Sammy Leo

We're entering "must-win" territory for the hometown nine. Image courtesy of © Kamil Krzaczynski-Imagn Images It’s Saturday, it’s September, and the Cubs aren’t quiiiiite out of it yet. Javier Assad will be pitching today, with clutch hero Christian Bethancourt doing the catching, as the Cubs try to claw their way even with the Yanks in this series. Rizzo will be back in the lineup (hopefully, you caught the Cubs’ tribute for him yesterday). As for yesterday’s game, there’s not much good to say other than the goatee looks good on Wicks. He pitched well enough, with only one bad inning over his five frames, but that inning—a walk and three runs on as many base hits before recording an out—was enough to lose the game for the Cubs, thanks to a tepid performance from the up-and-down offense, who are now sputtering at a crucial moment in the Wild Card race. Let’s hope it’s not all downhill from here as we look at today’s matchup. Pitchers Assad has been an underrated keystone of consistency for the Cubs this season. His ERA is at 3.21 over 126 IP, which, if qualified (he needs 36 more innings), would be 7th in the National League, right behind teammate Shota Imanaga. Teams have difficulty generating runs off his fastball, which he usually throws for a sinker. The Yankees know how to generate runs off fastballs, but Javy works well under pressure. He’s one of my favorite pitchers to watch for his ability to translate rage into greater discipline; when runners reach first and second, he has a Mad Max-like ability to get key strikeouts and double plays, all while looking at you like he’s going to make you an offer you can’t refuse. Watch out for a miraculous inning escape or two as he takes on a powerful and patient Yankees lineup. The wind is forecast to blow out to left field today, which won’t help against the homer-happy Yankee bats. Assad and the rest of the Cubs’ pitching staff will have to get some swing-and-miss going, especially after yesterday's six walks. Locating the sinker early in the count will be a key to Assad’s success. Like Jordan Wicks and Luis Gil, Yankee starter Clarke Schmidt has been out for most of the season; this will be his first major-league start since May 27th, which may provide the Cubs hitters with a slight advantage. Schmidt throws a mix of cutters, sweepers, sinkers, and curves with the odd changeup. Before his shutdown in May (lat strain), Schmidt had worked a 2.52 ERA over 60.2 innings. We’ll see if the Cubs can put a bump or two in that number today. Offense The Cubs had no answer for Luis Gil or the Yankee bullpen, a disappointing but predictable fall from their towering surge of double-digit performances against, it must be said, much worse teams. Nonetheless, fans can still feel excited by this lineup, with its mix of rookies finding their true power and veterans remembering how to play ball as it slowly but surely becomes too late. We’ll see if they can find any rust on Schmidt when they face him, or maybe we’ll see more pinch-hit heroics masterminded by the ever-shrewd Craig Counsell, who sure as hell knows when to hand Mike Tauchman a bat. Or maybe this is the start of yet another September dive, the kind that Cubs fans always start bracing for in May. Tune in to find out—you can catch the game on Marquee Sports Network, MLB.TV, and Fubo TV at 1:20 pm CST (2:20 EST). View full article

It's a longshot in early September but the way Pete Crow-Armstrong is raking, anything feels possible. Image courtesy of © Kamil Krzaczynski-Imagn Images It’s fun to watch Pete Crow-Armstrong play baseball. Over the past month, his torrid performance has played a key role in lifting the Cubs from what seemed to be another Sell-By season into a legitimate rat race with the Mets and Braves for the final Wild Card slot. Slim as the Cubs' chances may look in Vegas, it bears remembering that Vegas aren’t the ones playing ball (at least for another few seasons), and the high-ceiling offense that has been frustratingly latent all season has finally—beautifully—come alive. The Cubs have been hitting .268 with 123 wRC+ as a team since the start of August, and they are good for second in the majors behind the Diamondbacks. In that time, Crow-Armstrong has generated 1.7 WAR, second for the Cubs behind a surging Dansby Swanson (1.8 since August 1st), and cleared the deck with a whopping 161 wRC+ over that span. His dynamic defense, explosive baserunning (you can watch his season record 14.08-second inside the parker for the 9,000th time here), and adept, powerful bat were always there; the latter just needed a few months at the mercy of major-league pitching before PCA could adjust accordingly and do what he has done at all previous levels of the game: absolutely rake. He’s hitting .330/.386/.560 since August 1st and shows no signs of slowing down, with three singles and two runs (thanks to more aggressive baserunning) in Sunday’s sweep-sealing rout of the Nats. Of course, the league will adapt to PCA’s rapidly maturing hit tool. We can expect his numbers to take a dive again before he settles into a standard production level. Still, even if he ends up a career .250 hitter (which hardly seems likely at this rate), he’ll be one of the most valuable outfielders in the majors, thanks to his defensive presence. Much has been written of PCA’s plus-plus defensive capabilities, and rightly so. Particularly remarkable are his routes to the ball and the light, fine-tuning steps he takes as he approaches the balls that come his way. His speed allows him to “burst” with elite effectiveness, getting into the area of the catch quickly and giving himself more time to adjust—which he does with the relish and flash of a guy who just plain loves catching the ball. He approaches assist chances with the same mixture of aggression and savvy; with a runner on first and this dying quail all but certain to drop in for a base hit, Crow-Armstrong refuses to concede the single until the last possible instant, adjusting his dive to field the ball on a short hop and keep Isiah Kiner-Falefa on second base. Oh, and the kid absolutely hauls the ball back in whenever it gets out there to him with runners on base, no matter how far down the basepaths they already are. This type of heart and effort is precisely what the promising-on-paper Cubs lineup has needed to get sparks flying up and down the batting order. As long as he doesn’t follow in his inspiration’s footsteps and let his confidence eradicate any eye for the strike zone, PCA’s aggressive and game-changing style will serve him and the Cubs well, leading to more and more explosive moments as he and his team try to carve their way up and out past the regular-season schedule and into their first postseason berth since the COVID-shortened 2020 season. View full article