https://northsidebaseball.com/news-rumors/chicago-cubs/page/33/?d=7enhttps://northsidebaseball.com/news-rumors/chicago-cubs/michael-soroka-playoff-weapon-cubs-trade-deadline-dud-might-yet-bear-fruit-in-october-r2182/When they made a move for him at the trade deadline, the Chicago Cubs certainly envisioned Michael Soroka being a borderline playoff starting pitcher. They could not predict that Soroka would be injured two innings into his Cubs tenure, changing his role for the remainder of the season. That rol...2182Wed, 24 Sep 2025 16:11:00 +0000https://northsidebaseball.com/news-rumors/chicago-cubs/champagne-problems-one-week-after-joy-of-playoff-clinch-losses-and-bad-vibes-pile-up-on-cubs-r2183/It's been one week since a sweep in Pittsburgh gave the Cubs their 88th win and the certainty that their season would not end after Game 162. That was a very good day. There were smiles, hugs, encomiums and hopeful proclamations about the things that still laid ahead of the team. They partied. T...2183Wed, 24 Sep 2025 11:35:01 +0000https://northsidebaseball.com/news-rumors/chicago-cubs/making-the-case-for-moises-ballesteros-to-start-postseason-games-r2180/For the first time in five years (and really, seven, and really, eight), the Chicago Cubs will be playing postseason baseball. They're still fighting for positioning and seeding, but it's likely that they will be locked into the No. 4 seed and host the Wild Card Series at Wrigley Field, against...2180Tue, 23 Sep 2025 22:11:02 +0000https://northsidebaseball.com/news-rumors/chicago-cubs/seiya-suzukis-sights-are-set-too-low-r2179/The Chicago Cubs need something more than an offensive spark. Here and there, over the last month and change, they have found a spark, with Dansby Swanson, Ian Happ and Nico Hoerner passing in and out of hot streaks that have helped the team push across just enough runs to win some games and loc...2179Tue, 23 Sep 2025 13:35:01 +0000https://northsidebaseball.com/news-rumors/chicago-cubs/even-as-they-limp-toward-october-chicago-cubs-have-a-threat-in-their-step-r2176/There's no better place on planet Earth than Chicago when the city's North Side ball club bops its way into postseason contention. That's where Craig Counsell's highly capable, talent-rich club finds itself right now. The going has been tough, with the team encountering (and eventually prevailin...2176Tue, 23 Sep 2025 11:52:21 +0000https://northsidebaseball.com/news-rumors/chicago-cubs/comparing-pete-crow-armstrong-to-christopher-morel-r2151/  Cub fans can be a cynical lot. The second half of Pete Crow-Armstrong's 2025 season feeds into that. He's been bad in the second half. He has a woeful .259 on-base percentage and a lousy .352 slugging average in the second half, a far cry from the first half (.302 and .544). Memories of 2...2151Mon, 22 Sep 2025 22:06:10 +0000https://northsidebaseball.com/news-rumors/chicago-cubs/matt-shaws-timing-is-disastrous-lately-r2177/For the first month of the second half, Matt Shaw's bat was almost carrying a limping Cubs lineup. Craig Counsell stubbornly resisted the temptation to move Shaw up to the middle of the batting order, but even though he was getting fewer plate appearances than any other regular, Shaw was a vital...2177Mon, 22 Sep 2025 11:39:01 +0000https://northsidebaseball.com/news-rumors/chicago-cubs/cubs-week-in-review-the-north-siders-are-in-the-postseason-but-venue-will-determine-for-how-long-r2175/Clad in Cubbie blue, I've traversed the streets of Milwaukee this summer, doing my level best to conjure up a playoff run for the Chicago Cubs in 2025. By clinching their first postseason berth since the pandemic-shortened 2020 season (which didn't count, anyway), the team made that dream (and m...2175Sun, 21 Sep 2025 22:05:04 +0000https://northsidebaseball.com/news-rumors/chicago-cubs/kyle-tuckers-price-tag-is-plunging-but-cubs-still-shouldnt-pay-it-r2174/There was a movement, perhaps 20 or 30 years ago, to banish the notion of players being 'injury-prone' from discourse around baseball. It emanated, at least in part, from an admirable desire to thwart owners and front offices who sought to deflate players' earning power by slapping that label on...2174Sun, 21 Sep 2025 14:09:02 +0000https://northsidebaseball.com/news-rumors/chicago-cubs/turns-out-moises-ballesteros-might-be-really-good-at-baseball-r2170/Moises Ballesteros was always expected to hit. Young catchers rarely, if ever, show any level of advanced feel with the bat in their hands, but Ballesteros was an exception from the moment the Cubs signed him as a teenager. In 2022, his first full season of pro ball, an 18-year-old Balleste...2170Sat, 20 Sep 2025 11:52:01 +0000https://northsidebaseball.com/news-rumors/chicago-cubs/andrew-kittredge-has-been-extra-strength-nasty-as-cubs-newest-relief-ace-r2172/To some extent, Andrew Kittredge is your standard-issue 2025 relief pitcher. He's big and hirsute and a sinker-slider guy. Specifically, before the Cubs dealt for him at the end of July, he was a "95-and-a-slider" guy, which is the get-in cost for a modern high-leverage arm. Everyone throws 95 a...2172Fri, 19 Sep 2025 14:03:02 +0000https://northsidebaseball.com/news-rumors/chicago-cubs/ian-happ-is-commanding-the-zone-creating-his-own-batted-ball-luck-r2169/It turns out that when a hitter creates high-quality contact, good things tend to happen. Ian Happ is learning as much here in the month of September.  Obviously, Happ was trying to do that all along, even during a sleepy first half. It just wasn't happening for him. Compound some brutal lu...2169Thu, 18 Sep 2025 22:05:01 +0000