We Got The Whole 9

Maples better not look rusty he might get DFA

Alright boys LFG Javy Most of my anger has dissipated

Good take you POS

These umpires are so horsefeathering awful

People really need to stop miscontruing the "contributions" Sogard has made to the offense. STFU. Hes been GARBAGE.

This is the worst review system in sports right?

Ridiculous that you can't review that like wtf

Brothers hasn’t pitched in 10 days which is bizarre. hard to complain about Ross' pen calls i suppose

Nice job Keegan!

I just don't think he needed to pull Davies. Oh well. Please keep it at 2.

Was that the arm he hurt or was it the left shoulder? Left shoulder got hurt trying to stay on the bag

I've seen runners use their legs to whip the guy on the turn but the hand? Another thing I'm not sure I've ever seen in baseball.

Sucks you got hurt Bote but that was a seriously STUPID thing to do

ML record is 44. But I haven't been able to find the NL record, which I bet we are approaching.

Oh, I’m thinking big. There’s going to be some really good players available btw teams falling out and crying poor plus baseball trying to generate some buzz. In a world where we can conceive of the Cubs trading Kris Bryant *and* others at the deadline this isn’t a stretch to say even now (IMO anyway) Another thing to consider is that he’s not a toolsy or explosive prospect, more fundamentally sound with great soft skills that will keep him in the game forever. He’s a throwback at the position but the impact guys have big arm and big power Carlos Santana’s MiL batting line: .290/.401/.500 including .287/.409/.530 at the AA level Keep in mind that Santana hit like that as a switch hitter playing catcher too. He was a through the roof excellent offensive prospect, Amaya isn’t that Ok what was it through his age 21 season? Nowhere near that level. His 20-21 seasons he hit 10 HR in 550 PA.

38 IP without an ER for the pen we figured to be a weak point before the season. Just nuts.

They have an absolutely murderous 1-2 punch we need to avoid, and today is the debut for their SP, which rarely turn out well for us. 2 things I'm a little nervous over.

Completely agree on Amaya. They need to hold onto him or make a damn decision on Contreras. I said it before he could be Carlos Santana but actually stick behind the dish and I'm sticking to that. Dude controls the zone very well at an advanced age. If that power (Santana's didn't emerge until he repeated AA at 23) comes around he's gonna be a hell of a MLB hitter. Its a joke that he basically got dropped from top 100s because they question his bat speed. Im so tired of lists in general.

With how well the bullpen has been performing of late and the current 40-man roster crunch, you're right, Rucker's chance may be a long way off. But I don't think it's because the Cubs have anything against him. After a rough 1st two outings, Rucker has put together 4 good ones totaling 8 IP, 3 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 1 BB, 12 K. That's impressive though not much of a sample size. The Cubs have good bullpen depth in AAA right now with Trevor McGill and Brad Wieck already on the 40-man and Robert Stock seemingly ahead of Rucker in the pecking order. Heck, even Kyle Ryan is pitching like a man possessed after the Cubs DFA'd him and every MLB team decided to pass on giving him a look. Even if he keeps this up, Rucker will still need either some massive under-performance by current major league relievers, 1 or 2 of them to get 60-day IL stints or some bullpen pieces being traded away in order to get placed on the 40-man. And with Rowan Wick getting closer to returning (and thus coming off the 60-day IL), that's about to get even harder to do. Ultimately, it's a good problem for the Cubs to have and a tough spot for Rucker to be in. All he can do is keep stringing together dominant outings and possibly force Cubs management to shuffle the deck and make room for him. I guess my thing is, why bother converting him to relief when he was quite effective as a starter? He throws strikes, gets whiffs, and keeps the ball in the yard. I imagine his stuff has only improved now that we ramped up the infrastructure. Now we have an extremely crowded picture and he's way down the pecking order it appears, while we have 3 SP whom he could possibly approximate in the rotation. He's 27 now and his track record reflects a guy who should be in the Majors already, IMO. A team so starving for SP sure seems content to take other teams trash and try to turn it into treasure rather than just seeing what they have in their own chest.

Need Rizzo to up his power output when he comes back. So many injuries. Marisnick is sorely missed too.

Cards were up 4-0 entering the 7th, Dbags reached 6 straight times for 3 runs, had the bases loaded 0 out K K (chased ball 4) GO horsefeathers the bed

Like Dakota Mekkes, the Cubs are seemingly never gonna give that guy a shot.

Right! It's not a run down..Javy can't be 'safe at home'. I counted 6 different idiotic things the Pirates did on the play: 1. Not stepping on first right away 2. Not more aggressively running towards home 3. Throwing to the catcher 4. Second baseman not covering 1st 5. Catcher not immediately running towards Javy while he was making the safe gesture 6. Errant throw to 1B allowing him to reach 7. 2B missing the next throw would've saved a run and if all things stayed the same the game would've gone to extras. The 2B made probably the worst catch attempt possible, likely because he was incredulous at what was occurring.

I’ve seen nothing. Minor league injury info is about as hard to come by as college football. None of Smith, Phil, etc have any idea huh, damn. It's probably nothing, I guess.

Word on Howard's injury?