The Chicago Cubs did what they wanted to do in Cincinnati towards a pursuing Reds crew, securing a break up of the four-game collection.
It was the minimal the Cubs wanted to perform on the transient highway journey, and so they took care of enterprise in Sunday’s 15-7 win behind a 10-run outburst over the ultimate two innings. They return to Wrigley Field beginning Monday for seven video games versus the San Francisco Giants and Arizona Diamondbacks.
The White Sox, with new basic supervisor Chris Getz in place, will proceed their analysis course of for 2024 throughout journeys to Kansas City and Detroit.
Every Monday all through the season, Tribune baseball writers will present an replace on what occurred — and what’s forward — for the Cubs and Sox.
Cubs’ Hayden Wesneski reveals nasty stuff
The velocity readings didn’t escape Hayden Wesneski’s consideration throughout his reduction outing in Game 2 of Friday’s doubleheader at Great American Ball Park.
Wesneski’s fastball hit 99 mph in a dominant efficiency during which he delivered 3 1/3 shutout innings with out permitting a success whereas strolling one and hanging out six.
“You feel like a badass to be honest with you,” Wesneski mentioned. “It’s a tough factor to do, throw onerous and throw strikes, so once I’m doing each, it’s a special feeling that most individuals don’t have. Because I can throw it onerous and I can throw strikes, however to do each is a really difficult factor.
“It goes back to the mechanics of locking it in to where I can do both at the same time. It just reassures that what we’re doing is right, that the work’s right.”
Wesneski credited the speed improve to drill work, particularly plyo balls, and cues to assist him higher switch his mechanics and drills into video games. A extra centered method to enjoying catch between reduction appearances has performed an vital function in Wesneski reaching that subsequent step along with his improvement and consistency.
“Sometimes when you’re playing catch, the effort level goes up and down,” he mentioned. “The ball tends to not go the place you need it to, and then you definately get annoyed and also you attempt to do one thing completely different. Then there’s coaches reassuring you, ‘Hey, this is the right thing do to, you’re on the best path, cease enjoying with it.’
“I know what the week of work should look like. … Just to be able to see it come to life, you don’t understand how much of a confidence booster that is for a young guy like me.”
White Sox GM Chris Getz attempting to fill the hole
Chris Getz referred to it because the elephant within the room.
Asked throughout his introductory information convention Thursday whether or not the Sox would undergo massive adjustments or small adjustments and if they might compete subsequent yr, the brand new basic supervisor identified that they do play within the American League Central.
“Every year it seems that the division is up for grabs,” Getz mentioned. “With that being said, we sit at 53 wins right now. So there is a gap to fill and we’re going to look at different ways to improve this club.”
Getz mentioned the Sox shall be artistic.
“We’re not going to lose sight of our long-term goal of winning a World Series,” Getz mentioned. “But in the near term, I look forward to sitting down with (manager) Pedro (Grifol) and learning what we have to do going toward the offseason and getting ready for next year.”
Getz mentioned the conversations with Grifol are amongst his first steps in attempting to get the Sox getting in the best course once more.
“I look forward to sitting down with the players as well,” he mentioned. “I think that type of feedback is going to be strong.”
Getz is hopeful his expertise as a former big-leaguer will assist in these talks with gamers.
“I hope that they’re comfortable speaking to me … (and) that I can relate to some of the struggles they’re going through,” he mentioned. “I want to sit down with that group and find ways within the organization to improve our processes as a whole.”
Cubs playoff push
The Cubs will take the sector Monday towards the Giants sitting 3 1/2 video games behind the Milwaukee Brewers within the National League Central and holding the second NL wild-card spot. They’re three video games forward of the Reds, Giants, Diamondbacks and Miami Marlins, who’re in a four-way tie for the ultimate playoff spot.
The Philadelphia Phillies beat the Brewers on Sunday to keep up a 2 1/2-game lead on the Cubs for the highest wild-card spot.
What we’re studying this morning
Week forward: Cubs
The Cubs proceed their stretch of 14 video games in 13 days towards NL wild-card contenders versus the Giants. Two of the Cubs’ most constant starters, Justin Steele and Kyle Hendricks, will open the collection with rookie left-hander Jordan Wicks lined up for Wednesday’s finale. That units up Steele to make his subsequent two begins towards the Colorado Rockies.
The Cubs may have extra bullpen choices by the top of the month. Right-handers Ben Brown and Nick Burdi and left-hander Brandon Hughes had been scheduled to pitch Sunday for Triple-A Iowa. President Jed Hoyer mentioned they plan to make loads of roster strikes over the course of the month with a 28-man roster restrict as an alternative of the previous rule during which anybody on the 40-man roster could possibly be referred to as up in September.
Brown and Hughes, particularly, could be massive additions. If not his a left lat/indirect damage sidelining him the previous couple of weeks, there’s a excessive chance Brown already could be a part of the Cubs bullpen. He was activated earlier than Iowa’s sport Sunday.
For any followers hoping the Cubs could be aggressive with final yr’s first-round decide, Cade Horton, as a bullpen choice in September, they aren’t deviating from their plan. The Cubs positioned Horton on the event record Thursday to provide him just a little break heading into Double-A Tennessee’s postseason. Horton has thrown 84 1/3 innings in 20 begins at three ranges this yr.
- Monday: vs. Giants, 1:20 p.m., Marquee
- Tuesday: vs. Giants, 6:40 p.m., Marquee
- Wednesday: vs. Giants, 1:20 p.m., Marquee
- Thursday: vs. Diamondbacks, 6:40 p.m., Marquee
- Friday: vs. Diamondbacks, 1:20 p.m., Marquee
- Saturday: vs. Diamondbacks, 1:20 p.m., Marquee
- Sunday: vs. Diamondbacks, 1:20 p.m., Marquee
Week forward: White Sox
Miguel Cabrera wore out Sox pitching in the course of the weekend collection towards the Detroit Tigers at Guaranteed Rate Field. He adopted up a two-hit efficiency Friday by going 4-for-5 with three RBIs on Saturday.
The Sox will face the long run Hall of Famer, who’s retiring on the finish of the season, in yet one more collection once they journey to Detroit to play the Tigers on Friday to Sunday at Comerica Park.
Cabrera has 40 homers and 130 RBIs in 231 profession video games towards the Sox.
“He’s just unbelievable,” Sox infielder Elvis Andrus mentioned Sunday.
Andrus, like Cabrera, is from Venezuela. He offered Cabrera with a bottle of Remy Martin Louis XIII earlier than Sunday’s sport.
“He’s from another world,” Andrus mentioned. “Hitting is so hard and he makes it look, his whole career, so easy.”
Cabrera has 3,158 profession hits and 510 profession homers. His 245 hits towards the Sox is his fourth-most towards any crew.
“He’s just one of those guys who knew, if he didn’t beat you this time, he was going to beat you next time,” Grifol mentioned. “I don’t think there’s ever going to be another Miguel Cabrera.”
- Monday: at Royals, 1:10 p.m., NBCSCH
- Tuesday: at Royals, 6:40 p.m., NBCSCH
- Wednesday: at Royals, 6:40 p.m., NBCSCH
- Thursday: off
- Friday: at Tigers, 5:40 p.m., NBCSCH
- Saturday: at Tigers, 5:10 p.m., NBCSCH
- Sunday: at Tigers, 12:10 p.m., NBCSCH
This week in Chicago baseball
Sept. 5, 1918: Babe Ruth pitches a six-hitter for the Red Sox, who beat the Cubs 1-0 within the opening sport of the World Series.
Newspapers had been dominated by information of World War I, together with the most recent American lifeless. In Chicago, one headline learn, “Chicagoans on the List,” and it was a very harrowing second within the metropolis for one more purpose: Someone, presumably self-proclaimed anarchists and labor activists, had the day earlier than tossed a bomb right into a downtown federal constructing and put up workplace, killing 4 folks and injuring dozens extra.
The World Series was on the town, with the Cubs internet hosting Babe Ruth and the Boston Red Sox. The Chicago video games had been performed at Comiskey Park, the house of the White Sox, as an alternative of the Cubs’ new house at Wrigley Field — referred to as Weeghman Park on the time — as a result of Comiskey held extra followers. But in a metropolis jittery over the bombing and weary from the warfare, Game 1 that day attracted fewer than 20,000 followers, the smallest World Series crowd in years.
“There was no cheering during the contest, nor was there anything like the usual umpire baiting,” one Boston newspaper reported.
Then, within the seventh inning, a band from the Navy coaching station north of Chicago began to play “The Star Spangled Banner.”
The track had been performed earlier than at major-league video games — from not less than 1862 and on opening day in 1897 in Philadelphia — mentioned John Thorn, Major League Baseball’s official historian. But this time, The New York Times reported, one thing occurred that was “far different from any incident that has ever occurred in the history of baseball.”
Players took off their caps as they confronted a flag that fluttered atop a pole in proper subject whereas the 12-piece band started to play.
Not everybody thought what occurred was an enormous deal. Chicago sportswriter Ring Lardner talked about it, however solely as a punch line as he reported that Red Sox infielder Fred Thomas had stood at consideration thrice in the course of the sport, as soon as in the course of the anthem and twice when the umpire was calling him out on strikes.
Sept. 6, 1905: The White Sox’s Frank Smith pitches a no-hitter towards the Tigers in a 15-0 victory within the second sport of a doubleheader.
The rating is essentially the most lopsided margin of victory for a no-hitter in AL historical past.
Sept. 8, 1953: The Cubs purchase the contract of Ernie Banks, a 22-year-old shortstop, from the Negro leagues’ Kansas City Monarchs for $10,000.
He made his Cubs debut Sept. 17, beginning at shortstop and batting seventh as the primary Black participant in crew historical past.
Sept. 9, 1969: The Cubs lose their sixth straight sport after a black cat walks previous their dugout.
“With the Mets one and a half games behind first-place Chicago for the division lead, a black cat ran onto the field at Shea Stadium, scampering by the Cubs on-deck batter and across the visitor’s dugout,” a plaque at Citi Field reads. “The Cubs lost the game 7-1, and eventually the division to the Mets.”
Cubs third baseman Ron Santo was within the on-deck circle when the cat appeared. Billy Williams nonetheless can recall Santo’s face turning numerous shades of pink every time followers requested him to autograph black-and-white pictures of him and the black cat.
Sept. 9 was the final day the ‘69 Cubs had been in first place after spending 156 days, together with days off, atop the National League East. They misplaced the subsequent sport after the “Black Cat Game” and 17 of 25 in September to finish up eight video games out.
Williams believes the Black Cat sport was eclipsed in Cubs metaphysical lore by the Bartman sport in Game 6 of the 2003 NLCS after which the heavenly rain delay in Game 7 of the 2016 World Series.
“Unless this stuff is in the paper, these guys don’t know nothing about that,” he mentioned in 2019. “Only the blokes that performed within the period do … and the media. The Mets believed in that as a result of they performed over .700 after that sport, and that contributed to (the legend).
“They just played great baseball. People look at it as bad luck for us, the black cat being on the field. But most of the players I know didn’t think that. I know I don’t.”
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Source: www.bostonherald.com