Cubby-Blue

Despite contractual angst, there's alot of Cubs Spring goodness.

If you just forget that Kris Bryant, Anthony Rizzo and Javy Baez need new contracts, things are actually pretty cool in Mesa.
It's just baseball.
KB hit his first springdinger.
Joc Pederson looks like a total beast.
Bummer for Cameron Maybin, but Jake Marisnick's calf healed and he's looking really good for outfielder #4.
Bleacher Nation says, "After today's performances, Jake Marisnick (1.500) has overtaken Joc Pederson (1.442) for the Cubs spring OPS lead."  (that statement has the usual "small sample" warning of course).
Pedro Strop got out of Covid-cheating jail and into the save column yesterday. Just great seeing him out there smiling in a Cubs uni again.
Trevor Williams, the guy who grew up in a Cub Fan household, will more than likely be the #4 starter after looking so good this spring.
Jake Arrieta has... well we all know about the slider(s), but he's got this curve that's really working for him. And he's sharing knowledge with Adbert Alzolay which seems to be making Adbert better. 
Willson Contreras has 9 hits in 29 at bats, 3 of 'em homers. 
We all know who's gonna be starting position-wise except at 2nd, except wait... it's going to be Nico Hoerner, right?
We got to hear Pat Hughes. 
The Cubs hired a female announcer for the first time in their history, Beth Mowins, and she was awesome in her debut yesterday.
There's just a ton of good stuff going on, and fan-wise you have to be feeling pretty dang good going into... real baseball games.
That's just 11 days away at 1:20 vs the Pirates. 

What else?
The other night, I realized that I had the grill going and... IT WAS STILL BRIGHT DAYLIGHT OUTSIDE!

Summer is gonna be here in no time, which makes me SO HAPPY.
What makes me sad?
Finding an xacto blade in a drawer.

Okay.
Go Cubs.
Oh yeah, the Javy Baez painting.
That's Javy with his bat that can splatter baseballs. 

Schwarber's ALCS Grand Slam!

Sorry no time to write, but we GOTTA acknowledge Kyle Schwarber's massive bomb into the right field bleachers last night.
A grand freaking slam!
It was Boston's 3rd (THIRD) salami in this ALCS, a record for a post season series. 
The Red Sox creamed the Astros 12-3, went up 2 games to 1 in the ALCS, and it was a most pleasurable thing to watch.
There are 2 more in Boston, tonight at 7:08 (Chi Time), and tomorrow at 4:08.
Be nice to wrap that up Thursday afternoon.

Also, the Cubs hired a GM!
Guy named Carter Hawkins, from Cleveland.
Pretty sure Jed said, "Thank GOD! You take the questions until we're competitive again, okay?"

Lastly, Charlie thanks so much for sending that pic this morning.
Inspired this inky splatter drawing! 

Aaron Rodgers beats the Bears, and Chicago, again.

Aaron Rodgers.
For like the millionth time, he came to Chicago and knocked the windy out of the city.
I've said here before that actually, I do not hate this guy like I do the Packers. 
His talent is undeniable.
He represents everything the Bears are not, which mostly is that talent.
At quarterback.
And for most of my lifetime, Rodgers is just a repeat of another Green Bay quarterback.
Who beats the Bears over and over again.
This time, however, in the course of beating the Bears again, Rodgers dropped back to about the 15, pump faked, decided to run and carried the ball into the corner of the end zone where Eddie Jackson uselessly pushed him down, which, in keeping with the rest of the game, I thought for SURE would be a penalty. 
It wasn't.
Instead, Rodgers got up, did his buckle thing, and then this happened:

What came out next was, "“All my f#cking life, I own you. I own you. I still own you."
Full throated.
I'm sure you've seen it by now.
Which prompted me to play around with photoshop.

No, I don't want to see him seriously injured.
Just having what little fun a Bears fan with photoshop can possibly have when Rodgers beats the Bears again.

What else?
Did you stay up to watch the Atlanta Braves take their second straight from the Los Angeles Dodgers?
Corey Seager homers with Betts on in the first.
2-zip Dodgers.
Joc Pederson hits a 454-footer off Max Scherzer to tie the game at 2 in the 4th.
Chris Taylor doubles in the top of the 7th, knocking in Mookie and Will Smith, Dodgers up by 2.
Bottom of the 8th was just nuts, and by that I mean balls.
Eddie Rosario's on 2nd after singling and a Freddie Freeman fly ball.
Ozzie Albies hits a shallow bouncer to right, Freeman gets waved around (this is the balls part) by 3rd base coach and ex-Texas manager Ron Washington and touches home with his hand clearly on camera by about an inch.
In all that excitement, Albies forgets to take 2nd.
But then Austin Riley hits one over Mookie's head in center, and Albies has to hoof it all the way around third (where he's waved around again by Washington) and arrive at home the same time as the ball, but the throw's a hair off and bounces out of Smith's glove.
Both these runs (off Julio Urias) could easily have been outs and Mr. Washington the wrong kind of goat.
Instead, he's just fearless.
And in the bottom of the 9th with Dansby Swanson on 2nd, Rosario hits a miracle single up the middle that Kenley Jansen just missed, then bounced off Seager's glove and into center.
Swanson comes around, touches home and keeps running into the huge celebration.
Braves 5 Dodgers 4.
Kinda awesome.

AND, the Chicago Sky and Candace Parker beat the Phoenix Mercury for the Sky's first WNBA championship.
They're the best team in Chicago.

 


 

Kyle Schwarber is the Last Ex-Cub of 2021.

Kris Bryant's Giants lost game 5 to the Dodgers.
Anthony Rizzo's Yankees lost the wildcard to Schwarber's Red Sox.
I kinda think Craig Kimbrel may be a dirty word on the South Side, and he and Ryan Tepera's White Sox looked.. not real good against the Astros.
So of all the Post Season Playing Ex-Cubs, Kyle Schwarber is the last one standing.
At first base for the Red Sox, by the way.
(If you missed the game vs the Rays where he made an error early, and later in the game made a successful toss to a pitcher covering the bag resulting in a mini-celebration from Kyle on the field, watch it here because it's soooo awesome and funny.)
You know, he had that absolutely incredible June and won Player of the Month.
Then a hammie interrupts the streak.
He's an All-Star, but only gets to limp around and not play.
THEN he gets traded to the Red Sox at the deadline and now he's playing first, currently playoff-hitting .292 with a couple dingers.
That's a CRAZY head spinning season for him.
And now the Sox are down a game to the freaking Astros, who I would desperately like to see disappear.
Hear that, Boston?
DO YOUR JOB.
If they can take one in Houston tonight, that would be a good start.

The Dodgers won game 5 over the Giants by not starting a starter, but rather a lineup of astonishing pitching talent beginning with Corey Knebel, ending with Max Scherzer, and then Julio Urias going 4 in the middle there along with a couple other guys going 1. 
6 pitchers striking out 13, giving up 6 hits and one run over 9.
The Giants on the other hand started with a starter, 24 year old Logan Webb, who goes 7 innings and gives up just 4 hits and 1 run.
Against the stacked Dodgers, that's incredible.
Such a great performance and I was heartbroken when Bellinger knocked in Turner for the winning run in the top of the 9th.
KB went 2 for 4 and got HOSED by an erratic home plate ump Doug Eddings.
Whatever.
Dodgers 2 Giants 1.

And now it'll be Dodgers vs Braves starting tonight.
Joc Pederson is still playing for the Braves, but I kinda think of him as just having a cup of coffee with the Cubs.
And while it would be nice if the Braves could somehow beat Los Angeles, I just kinda doubt it.

But overall you watch these games and imagine how far the Cubs need to come to be competitive in that world again.
Miles.

Oh well.
In the meantime, I'll watch these games and paint.
Here's a couple...
The Green Mill is where the Cool Cats hang out.


And if you hadn't noticed, this is the most irritating month because EVERYTHING IS PUMPKIN.


Have a great weekend and Go Kyle Schwarber!

Schwarber's dinger off Cole. History repeats...

No time to write, but surely you remember that massive shot Kyle Schwarber hit off Gerrit Cole in the '15 NL Wild Card in Pittsburgh. 
So happy for Kyle.

Oddly, the Cubs aren't finished in '21 just yet.

No, the Cubs aren't finished with this season just yet.
Starting tomorrow night with the Red Sox and Yanks facing off in a Wild Card one-gamer, we'll get to see Kyle Schwarber and Anthony Rizzo play. 
Just going in order, on Wednesday night... man - who do you pull for in a Cardinals vs Dodgers Wild Card game?
"How do I dislike thee? Let me count the ways."
(I thought that was Shakespeare, but it's actually Elizabeth Barrett Browning.)
Thursday night we'll get to see Craig Kimbrel as the Sox face the Astros.
That one's easy for me and high time for another I Hate The Astros Page. 
On Friday Kris Bryant and the Giants will face either the Cards or Dodgers.

The Cubs' season went out with 91 losses and a case of Covid.
They set a record for players played, too.
We watched 69 different Cubs this year, and about a third of them... if I saw them on the street I'd have no idea who they were.
There are so many holes to fill, especially starting pitching, the Hot Stove should actually be of great interest and expectation for us.
And that's also like... the scariest as far as gambling goes.
Just look at what happened to San Diego, who imported Yu Darvish, Blake Snell and Joe Musgrove.
Everyone thought they'd be a dominant pitching machine.
Instead they were injury-plagued and ended up 79-83 - a whopping 28 games behind the 1st place Giants.
Pitching and injuries are just the worst.
It looks like Clayton Kershaw is done for the year. 
He's one of the Big Three Free Agents at the end of this year, along with Zack Greinke and Max Scherzer.
I don't think any of those guys are being targeted by the Cubs, but whatever, Jed Hoyer HAS to add pitching.

As we sat in our seats at Wrigley in that last home game (and loss to the Cardinals), I realized that it was the Cardinals who'd pulled off The Cubs Way.
You know, grow a core and build around them, win forever.
The Cubs traded away all their promises on that Black Friday, and we'll get to watch them play in the post season.
The Cardinals kept the faith, didn't trade and... we get to watch them as well.
So sad, this season.
You kind of have to put on blinders and forget how the Cubs got there before you can agree with Hoyer's decision to jettison all of them, but that's the story of 2021.
And the only way forward now will be to put it behind us.
Of the 69 players we saw this year, how many you think are keepers?
Not placeholders, but legit?
I think they'd be crazy to not keep Frank Schwindel. 
A great guy, and my Cub Fan reflexes - if the Cubs didn't keep him and he keeps hitting like he did for someone else?
Can you imagine?
Patrick Wisdom had a great season and fits the bill of a strike out slugger guy, but... I don't know.
I love Matt Duffy and his high contact.
Which player is Ian Happ - the guy at the beginning of this year, or the end?
Gotta hope it's the end.
I don't really know why, but I can't ever bring myself to feel like David Bote is an actual answer for anything other than a backup.
Like, getting injured stepping on a ball during a base running drill seemed so Bote.
Jason Heyward is Jason Heyward.
Willson Contreras and Nico Hoerner feel like the most solid of this group to me right now.

Yeah, I'll have all my phone alerts on for trade stuff this winter.

In the meantime, I'll watch the Ex-Cubs in the playoffs, and to them I say..
Go Cubs.

The last Cubs game at Wrigley of 2021

Well, it was a beautiful day.
And it was sort of a competitive game, at least.
We had amazing seats, front row in the upper infield boxes.

In the 3rd, Paul Goldschmidt hit one of the longest homers I'd ever seen live - a 464 footer waaay up in center field.
But the Cubs scored 2 in the 4th and led for a gloriously long chunk of time.
Up until Harrison Bader hit one out off of Rowan Wick and tied it up in the 8th.
Then... it was the 9th, that horrible 9th, that wrecked all my fun.

Our fabulous seats gave us a fabulous view of the back to back Cardinal bunts, the intentional Goldschmidt walk to load the bases, the wild pitch that gave the Cards the lead and then the... I can still see it behind my eyelids. 
A weaky come-backer to pitcher Codi Heuer who's SO got a play at the plate, but he forgot to catch the ball.
It dropped, and it looked like he was trying to pick up spaghetti. 
The insurance run scores and Heuer just barely gets the 2nd out at first.
Game over, except for whatever the infield fly that Arenado dropped was all about.

The whole day, there was one truly funny thing that happened:


Cubs 2, Cardinals 4. 
The Card's win streak goes up to 16, we go back to my car.
We'd parked in the alley.
I told you before that I park in the same alley with the same person each time I go.
And I did a painting from a picture I took from my car years and years ago.


It's still basically the same.


Oh well.
I have some thoughts before we get to the "wait til next year" part of this season coming up in about a week.
Until then, have a good one.