No rant against Schwarber for only hitting one homer?
*****Official Cubs 2019 thread*****
- Thread starter QChawks
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The Chicago Cubs will option shortstop Addison Russell to Triple-A Iowa when he's eligible to return from his 40-game suspension for violating Major League Baseball's domestic violence policy later this week.
Cubs manager Joe Maddon said Tuesday before the Cubs opened a two-game series in Seattle that the team wants to give Russell more time in the minors before rejoining the major league roster. Maddon said he didn't expect Russell to be in the minors for long.
Russell is eligible to join the Cubs when they return home to open a series against St. Louis on Friday.
"We want to make sure he's ready when the time comes and he hasn't had the benefit of a real spring training yet so we thought more games, more at-bats would benefit him and us," Maddon said. "When the time comes we'll make that move. There's not a real urgent need for him right now. I think we're better off letting him continue to go through a spring training."
Russell was suspended last fall after a series of allegations made by his ex-wife. Without getting into specifics, Russell said in February that he was accountable for his past actions and apologized for "the hurt and the pain" he caused.
Russell had been working out in Arizona, playing in extended spring training games and meeting with a counselor twice a week before joining Iowa last week to begin getting ready for the season.
"Not too much longer because he is a major league player, as long as everything is going well," Maddon said. "You don't want him sitting down there so long that it starts becoming almost negative regarding his development. I don't think you're going to look too far into the future. I don't have a specific date but he shouldn't be down there that long a period of time."
The 25-year-old Russell was once considered one of baseball's top young infielders. He helped the Cubs win the World Series three years ago, batting .238 with 21 homers and 95 RBIs in 151 games as the team snapped a 108-year championship drought. The Cubs faced criticism for retaining Russell after his suspension.
When he does return it may not be at shortstop. Javy Baez, who moved across the diamond after Russell's suspension and wound up finishing second in the National League MVP race last year, has started the majority of games at shortstop for the Cubs thus far.
Maddon said the team hasn't finalized Baez remaining at shortstop but it has been discussed.
"We have to watch Addison play. We have to talk to Javy. We have to figure out if it's best to leave him there now, is it something you morph into in the future," Maddon said. "We have not concluded anything 100% yet. For right now you would look to see Javy play more at shortstop."
https://www.nonpareilonline.com/new...cle_13f40731-a3f6-5b54-87ad-2e0deecaae80.html
Cubs manager Joe Maddon said Tuesday before the Cubs opened a two-game series in Seattle that the team wants to give Russell more time in the minors before rejoining the major league roster. Maddon said he didn't expect Russell to be in the minors for long.
Russell is eligible to join the Cubs when they return home to open a series against St. Louis on Friday.
"We want to make sure he's ready when the time comes and he hasn't had the benefit of a real spring training yet so we thought more games, more at-bats would benefit him and us," Maddon said. "When the time comes we'll make that move. There's not a real urgent need for him right now. I think we're better off letting him continue to go through a spring training."
Russell was suspended last fall after a series of allegations made by his ex-wife. Without getting into specifics, Russell said in February that he was accountable for his past actions and apologized for "the hurt and the pain" he caused.
Russell had been working out in Arizona, playing in extended spring training games and meeting with a counselor twice a week before joining Iowa last week to begin getting ready for the season.
"Not too much longer because he is a major league player, as long as everything is going well," Maddon said. "You don't want him sitting down there so long that it starts becoming almost negative regarding his development. I don't think you're going to look too far into the future. I don't have a specific date but he shouldn't be down there that long a period of time."
The 25-year-old Russell was once considered one of baseball's top young infielders. He helped the Cubs win the World Series three years ago, batting .238 with 21 homers and 95 RBIs in 151 games as the team snapped a 108-year championship drought. The Cubs faced criticism for retaining Russell after his suspension.
When he does return it may not be at shortstop. Javy Baez, who moved across the diamond after Russell's suspension and wound up finishing second in the National League MVP race last year, has started the majority of games at shortstop for the Cubs thus far.
Maddon said the team hasn't finalized Baez remaining at shortstop but it has been discussed.
"We have to watch Addison play. We have to talk to Javy. We have to figure out if it's best to leave him there now, is it something you morph into in the future," Maddon said. "We have not concluded anything 100% yet. For right now you would look to see Javy play more at shortstop."
https://www.nonpareilonline.com/new...cle_13f40731-a3f6-5b54-87ad-2e0deecaae80.html
I think Encarcion was eager to hit the shower and call it a day.
Fantastic road trip. 4-1 against two teams over .500. After a red eye home they get the day off tomorrow before a significant early season match up against the Cardinals.
And, just because there is always room to nitpick, for what reason was Willson Contreras in after the 7th inning today? Joe is going to wear him out.
And, just because there is always room to nitpick, for what reason was Willson Contreras in after the 7th inning today? Joe is going to wear him out.
I was thinking the same. Let Zobrist or someone else play first and give Taylor Davis a couple innings behind the dish.
I kind of wonder if he just wasn’t picking up the ball from Maples. He looked lost.
Good win for the good guys again!
Yep, you don’t really have much of anything to lose by putting him back there in a blowout.
Rizzo, Bryant, Contreras and Baez have all had long stretches of producing at a near MVP level over the last few years, but never all at once. I feel like we may see that soon though. Baez has been great for a year plus now, Contreras is hitting like he was in the second half of 2017 before getting hurt, Rizzo has had a 1.200 OPS the last two weeks, Fangraphs just had an article regarding Bryant's exit velocity finally starting to look like it did prior to May 2018 again. If that happens, especially with Heyward producing, Descalso hitting, and Schwarber showing signs of coming around too, that's a real thick lineup all of a sudden.
Hendricks just watched one right down the middle....ball...next pitch was inside...strike
Hendricks with an 81 pitch shutout. Just breezed through the Cardinal lineup today.
He's really turned it around after his rough start to the season! In fact, the whole team has.
Fairly predictable result really.
Cubs had Monday and Thursday off, Cards played straight through. Cards' getaway day was a 3PM start delayed until 5:30, and probably didn't hit their Chicago hotel until well after midnight for a 1:20 start. Cubs looked rested, Cards looked like they were still asleep.
Hendricks did look good today though.
Cubs had Monday and Thursday off, Cards played straight through. Cards' getaway day was a 3PM start delayed until 5:30, and probably didn't hit their Chicago hotel until well after midnight for a 1:20 start. Cubs looked rested, Cards looked like they were still asleep.
Hendricks did look good today though.
I have no sympathy after what the Cubs went through late last season with all the make-up games.
Great win, and an overall great stretch of play. I'll be happy with 2/3 from STL, but would love a sweep.
Big start for Darvish tomorrow. National TV and a rivalry game.
Big start for Darvish tomorrow. National TV and a rivalry game.
Flaherty is REALLY good, and an example of not reading too much into early season pitching stats. He's been victimized by a high HR/FB rate. I expect a string of dominant performances from him.
On the flip side, I expect to see Adam Wainwright start to get hit hard here very soon. Probably not Sunday night as these Cubs are often stymied by Wainwright.
Not sure what the weather will be like tomorrow, but I'd expect some offense. Darvish is throwing for the Cubs (always a circus, even when the results are decent) and the Cubs tend to hit Wacha very well.
He looked like he didn't even care most of the game.
You must be part of the Cardinals radio crew. I listened to them driving through Missouri and the whole game long they were pissing and moaning about yesterday, and the strike zone.
Nope, rarely if ever listen to the Cards radio now that I got YTTV and FSMW. Ironically, the only mention today was the Cards got in way late this morning early on. And as I've often mentioned on this board, when watching any sporting event I rarely pay all that close attention to the announcers. McCarver though did have an especially bad day today...Kyle KENDRICKS apparently pitched well for Chicago today.
The Cards are a difficult listen nowadays. Rooney is competent but dull, Shannon is good as far as a link to the Buck/Shannon days (and is quite honestly a LOT like Jack Buck was later in his Cards career) but doesn't work all that often any more.
Everybody else on both the radio and TV is quite frankly darn near unlistenable.
So, not much radio for me at all, and I "listen lightly" with TV. I probably should have gone over to the Cubs broadcast but was busy while watching so it didn't really matter much.
Anyway, I noticed the schedules for each last Sunday watching the Cards game when it was mentioned about the 3PM start for Thursday's Nats game. I found that to be an odd getaway start time. Then I remembered, hey we got the Cubs Friday, and Friday Wrigley games are always early (1:20) day starts. Then I switched over to the Cubs TV broadcast and heard what their upcoming week was going to be.
I know when it comes to schedules, generally speaking there will be times where every team gets dealt a crappy hand because of the rules regarding scheduling. This just happened to be the Cards' turn. The rain delay was simply unfortunate, and the Nats start getaway weekday games at 4PM local because of traffic issues leaving the ballpark.
Yep...you read that correct - evidently getting there is easy at that time, leaving is horrible. So, no 1PM local starts. Now, my concern would be more with the combination of the schedules more than necessarily one side against the Cards. You gotta admit, pretty sweet scheduling quirks leading into this series for the Cubs.
But like I say...the Cubs' time will come when they get screwed over by the schedule, and the Cards will reap a similar benefit as the Cubs got this week. It all works out evenly for the most part over the course of a season.
As for the strike zone, Alphonso Marquez did not have a good game behind the plate. There were two utterly insane missed strikes for Flaherty (an especially critical one for Descalso preceding the Rizzobomb), and one equally obvious one for Hendricks. I don't understand how one can miss pitches like those 3 were. And at times his zone seemed to widen but it wasn't consistently wide I'll call it.
He had a bad game, but notice I never mentioned it in my earlier post. And yes the Cards TV booth railed on it the whole game. But, the Cards games I've watched this year where the HPU sucking occurs, it seems to be equally dispersed to both teams so no sense thinking "we got screwed".
Anyway...Cubs won fairly and squarely, it just was rather predictable going in that the Cards would be flatlining and that's exactly what happened. I simply hope the Cards get some rest post game and put up a better fight tomorrow.
Long season...and for the record if you look several pages back when the Cubs stank it up early on, I was telling you Cubs fans to not get all bent out of shape over it and be patient because it is indeed a long ass season, and you still got a pretty darn good team.
And look at how they are playing now...
Later in the year, I would agree. First week of May, not so much. Teams are still pretty fresh and healthy. Hendricks was simply pitching great on a day that did not favor hitters.
I'm just through watching the 2nd inning and Flaherty hasn't been screwed on any calls in the zone and got two that were clearly off the plate.
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