All of the Stuff

The Cubs’ efforts to host the 2027 All-Star Game appear to be “gaining momentum,” writes Patrick Mooney of The Athletic. Bruce Levine of 670 The Score reported on Thursday afternoon that the game “will be awarded” to the Cubs later this summer, but a team spokesperson subsequently told reporters that [...]

Yay, more divisional baseball! (physically drags axe away from grindstone). The Cubs face the Reds for their first series of the year this weekend, and will turn around to host them at Wrigley next week. While the Cubs are in their stretch of relatively weaker opponents, the Reds are definitely [...]

We were hoping on the last Dreamcast that the Cubs would make a sort of a run, and so far so good (albeit could’ve swept but for some dumb baseball things and the usual bullpen grumblings). As I revisited the preview I did before the season started (which still includes [...]

Infielder Nicky Lopez went unclaimed on outright waivers after being designated for assignment by the Cubs, per the transaction log at MLB.com. Chicago sent him outright to Triple-A Iowa, but Lopez has instead elected free agency. He can now sign with any team. The 30-year-old Lopez is a versatile, glove-first utility [...]

About a year ago, Matthew Boyd was recovering from a left elbow injury and throwing for teams, hoping to get signed. He landed with the Cleveland Guardians, where he made 8 starts and posted a 2.72 ERA during the 2024 regular season and then added three postseason starts with a [...]

I tend to think that, whether it was by design because the Cubs slipped someone a few dollars in the scheduling committee, or if they just got lucky, the regular Thursday off day has been pretty amazing to help keep players and pitchers fresh amidst the rash of injuries the [...]

OSS: Yukon Cornelius walks it off! Three up: Justin Turner finally got his first extra base hit of the year, and it was a big one. Turner’s one-out, 2 RBI double in the bottom of the ninth was the game winner. I groaned when I realized he was coming up, but with [...]

On Monday night, Moises Ballesteros was in the Triple-A Iowa clubhouse, playing a videogame — as luck would have it, MLB The Show — when he got the news that he was headed to the real show. Ballesteros said he dropped the game controller on the desk when Iowa Cubs manager [...]

Commissioner Rob Manfred throws a bone both to fellow trash former human and to a different guy who probably actually loved baseball On Tuesday, Rob Manfred sent a letter to a lawyer to let lawbreakers loose after leaving the land of the living, leaving lifetime bans limited to the length of [...]

OSS: Cade Horton makes a solid debut Three up Cade Horton made his well earned debut, and looked like he belonged. Aside from a belt-high hung slider to Brett Baty he had a solid night, and got a strikeout looking on his first batter. I’m looking forward to seeing more of him, [...]

I was told that the Cubs had no hard series for the rest of the year, this is some bullshit. The Mets may have had one of the easiest strength of schedules on the year, but they are still quite a good team even with new signing Juan Soto “slumping” [...]

So Shota Imanaga is on the shelf for probably a month or so, and Justin Steele is out for the year, which means someone has to take over that open spot in the rotation. It appears that someone is top Cubs pitching prospect Cade Horton: Horton, Chicago’s No. 2 prospect and No. [...]

Yay, more divisional baseball! It doesn’t feel *too* weird that the first Brewers series isn’t until May, but it does still feel weird that it’s the second NLC series overall. Or that there’s no Cardinals series until the last week of June. I’m a broken record (that was shattered by [...]

N=1, sample size etc. [...]

The toughest* part of the Cubs schedule is finally behind them but they shouldn’t take their foot of the gas. And while the Pirates overall are a step down from the Dodgers et al., they do still have this Paul Skenes guy, who outdueled Yamamoto in his last start. The [...]

I was thinking about the season preview I did at the tail end of spring training, and as we look at the standings today, a day that the Cubs have off as they travel to Pittsburgh for another road trip that doesn’t suck as much as the last one (we [...]

This link takes you to the play in question, and keep in mind this isn’t the play that lost the game, as Julian Merryweather had uncharacteristically walked the world in stupid extras and coughed up a go-ahead run already. Per my observation, Vidal Bruján was playing kind of deep possibly [...]

Despite the toughest strength of schedule in the league through the first month, a bullpen that is still finding its footing, and the loss of one of their top starting pitchers, the Cubs are winning with regularity. So much so that they are the current easy favorites to win their [...]

Rain during baseball Should be illegal except In the World Series [...]

Since spring training, Craig Counsell has stressed the importance of having a Cubs pitching staff that can cover all the innings of a 162-game season. Through good and bad days, long starts and short ones, there’s a lot that goes into planning which pitchers to use when from Opening Day [...]