Broadway, closing 849 performances later. (Pop.)
Today in 1960, Maurice Williams and the Zodiacs released “Stay,” which would become the shortest number one single of all time:
The number one single today in 1965:
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The Chicago Tribune’s Mark Gonzales:
After leading the National League Central by five games on Sept. 3, the Cubs’ season has been reduced to a win-or-go-home scenario.
The Brewers applied a blend of timely hitting and dominant pitching Monday to beat the Cubs 3-1 in the division tiebreaker before 38,450 fans at Wrigley Field.
By virtue of their victory, the Brewers earned the NL Central title and won’t play until Thursday, when they host the first of two games of the best-of-five NL Division Series.
The Cubs, whose two-year reign as NL Central champions was snapped, will play host to the loser of the NL West tiebreaker between the Rockies and Dodgers on Tuesday in the NL wild-card game.
The winner will face the Brewers.
Orlando Arcia collected the first four-hit game of his career and scored the go-ahead run during a two-run eighth.
The Cubs were held to three hits, scoring their lone run on a game-tying home run by Anthony Rizzo in the fifth. …
The Cubs’ failure to solve Orlando Arcia reached a new low when Arcia hit a curve on an 0-2 pitch off left-hander Justin Wilson for a single.
Domingo Santana followed with a double down the left field line, forcing Cubs manager Joe Maddon to pull Wilson in favor of Steve Cishek, making his 80th appearance.
But Lorenzo Cain smacked a 3-2 pitch up the middle and yelled vigorously at his teammates while running to first base as Arcia scored to give the Brewers a 2-1 lead.
Left-hander Randy Rosario struck out Christian Yelich, but Brandon Kintzler allowed an RBI single to Ryan Braun to the delight of several thousand Brewers fans.
The Brewers scored twice in the top of the eighth inning, thus allowing manager Craig Counsell to go to his strength – the back end of his bullpen.
Left-hander Josh Hader struck out Jason Heyward on a slider, induced pinch-hitter Albert Almora Jr. to line out to second and whiffed Willson Contreras on a 98 mph fastball to end the eighth.
The Chicago Sun–Times’ Steve Greenberg:
The Cubs gave it a shot. The best team in the National League wasn’t having any of it.
So much for a third straight NL Central title for a Cubs team that had the best record in the league for long enough that, at times, home-field advantage in the playoffs seemed like a foregone conclusion.
The Brewers came to Wrigley Field and ripped the title away with a 3-1 victory in a Game 163 tiebreaker. And they did it with rock-solid pitching, locked-in hitting and loud, proud fans in the Wrigley Field stands — a not-so-subtle payback for all those mass migrations of Cubs fans to Miller Park.
Not a rivalry? Please. …
For the Cubs, it’s a gut-punch. Jon Lester could steady the ship Tuesday with an outing worthy of an ace, but this team, with its already compromised bullpen, wasn’t well prepared for an audible the size of this one. The Brewers simply refused to yield, however, winning seven straight — and 27 of 37 — heading into the tiebreaker.
The Brewers earned this one. The Cubs can’t be called unlucky, let alone the better team. …
The Cubs burned through six different relievers, something that should make it hard for manager Joe Maddon to get a decent night’s sleep. This was the least desirable of all potential scenarios. Jesse Chavez put in a hard day’s work. Justin Wilson could be close to spent. Steve Cishek appears to be running on fumes. Randy Rosario, Brandon Kintzler and Jaime Garcia all pitched.
How long can Lester go on Tuesday? Will he come through in the playoffs yet again? Or will a Cubs team making its fourth straight postseason appearance turn out — just like that — to be toast?
The Trib’s Steve Rosenbloom:
Jose Quintana, your patsy was ready.
The Brewers were in town, and hot or not, MVP candidate or no, they were the exact team the Cubs needed to see with Quintana ready to go on regular rest.
In fact, they were the one team for whom the Cubs would send a fleet of limos. Quintana might not be the consistent arm the Cubs had anticipated when they acquired him from the White Sox last season, but he had consistently owned the Brewers.
In six starts against them this season, Quintana posted a 2.17 ERA and a 0.88 WHIP. In 10 lifetime starts against Milwaukee, Quintana was even better — a 1.60 ERA and 0.82 WHIP. The Brewers were the only team against whom Quintana had a WHIP below 1.0. Yes, this was his patsy. This was his start. This was his chance to give the fatigued Cubs a couple days off before the NL Division Series and home-field advantage as long as they survive the league’s postseason.
But no. Didn’t happen. The Brewers won the NL Central in Wrigley Field, though you can’t blame Quintana. You can blame the Cubs offense and bullpen, and maybe the manager for going to the bullpen so early.
Quintana wasn’t dominant. He was barreled up at times. But he gave the Cubs a chance to win, as much as he was allowed to while throwing just 64 pitches, giving up one run in five-plus innings.
Then it became a bullpen game, which would set off the much-discussed weirdness that wove through the day and the game, one of two tiebreakers to decide NL division titles and wild-card combatants, the first in Wrigley the other in Dodger Stadium.
It wasn’t win-or-walk for the Cubs, Brewers, Dodgers or Rockies, but it was the next-closest thing when you consider the fear every team has of the coin flip that is the one-game wild card.
For the Cubs and Brewers, the importance was more acute because they would hold home-field advantage for as long as they stayed alive in the NL bracket.
That led to the big pregame question of whether the managers empty the bullpen only with a lead to avoid being forced to play Tuesday, knowing if they won Monday’s game, then they would have a couple days to let their arms recover.
With neither starter completing the sixth, we got an answer. The bullpen battle turned into a parade of high-leverage relievers in a game tied at 1. Tuesday didn’t appear to matter. Maddon used four relievers in the eighth inning, and unfortunately one was the Justin Wilson from 2017 that made your eyes bleed and another was this week’s Steve Cishek that made everyone tired and yet another was mid-season acquisition Brandon Kintzler who might as well have stayed in Washington.
Like that, the Brewers led 3-1 lead and their bullpen played to asphyxiating form. White Sox closer Joakim Soria fanned Javier Baez to end the sixth, then came Corey Knebel in the seventh and Josh Hader in the eighth and ninth. The Cubs still haven’t touched that bullpen and might not if you’d given them all night.
As they have done all season, the Cubs hitters proved mystifyingly inconsistent. After blowing up against the Cardinals on Sunday, the Cubs flat-lined Monday, managing just two hits other than Anthony Rizzo’s massive solo blast. That’s how you blow a great opportunity to sail into the postseason.
To think, a month ago the Cubs held a five-game lead over the Brewers and looked set to roll to their third straight division title. The Brewers caught them, and now have passed them.
Tuesday’s crapshoot game awaits. Win, and the Cubs advance to the NL Division Series on Thursday against these same Brewers. Quick, someone tell the Cubs offense that hitting in October is not optional.
Steve Prestegard.com: The Presteblog 