Sports
Great win by the Chicago Cubs last night to force a division series deciding game on Saturday night. They finally score in more than one inning of a game in this series! Both teams could employ bullpen pitchers to start the game and that will make it interesting. I do have a bone to pick with MLB for making the Cubs/Brewers game the late starter last night rather than the Dodgers/Phillies in LA, that made no sense.
I think that Craig Counsell has done a poor job of managing the Chicago Cubs in this NDLS against the Brewers. First, he should not have started Boyd for game 1 on only three days rest and second it is absolutely wrong to not start your hottest hitter, Michael Busch even when going against left handed pitcher. How do you justify starting PCA who clearly has difficulty with left handed pitching and no start Busch. Pat Murphy was Counsell’s bench coach and I am beginning to think he did more the managing than Counsell when he was in Milwaukee. His performance does not justify being the top paid manager in baseball. David Ross could have equally managed to the two losses that have occurred in this series.
Game 1 of the NLDS between the Cubs and Brewers was over for the Cubs before the first three Brewer outs of the game was recorded. Starting Boyd on only three days rest went very badly. Obviously the Cubs need to flush this game and win game 2 on Monday.
The Chicago Cubs managed to hold on to a 3-1 lead and beat the San Diego Padres yesterday to advance to the best of five game NLDS against Milwaukee. It should be a fun series starting Saturday.
The Cubs got shutout yesterday in the second Wild Card game, so today there is an elimination game with San Diego. Got to score runs to win a baseball game. Because the Dodgers won their series, which was the only sweep, the Cubs/Padres game starts at 5 PM today while the Tigers/Guardians game starts at 3 PM.
Wild Card Game 1
The Cubs won the first wild card game today against the San Diego Padres. I do believe it might be their first ever wild card game win. The 3-1 win was due to the pitching staff, in fact as I watch the other games played today, the old adage of good pitching beating good hitting seems to hold. The sharpest example was in Cleveland where the hottest team in baseball the Cleveland Guardians was beat by the coldest Detroit Tigers thanks to the game’s best pitcher, the Tiger’s Tarik Skull.
I see the Cub’s have announced they are starting tomorrow’s game with an opener as recent closer Andrew Kittredge will start the game. My guess is that Shota Imanga will follow Kittredge but I wouldn’t be surprised if Shota only pitches one time through the Padres line up. Counsell can’t blow out pitching because there might be a game three if they don’t win, but the Cub’s want to win this next one while they have the advantage of elimination game pressure on their opponent.
The Chicago Cubs play their first Wild Card game for the 2025 MLB playoffs this afternoon, which is their first playoff game in many years. Looking forward to seeing how the team performs. I am not expecting much success in the playoffs this year, and I am mostly happy for the young players to gain experience with playoff pressure. Winning championships is part experience, part talent, and part luck, you need them all to win a World Series.
The Chicago Cubs have clinched a Wild Card spot in the playoffs, what remains is to determine whether they have home field for the three game Wild Card series that will be in October. My buddy who is a fellow Cubs fan doubts the Cubs will have success in the playoffs. I see no reason why they can’t win a three game series at Wrigley, however I think what is most important is that the young Cubs players gain playoff experience. How well the Cubs will do depends on how well they play during the next two weeks. In recent years the best MLB teams haven’t won the World Series, it’s been the hottest teams.
Turns out that Kyle Tucker had a small fracture in his hand, which likely the cause of his broken mechanics at the plate. It seems to me the job of a baseball manager is to prevent players from being their own worse enemy. No matter what the player is saying, the manager has to make the right decision and I don’t think Counsel did in this instance. Further, the GM and President have to also know this is happening and step in when needed. A total failure by the Cubs organization in my opinion. Ricketts must have also known this and still rewarded Hoyer with an extension. I am sure the hope is that by sitting Kyle now he can be right for the push to the playoffs in September.
The best thing about baseball is that until playoff series deciding games there is always tomorrow and a chance for the team to redeem itself. Yesterday the Cubs won and continued to avoid a three game series sweep and thus keep avoiding long losing streaks, which are the real deal of a major league team. The team’s weaknesses are real and could be exposed in the playoffs, but avoiding being swept and winning a majority of the season series ought to be the path to the playoffs. On August 18 the Cubs will play their last four games against the Brewers for the season, and in some ways that will be their last best shot at controlling their own fate.
I wonder if Tom Ricketts can be embarrassed? First he extends Jed Hoyer’s contract before the trade deadline, then the lone pitcher Hoyer trades for to help a severely depleted starting rotation pitches two innings before being injured, and there were concerns about that pitcher’s velocity decrease prior to the trade. Finally, the Cubs hitters have gone cold as ice and have dropped to four games behind the Brewers for the NL Central lead. In fact, the Cubs now only have a 2.5 game lead in the Wild Card. Most likely Kyle Tucker, for whom Hoyer traded away a top prospect to the Astros, will leave at the end of the season. Factor all these recent events with the over all failure to win the National League or the division under Hoyer’s leadership sums up the very questionable decision by Ricketts to extend Hoyer before seeing whether the Cubs win the NL Central this year. Instead Ricketts rewarded mediocrity and sent a message to the team that he is not committed to winning.
Same Old Cubs Ownership
Hoyer can rationalize his trade deadline decisions all he wants the bottom line is he did not get the job done, and no improvement to the starting pitching rotation has been done. Assad better perform when he makes it back to the team after being out all season. I don’t doubt that the additions that he made will help, but it was not enough.
Truth is, the real failure was made during the off-season by not signing more high quality players. I doubt that Tucker wants to stay in Chicago, in fact if I were him the lack of signings sealed the deal of going to another team; the Cubs can and will be outbid for his services . The consequences of Hoyer’s failures is he lost one of his top prospects while getting no closer to the World Series just to make the playoffs.
Yes, the Cubs likely will make the playoffs as a wildcard team, but they probably will not advance out of the divisional round and winning championships is the measurement. Why Ricketts extended Hoyer before seeing how the team ends up this season tells me that he is more concerned about making money than winning a World Series. An owner expecting nor less than championships would not reward mediocrity.
So far, not impressed by the Chicago Cubs trade deadline deals. Ricketts extending Hoyer before the deadline and not at the end of the season tells me all I need to know, the problem is ownership. Cubs ownership is reverted to being happy enough in collecting the money off the team than in demanding championships.
On The Death Of A Sports Legend
Hall of Fame Chicago Cubs second baseman Ryne Sandberg died yesterday after surviving cancer and the treatments of it for several years. As a lifelong Chicago Cubs fan Ryne is cemented in my memories of the turn around of the Cubs that started in 1984. He became known to the nation on June 23, 1984 when he hit home runs off Bruce Sutter in the 9th and 10th innings of the nationally televised game against the St. Louis Cardinals. Sutter, himself a former Cubs hero, was the best relief pitcher in baseball at the time, featuring a nearly unhittable split-finger fastball. Having defected to the hated Cardinals, Sutter was the villain of the game that made Sandberg’s home runs all that much sweeter.
Prior to 1984 the Cubs had not been in the playoffs for 39 years. Back then only four teams made the playoffs, the winners of the NL East and West and AL East and West, so the champions in each league faced each other in the World Series. Further, the league championship series were five games whereas the World Series was seven games. The 1984 Cubs won the first two games against the Padres, meaning they only need to win 1 of 3 games in San Diego to advance to the World Series, but was unable to get the job done. The Cubs would advance to the NL Championship again in 1989 with Sandberg on the team and again fail to advance.
Due to Cubs decades history of losing the 1984 team was pivotal to their eventual World Series championship in 2016. Nearly all transformations of losing sports franchises to winning sports franchises lies on the cornerstone of one or two super start athletes and it is safe to say that Ryne Sandberg is the cornerstone of the Cubs current success. I watched Ryne’s entire career with the Cubs and grew to understand his cold hitting in the spring months that always warmed to peak performance in late May. As a fan you expected every ball hit toward second base to be an out and every big moment that found Ryne at the plate to be big hit.
It’s a privilege to grow old and a consequence of time is the seeing the death of your childhood sports heroes and so the news of his death during the Cubs/Brewers game last night hit hard. I am so happy that he, like I, got to see the Cubs win the World Series in 2016 and I hope he took some satisfaction in knowing his part in that moment. The path from lovable losers to World Champions rides on the shoulders of legends. Farewell Ryno, say hi to Harry!
Kyle Schwarber was the first player of the Chicago Cubs 2016 “core” to leave, not even given an offer to stay, and he was had the most success since that World Series of all the players who were on that team, winning two more World Series and now the 2025 MLB All-Star MVP. How he came back from knee surgery that kept him out of the 2016 season to contribute in a big way in that playoff run was plain evidence of his unique abilities. Not trying to find a way to keep him was negligence.
The wheels have fallen off the Chicago Cubs pitching. Since last Thursday, June 19 Cubs pitchers have given up seven or more runs per game, six of which (not surprisingly) were losses. At this rate the Cubs will be out of first place in the NL Central by the end of next week. The big problem is too many walks and too many home runs.
Last year on this date the Chicago Cubs had a 32-35 record and would go on to a 83-79 record and finished 10 games behind Milwaukee in the NL Central. Right now they have a 41-27 record, are in first place in the NL Central and lead St. Louis by 5 games. The Cubs currently have the second best record in the National League and fourth best in the the MLB.
I don’t understand the definition of a sell out at a Major League Baseball game. My definition would that every seat is occupied, but that can’t be true because the Tigers say the weekend series against the Cubs sold out every game and yet on Friday night I saw entire blocks of empty seats in the upper deck, left field corner. Sure, there are going to be empty seats as people don’t show up, but entire rows? Not to mention the many empty seats right behind home plate. Something doesn’t compute. I know they are talking ticket sales, but with the paperless tickets and scanning it should be able for stadiums to have actual attendance
Yesterday the Cubs got wiped out by the Jack Flaherty and the Tigers 4-0, and my eyes got wiped out by the wind and smoke. Here is a picture of Cubs rookie Cade Horton.
