sontensei

....

Quintana can easily be beaten and while sale would be tough we have our best 2 starters going so it's not a stretch to suggest that a team that has already won games started by Kershaw and Greinke can beat a terrible offensive team with a great pitcher. the sox offense is actually worse than the cubs this year so it will probably be a close series --

herrera russell fowler......

bah

bullpen is due for another melt down aside for a couple stroped games, the rest of the guys have been pretty good recently.

Not sure, but according to fangraphs his grounder to flyout ratio is more than 2 to 1 and his ground hit % is 56 ... of his 44% balls not grounders 15% are popups in the infield only http://www.fangraphs.com/statss.aspx?playerid=4579&position=SS

castro lol

yeah i cant wait to see him at SS everyday!

gems by addison on D

holy hell how many free passes do the cubs want to waste today!?

Doesn't seem right. Damned straight it ain't right. These bozos need to start scoring a whole more 1st inning runs !!!! Go CUBS !! If this was the case wouldnt the overall record be 62-42!?

Mom's side are southsiders, pops side are northsiders.. has been a thing since i can remember in my family.

If they are going all in I hope Julio signs!!!

Half of my family still heckle me about 2005 WS for the White Sox and how Wood/Prior are brokeback mountain.. still to this day...

Really? I don't get it. The White Sox "rivalry" means jack to me. i took today off to go to the game, go CUBS!

Thank god that it wasn't serious! Hammertime!

Moldy fish chips

Castro sucks. No point defending him anymore. Why harp on the one thing he's doing well, though? castro had three at bats in which he desperately needed to do anything but strike out. he struck out in two of them. that's awful. guys hard facts. According to Fangraphs, out of 23 Shortstops that qualify based on plate appearances castro ranks 20/23 Chicago has 2 of the worst shortstops in baseball.. its sad. Who is gonna trade for him for pitching? Only a very bad GM would do that! Here is the entire list! # Name Team WAR 1 Brandon Crawford Giants 2.9 2 Xander Bogaerts Red Sox 2.3 3 Adeiny Hechavarria Marlins 2.2 4 Jhonny Peralta Cardinals 1.9 5 Alcides Escobar Royals 1.8 6 Brad Miller Mariners 1.8 7 Andrelton Simmons Braves 1.8 8 Jose Iglesias Tigers 1.6 9 Nick Ahmed Diamondbacks 1.4 10 Wilmer Flores Mets 1.3 11 Freddy Galvis Phillies 1.3 12 Erick Aybar Angels 1.3 13 Troy Tulowitzki Rockies 1.2 14 Asdrubal Cabrera Rays 0.9 15 Marcus Semien Athletics 0.8 16 Didi Gregorius Yankees 0.7 17 Jordy Mercer Pirates 0.5 18 Jean Segura Brewers 0.2 19 Elvis Andrus Rangers -0.3 20 Starlin Castro Cubs -0.5 21 Jimmy Rollins Dodgers -0.6 22 Ian Desmond Nationals -0.7 23 Alexei Ramirez White Sox -0.8 Its hard to justify waiting for a "veteran" (albeit a young one) to return to career averages especially with so many veterans struggling on the team including Fowler and Montero. A couple clutch hits is nice but who is to say another player like Mike Baxter or Denorfia couldn't have been that guy? Considering 2/4 of the infield is comprised of Rookies, Castro being productive is key. Living with errors is fine if he is hitting close to .300 and not killing every other rally with a double play.. but the poor performance at the plate and in the field is a huge liability for a team aspiring to be a perennial playoff contender. Getting rid of him now isn't probably very good because the return will be pretty low. However moving forward, i hope we dont see him as a cog in the infield from 2016 and on. If we are going to settle for mediocre offense, the defense needs to be gold glove caliber.. just my 2 cents.

So Hammel left today with a hammy strain. Press Release said that it may be minor but they will have an MRI tomorrow. Another article i read quoted Hammel saying he had a very sharp pain behind his knee. alright so the ASB is coming up so plenty of time to rest for the guys.. but in the event that hammel ends up out for 4-6 weeks... what in the world will the rotation look like? thoughts? Lester Arrieta Hendricks Richards Beeler? I dont know,.. i love our position going into the break, but in the event we had to come out of it with a month of the above rotation, it could be potentially disastrous. Lester has been alot better lately, and in some season he has been a slow stater, i think with a little extra rest he will be strong 2nd half Arrieta is a stud, so i think he will be fine. Hendricks -- he is one of those great or terrible guys, hope the good is better than the bad! Richards -- guy had a decent start but gave up 10 hits.. he is a good loogy type or spot starter but 4-5 starts in a month? i dunno Beeler -- Same as richards, these guys are good for a spot start but 4-5 starts?? Guess wada is an ex factor, he may come back for a few starts... Do you think Maddon could do a Tampa and have the 4/5 starter spots a committee thing? each guy richards/beeler/wood/ejax get 3 innings mixed up together for a month? What about stretching out CJ Edwards or giving a shot to pierce Johnson and getting them in there? Does this potentially force Theo to overpay for pitching? I think that if hammel is unable to return theo will have to make a trade, it could mean losing a schwarber.. the other teams would have a lot of leverage because they know cubs need a pitcher badly if hammel was to be out for an extended period. side note: i had a hammy strain from beer league softball 2 years ago that at first i thought would be over in a couple days, but it lingered and after going to the doc he basically told me i need to take it easy 6 weeks (thankfully the spring league was over but i sat out half the fall league)

castro, thats it more LINE DRIVES!

Gotta put up some runs cubs!! Beeler is going to give them up!!!

alright cubs save some hits for game 2!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

GUYS IF BEELER CAN PITCH WELL IN GAME 2 AND WE ACTUALLY WIN I MIGHT NOT WAKE UP TOMORROW. LOL

okay stop scoring and save some runs for game 2

Oh geez...can we stop acting like Castro doesn't get any clutch hits? Post if a couple days old, but still. too bad that doesnt make it WaR 5