As of this writing, today marks the final official Cactus League game for the Cubs. They’ll do a two-game exhibition against the Cardinals, who are traveling west to face the Dodgers amidst all their drama, before the Cubs themselves head a tad east to deal with the defending World Series champion Texas Rangers. Opening Day is just a few days …
Pondering Pitching
To preface this, and for those of you who listened to the latest Dreamcast, we sort of remarked on it too: Now it’s easy to blame David Ross for a lot, but I imagine a lot of the directives to use guys in certain spots of the lineup probably aren’t his decision, although he does use substitutions (pinch-hitting, pitching changes) …
Dreamcast 60: Growing Pains
Well kids, the Cubs just got swept by the Astros, and the last one was a full blown bullpen meltdown just like in the old days. Berselius and Rice Cube got together for a quick record during the game on Tuesday and the stuff we talked about reared its ugly head on Wednesday, though it was nice to see Christopher …
Taking Stock of the Roster (So Far)
The Cubs have been riding a win streak since we last blogged that would be impressive if these games actually mattered. They don’t get an official off day until next week, but so far it seems everyone is just taking it easy, and a few have already left camp to participate in WBC play so that will give a few …
A Winning Pitch (We Hope)
We’ve reached the phase right before Spring Training where it’s mostly claims and minor league contracts while the residue of the free agent barrel lingers until teams and agents finally settle on something. For all intents and purposes, the roster is set (very similar to what we did last time, minus some DFAs and outrights and what not) and the …
Daily Facepalm 3.12.12 – Garza struggles
Garza has a rough outing While the Cubs starters have been impressive in their short outings for far this spring, Matt Garza ran into trouble in the second and had to be pulled after walking in a run or two. He's mostly just working on his fastball and changeup, and batters were sitting on it. He told Muskat: I’ve been …
Daily Facepalm 3.9.12 – Volstad Good, Soriano Good, Marmol Bad
Rotation battle news Chris Volstad followed up Jeff Samardzija's strong outing with three solid innings of his own yesterday. Volstad struck out three, walked none, and allowed one hit. Spring training stats don't mean much (especially just three innings for each guy), but as far as we can tell things are very up in the air for the last two …
Daily Facepalm 2.22.12
We just have the point-after-try to kick, or something Several months ago, we were on the "five yard line" in the Theo compensation situation. Since then we've crossed the blue line, stepped into the paint, crossed the box, and veered right at the fireworks factory exit, and now it's finally been decided that Cubs prospect Chris Carpenter would be the …
Getting to Know: Andrew Cashner
Name: Andrew Cashner Position: Starting Pitcher Bats/Throws: Right/Right Opening Day age: 24 Uniform Number: 48 Does he celebrate on September 11th every year?: Well, it IS his birthday, so I would imagine so. Wouldn’t you? Where Does He Rank Among National League Fifth Starters?: 9th The good news is that Beyond the Box Score has him rated above every other …
Raised Expectations
Well… here we are. After all the hype building up to the site’s debut today, I can’t help but wonder if people will walk away with the same sense of disappointment felt by the folks who initially buy into the Cubs’ “It’s a Way of Life” campaign after watching the Cubs’ attempts to hit the ball, catch the ball, or …