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If the Chicago Cubs are going to actually pull away from the Milwaukee Brewers and the rest of the NL Central, they’ll need their pitching staff to come correct. Here at the MLB All-Star break, the only true assessment of the Cubs is to label them as meh so far, and that fits in perfectly with the rest of the extremely mediocre division.
What’s the key to the Cubs snapping out of it and claiming the division crown?
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John W. Henry, the American titan of industry who heads the Fenway Group (whose holdings include the Boston Red Sox and Liverpool F.C.) was in London yesterday to see his baseball team in action.
The BoSox fell 17-13 to the New York Yankees in Major League Baseball action at West Ham United’s London Stadium, where close to 60,000 witnessed a ballgame that fell just a few minutes (it was four hours, 42 minutes in total) shy of becoming the longest nine inning affair in MLB history.
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It’s still 11 days to the Major League Baseball All-Star Game, but the actual numerical midpoint arrived yesterday, when Cookie Monster led the Chicago Cubs a thrilling coming from behind victory over the Atlanta Braves. The high scoring victory gave the Cubs a series (2-2) and home stand (5-5) split, perfectly befitting how the first half of the season has transpired.
The Chicago Cubs are 81 games in, 44 up, 37 down, 29-16 at home, 15-21 on the road and one game over arch-rival Milwaukee for first place in the National League Central. At this point, the Cubs are right where you thought they would be once all the MLB off-season transactions were completed: on pace to win about 86-89 games.
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Last night’s 8-3 Chicago Cubs win over the Atlanta Braves saw a major beef between the two catchers, Willson Contreras and Tyler Flowers, ensue, followed by the emptying of both benches. In other words, even the most strident “baseball is boring” kind of person would have found this game, in which tempers flared on both sides, riveting.
ICYMI, and you’re trying to catch up via media coverage today, just make sure you consider the source of what you’re viewing/reading. While there are some out there approaching this with a journalistic, fair and balanced approach, the Chicago media is largely taking a pro-Cubs slant while most of the Atlanta media is on Flowers’ side here.
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Whether the Chicago Cubs win or lose, just about everybody who drives to Wrigley Field will indeed take a L. Wrigley Field is located in the heart of a residential area, making parking options scarce and egregiously expensive. Add to that the ramped gentrification surrounding the ballpark, the closed-off streets that accompany it and overall nightmarish commute, and well, any option but driving is a good one.
If you must drive, park in one of the Cubs faraway lots that include a free shuttle bus. Better yet, take advantage of the Cubs free bike valet service, available for all home games in the alley just east of the main entrance to the CTA station adjacent to the ballpark.
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If you’re doing classic Americana summer word association, then “movies” and “baseball” would probably be right at the top of anyone’s list. So when these summer staples combine, sometimes the result can be sublime. Other times, the result is something on par with the 1985’s “The Slugger’s Wife” or 2001’s “Summer Catch.”
In 1990, two science fiction films were released that foretold a future World Series result, and today we look at how those prophecies panned out. If that seems like a lot of effort wasted on analyzing something trivial, well, this isn’t the first time we’ve done something specific to this wheelhouse.
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Liverpool FC legend Ian Rush will soon have yet another plaudit to add to his already lengthy list. The 57-year-old Welshman is Liverpool’s all-time leading scorer, having accumulated 346 goals across all competitions at the Merseyside club.
He scored a record 25 in the Merseyside derby against Everton alone. He was the all-time leading scorer for Wales as well, until 2018, when Gareth Bale surpassed the total of 28 that he accumulated between 1980 and 1996. And now Ian Rush will throw out the first ball when the Chicago Cubs host the Chicago White Sox on Wednesday night in the second of the two teams’ four clashes this season.
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Northwestern Head Coach Pat Fitzgerald believes we will see a red line World Series in our life times, and when we do he’ll be sporting the silver and black of the South Side. Fitzgerald, who grew up in suburban Orland Park, held court with the media at the end of NU spring football practice, and then, after other reporters dispersed, we hung around a bit longer to talk Chicago baseball.
The Chicago Cubs brought Fitzgerald in this offseason to talk to the coaching staff, due to his expertise in communicating with college and soon-to-be college players. Northwestern is very intertwined with the Cubs as they share some corporate partners, and until recent years, broadcast partners.
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Yesterday saw Forbes release their annual list of the world’s 100 highest paid athletes in the past year, and Chicago Cubs starting pitcher Jon Lester made the cut. The Cubs ace checks in at #97, having earned $25.3 million in total ($25m in salary, $300k in endorsements) during the past year. Lester is one of the thirteen Major League Baseball players on the list, led by the Los Angeles Angels Mike Trout at #17 ($50.6 million). At #68 you’ll find a former Cubs pitcher, Jake Arrieta, who is now with Philadelphia and earned $28.8 million last season.
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Although Northwestern head coach Pat Fitzgerald would never actually use any of these following terms himself: gen-Xer, millenial, gen Z, the Chicago Cubs deemed him an expert in bridging the generation gap.
The Cubs brought Fitzgerald in this offseason to talk to the coaching staff, due to his expertise in communicating with college and soon-to-be college players. “We all learned a little something from that talk,” Cubs GM Theo Epstein told the Chicago Tribune a week after the consultation.
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It’s very rare that a Chicagoland product gets selected in the first round of the Major League Baseball draft, so Monday night brought blockbuster local sports news when Cary-Grove High School’s Quinn Priester was picked by the Pittsburgh Pirates with the 18th overall selection.
This is exactly where he was projected to go, given the overall consensus of the MLB mock drafts out there. MLB.com ranked him the 19th overall prospect in this class, so he was selected right where the betting sites believed he should have been taken. And the Pirates (who selected a high school right handed pitcher for the third straight year) aren’t getting just a great pitcher, but also a good dude. Watch the video below:
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The Chicago Cubs enter Wednesday night’s home game against the Colorado Rockies leading the NL Central division and just one game behind Philadelphia for the second best record in the National League. The Cubs overcame a very slow start, but are hitting mid-season form now, largely due to a very balanced offense.
Led by Javier Baez, who leads the team in batting average (.309), hits (72) and slugging percentage (.588), the Cubs are scoring runs aplenty, and looking like a team that could be dangerous all season long and into the postseason.
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