Article: Monday Morning North Sider: Rockies Sweep, Dodgers, Imanaga, The Room, And More

[Brandon Glick]

The Cubs went 5-1 in a week in which they swept the Rockies and took two of three from the Dodgers at Wrigley Field. I also got to meet Tommy Wiseau. That and more in this week’s MMNS.

Image courtesy of © David Banks-USA TODAY Sports

It was an impressive showing from the Cubs this week. They looked dominant for all but one inning against the lowly Colorado Rockies, and they competed fiercely all weekend with the Los Angeles Dodgers. Were it not for the heart of the order blowing a couple of bases-loaded opportunities against Yoshinobu Yamamoto in the early innings on Saturday, the Cubs may have pulled off back-to-back sweeps.

• The Cubs won all three of their games against the Rockies. The final scores: 5-0 on Monday, 12-2 on Tuesday, and 9-8 on Wednesday.

• In the first game, Shota Imanaga was incredible in his Cubs debut, shutting the Rockies out over six innings. It was as good of a debut as any Cubs pitcher has had in a long time, and then he followed that up by owning the best lineup in baseball over the weekend.

• Imanaga, after blanking the Dodgers over four innings on Sunday (pulled because of the long rain delay), is at 10 innings pitched for the young season, with 12 strikeouts, four hits allowed, and no walks or runs against him. It is exceedingly difficult to imagine a better start to the season for the Japanese rookie.

• In the second game of that Rockies series, the Cubs got to Kyle Freeland early and often. Seiya Suzuki and Christopher Morel, the team’s two hottest bats over these first few weeks of the season, crushed home runs. They both look more comfortable at the plate than they ever have previously, and their continued ascendence in the second and fourth slots in the lineup (sandwiching Cody Bellinger) will go a long way toward solidifying the Cubs as legitimate contenders this season.

• If you missed it, the Cubs faithful chanted Bellinger’s name in the seventh inning of that blowout, to which he responded by hitting a home run. What an incredibly awesome moment.

• And then, as I’m writing this, he did it AGAIN on Sunday. Perhaps Bellinger simply requires audible fanfare to produce at an MVP level.

• In the weekend series, the Cubs won two games against the mighty Dodgers. The final scores: 9-7 on Friday, 1-4 on Saturday, and 8-1 on Sunday. 

• Michael Busch hit his first homer as a Cub against his former team in that first game. It’s been a relatively slow start to the year, but manager Craig Counsell believes in the first basemen. There’s plenty of time for him to develop into a middle-of-the-order slugger.

• The defense was much improved this weekend. Nico Hoerner, especially, showed out with the glove. Outside of third base (and, depending on how Busch evolves defensively, first base), the Cubs have Gold Glove-caliber talent everywhere on the diamond. Good defense has to be a hallmark of this team going forward.

• In case you missed them, some updates on the Cubs roster: Julian Merryweather was placed on the Injured List, with Daniel Palencia getting called up in his place; Patrick Wisdom and Jameson Taillon began their rehab assignments, with the former going to Triple-A Iowa and the latter heading to Double-A Tennessee; the team re-signed relief pitcher Carl Edwards Jr. after he elected to opt out of his contract toward the end of Spring Training.

• Lastly, old friend Codi Heuer joined the Texas Rangers on a minor-league deal this week. It’s a sad end to a Cubs tenure that never really got off the ground, but he was one of the most enjoyable guys on the team to be around. Best of luck to him in his new organization.

Elsewhere around MLB, things have already gotten crazy in early April. We’ve had our first no-hitter of 2024, and the pitching injuries have continued to mount.

• Ronel Blanco of the Houston Astros threw a no-hitter against the Toronto Blue Jays on Apr. 1. What’s truly crazy about the circumstances is that if any of Justin Verlander, Luis García, Lance McCullers Jr. or José Urquidy weren't on the IL, Blanco would be in the bullpen or the minor leagues. Instead, he answered the call, retiring 26 straight hitters after walking the leadoff batter.

• Houston, by the way, now has four of the last seven no-hitters in baseball, including Game 4 of the 2022 World Series against the Philadelphia Phillies.

• Anthony Rendon has finally gotten a hit in 2024, though his 0-21 start to the season atop the Los Angeles Angels' batting order will not be soon forgotten. He’s a mercurial person and a controversial figure among Angels fans, and his seven-year, $245-million contract will go down as perhaps the worst of all time in any sport. He has yet to play more than 58 games in a single season in an Angels uniform.

• Tanner Scott, a rumored Cubs’ trade target this winter, became the Miami Marlins’ closer this year after AJ Puk converted to a starting role. In 2023, he logged 78 innings with a 2.31 ERA and a 0.99 WHIP. This year, he’s walked six batters in four innings and was the first pitcher to be saddled with multiple losses on the young season.

• Mookie Betts is leading the entire league in most hitting categories so far. Even adjusting his counting numbers for the two-game head start he had because of the “Seoul Series”, he’s been otherworldly to start the 2024 season. If he, Freddie Freeman, and Shohei Ohtani find their MVP forms at the same time, the Dodgers lineup will be impossible to navigate.

• Lastly, pitching injuries have risen in a disturbing crescendo this year, beyond almost anything else we’ve seen in the past. Shane Bieber now needs Tommy John surgery after a dominant start to the year, and Eury Pérez will join him in the operating room (not literally, we assume) despite being handled with the utmost care thus far in his career. The cherry on top is Spencer Strider, who was just placed on the IL with a UCL sprain. It’s starting to feel like elbow injuries for pitchers are a matter of “when”, rather than “if”.

Whew. That was a lot of baseball chatter. I don’t have any administrative bullets this time around, so let’s jump right into some other sports & entertainment.

• The men’s March Madness finale is tonight. The game is between UConn, the defending national champions, and Purdue, who notably became only the second No. 1 seed in history to lose to a 16 seed in the tournament last year. Of course, Virginia was the first school to suffer that embarrassment in 2018, and they went on to win the National Championship the next season.

• That being said, UConn is and should be the heavy favorite in this matchup. For the second straight year, they’ve looked unstoppable in the 68-team tournament. Zach Edey, the (soon-to-be) two-time reigning National Player of the Year is a formidable force in the paint, but Purdue hasn’t seen a team of UConn’s caliber all season. This one will be over quickly.

• The women’s championship game happened yesterday, with South Carolina smacking Iowa 87-75. Iowa and Caitlin Clark got off to a blazing 20-9 start, but SC just kept coming at them. They had 37 bench points, compared to Iowa’s 0, speaking to just how much Clark has carried her team all season.

• The final week of the NBA season is here! The 4-9 seeds in the Western Conference are all separated by five games or fewer, and the 1-3 seeds are still up for grabs. It’ll be a photo finish, even if the Bulls appear to be on a collision course with the Atlanta Hawks for the 9 vs. 10 play-in game.

• A few weeks ago, I discussed Amazon’s Invincible: Season 2. The season finale just aired, and it was something else. In keeping with the show’s habit of earth-shattering revelations in big episodes, the finale doesn’t disappoint. The season as a whole isn’t on par with Season 1 of the show, but it still leaves plenty of room for some exciting developments in the future.

• The Room (2003) directed, written by, and starring Tommy Wiseau is THE cult classic film, and I finally got to experience the insanity of that cult this weekend. In NYC, Wiseau is doing a partnership with Angelika Theaters, and he held a signing and Q&A on Saturday night before a screening of The Room.

• You could barely hear the movie half the time, since some of the more eclectic members of the audience were clearly superfans of Wiseau and the film. Famously, audiences throw spoons at the screen when a certain picture frame is shown in the film, and the total number of spoons in my theater must have exceeded 1,000. That is not a joke, by the way. I don’t know where these people got all these spoons, but boy did they have a lot of them.

• Wiseau himself is, naturally, a bizarre guy. The Q&A was as disjointed and incoherent as the film, and it made the night that much more memorable. As badly as he wanted to be a respected director in the film world, he’s seemingly really taken to being beloved for his (many) flaws as a filmmaker.

• The Room, if you somehow haven’t seen it, is the ultimate “so bad, it’s good” movie. It is among the most poorly written, poorly shot pieces of art ever conceived by humankind, and that it got released at all is nothing short of a miracle. If you ever need a really good laugh, I can’t recommend it enough--even if you can’t meet Wiseau beforehand.

That about wraps it up for last week, folks. The Cubs are heading West this week, as they’ll do battle with the Padres Monday through Wednesday before drawing the Mariners Friday through Sunday. (Thursday is a scheduled day off.) Both teams are hovering around .500 in the early going this season, though they come equipped with offensive stars and ace-caliber arms. The Cubs will have to bring their A-game to the West Coast if they hope to continue their hot start to 2024.

Have a great week, everyone! Go, Cubs, Go!

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[Derek_Lee_Truther]

It was a good week for the Cubs. Love how Jordan Wicks and imanaga look so far.

Also super cool how much coverage women's cbb is getting. Clark is a dominant force. 

[Billy62]

Got to love this start if your a Cubs fan. This is exactly what good teams do, they hold serve against the top teams and dominate the second division. So yeah, its pretty exciting. Our pitching depth is going to be tested now, but I remain optimistic. The team is hitting pretty good, especially this early in the season.