Tag Archives: Chicago Cubs

Guardians make two trades

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The Cleveland Guardians made two trades Monday, sending players to two division rivals in the National League Central.

After designating a handful of players for assignment, the Cleveland Guardians have made trades with two of those players.

First Cleveland sent pitcher J.C. Mejia to the Milwaukee Brewers per Jon Morosi.

The second trade was to another NL Central team, the Cubs, as they acquired outfielder Harold Ramirez.

Moving on from both players is not surprising from the Guardians perspective. In order to get back on an upward trend this team will have to add players that are of higher caliber than these two.

MLB Trade Deadline Predictions

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I made some predictions prior to the MLB trade deadline and it turns out they did not go well as I reflected on them in the next show after the deadline. Clips from OUTSPOKEN, airing Tuesday’s on All Sports Cleveland from 2-3:00 P.M. on www.northcoastunderground.com

MLB Trade Deadline winners and losers

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The 2021 MLB trade deadline was one to remember as many franchise cornerstone players were on the move. As with any deadline, there are clear winners and losers of the day, let’s take a look.

Winners

Los Angeles Dodgers 

This one is obvious. Los Angeles swung a deal with the Washington Nationals landing both Max Scherzer and Trea Turner. Adding Scherzer to their rotation when they are currently without Clayton Kershaw due to injury and the unknown status of Trevor Bauer, who may never throw another pitch as a Dodger, is a huge win. Inserting Turner into the mix lengthens their lineup and with another year of control after this season gives them a consistent presence beyond this season.

New York Yankees

There are two criticisms when evaluating the lineup of the New York Yankees, too right handed and too all or nothing. They addressed the two areas by acquiring Joey Gallo from the Texas Rangers and Anthony Rizzo from the Chicago Cubs, both are left-handed bats. While Gallo is another all-or-nothing guy, Rizzo has the ability to be more of a consistent source of at least decent batting average. Sure they have some work to do in regards to the playoff hunt, but they can’t be counted out just yet. Additionally, the short porch in right field should be quite nice for both new faces in The Bronx.

New York Mets

The Bronx Bombers were not the only team making moves in New York. The Mets made a big splash of their own, acquiring Javier Baez from the Cubs. At the moment the Mets are without Francisco Lindor, so Baez can slide into the shortstop position for the time being. When Lindor does return Baez can shift to a different position, something he said he would only do for Lindor. Are there concerns with the bat of Baez? Sure, but the Mets do not need him to be The Guy in their lineup, but just another contributor for their offense. While adding another starting pitcher could have helped, they did add Rich Hill and saw the debut of Carlos Carrasco Friday night, two options they could rely on in some capacity down the stretch. At the end of the day it was an overall great deadline for the Mets.

Chicago White Sox

The White Sox have essentially already won the division, so they were looking to solidify a few positions. Adding Cesar Hernandez was a solid option for a team that would later move the injured Nick Madrigal in a deal that saw Craig Kimbrel moving from the north to the south side of Chicago. Additionally, the team also acquired Ryan Tepera from the Cubs in a deal from the previous day. The White Sox are loading up on their bullpen and now have a three headed monster featuring Liam Hendriks in addition to their new acquisitions of Kimbrel and Tepera. Come playoff time the back end of the White Sox bullpen could be scary.

Chicago Cubs

Let’s face it, the Cubs had to blow it up. They had a roster full of extremely talented players on expiring contracts that extension talks had broken down with. Moving Anthony Rizzo, Kris Bryant, Javier Baez, Craig Kimbrel, and Ryan Tepera had to be done. While they could open up contact talks after the season when most of the aforementioned names become free agents. In the end the Cubs had to turn the page on the World Series winning core and begin a new era in Chicago.

Losers

Colorado Rockies

There was speculation that the Rockies could move Trevor Story and Jon Gray. Flash forward to after the deadline and both players remain in Colorado. If the Rockies were going to actually have a successful deadline they needed to move Story and Gray. The fact both are still on the roster is team building malpractice and they deserve all the criticism they get.

Boston Red Sox

This was an underwhelming deadline for the Boston Red Sox. They had the opportunity to bring two former players back in Anthony Rizzo and Craig Kimbrel, yet the only move they made was for Kyle Schwarber. Schwarber is currently injured, but when he comes back there will be a logjam of where to play him. As everyone knows, Schwarber is defensively challenged. There is another defensively challenged outfielder on the roster in JD Martinez, who is currently their designated hitter. Because of this, putting Schwarber at DH, an option that would make sense for most American League clubs, is not available to the Red Sox.

San Diego Padres

The San Diego Padres were on the cusp of acquiring Max Scherzer until the Dodgers swooped in and got the deal done for themselves. Missing out on a player like Scherzer is bad enough, but losing him to a division rival and one that is looking to create separation is not a great outcome.

St. Louis Cardinals

The Cardinals added two pitchers on expiring deals in Jon Lester and J.A .Happ. St. Louis is 9.5 games back in the division and trails by 6.5 games in the Wild Card race. The moves overall are confusing and don’t make a lot of sense. Neither pitcher has been necessarily good this season and are not the answer to fix a rotation they once were. This really seems like they made moves for the sake of making moves.

Cleveland not able to win second straight over Cubs

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The Cleveland Baseball Club was not able to come away with a win, losing to the Chicago Cubs by a score of 7-1 at Wrigley Field.

There was a chance for the Cleveland Baseball Club to complete the season sweep after shutting out the Cubs Monday, but Chicago had other ideas sending Cleveland packing with a 7-1 loss.

Eli Morgan was Cleveland’s starter and was pitching well through five innings, only allowing one run on a home run from Kris Bryant. The 6th inning is where trouble started as three more runs were charged to Morgan and Cleveland had to turn to both Nick Sandlin and Blake Parker to get out of the inning. Trevor Stephan allowed two more runs to the Cubs in the 8th on solo home runs from Willson Contreras and Patrick Wisdom.

The Cleveland offense only managed six hits in the contest while walking once. The issue being that a few key bats went hitless in the loss. Amed Rosario, Jose Ramirez, and Bobby Bradley combined to go 0-12 (

Rosario did drive in the only run for Cleveland on fielder’s choice). Cesar Hernandez and Bradley Zimmer both went 1-3 with Eddie Rosario, Josh Naylor, and Ryan Lavarnway each collecting one hit in four at-bats. 

Cleveland will look to bounce back after an off day Wednesday as they take on the struggling Twins Thursday in Minnesota. 

Cleveland shuts out Cubs 4-0 in Chicago

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The Cleveland Baseball Club continued their road trip through the National League Central, coming out on top against the Cubs 4-0.

After a disastrous weekend in Pittsburgh which saw the Cleveland Baseball Club narrowly avoiding a sweep at the hands of the Pirates, Cleveland traveled to Chicago to take on the Cubs in a short two game series. Cleveland is still climbing their way up the American League Central standings while the Cubs entered Monday as the NL Central leader. If there was any chance of coming away with a victory at Wrigley Field there were going to need some complimentary players to step up, and they did.

Bobby Bradley came up to the plate in the 2nd inning and muscled an opposite field home run off of Adbert Alzolay to take an early 1-0 lead.

Bradley came into Monday going hitless in his last three games with his last hit being. home run against the Orioles last week. Perhaps another power surge is on the way for the young slugger.

Just a few innings later Cleveland saw their lead grow to three as Josh Naylor would clobber a home run of his own with Bradley on first.

Naylor’s bat is heating up as of late, going 8-19 with two doubles and a home run in the past seven days. This could be a great sign for a team that is still waiting on the return of one of their main power threats Franmil Reyes.

In the 8th it was back-to-back wild pitches from Cubs pitcher Tommy Nance which allowed Cesar Hernandez who doubled in the previous at-bat to come around and score, making it a 4-0 lead over the Cubs.

Not everything was good for Cleveland on Monday in Chicago. Aaron Civale started the game but ended up leaving in the 5th inning due to a finger injury. An already decimated pitching staff continues to hemorrhage with no end in sight. Luckily the combination of Bryan Shaw, Nick Wittgren, Emmanuel Clase, and James Karinchak handled the rest of the game, but this can only be sustainable for so long. At some point regular pitching arms need to come back into the fold.

Game 2 against the Cubs will take place at 8:05 P.M. at Wrigley Field

Rosario walks it off for Cleveland in 2-1 win over Cubs

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The Cleveland Baseball Club won their second straight game over the Chicago Cubs with a walk-off single in extras.

There’s nothing like the drama of a walk-off win. Add in extra innings with the bases loaded and it just gets even better. That is exactly how things unfolded Wednesday afternoon for the Cleveland Baseball Club in their second straight win over the Chicago Cubs.

After Emmanuel Clase and James Karinchak navigated through the Cubs lineup in the 9th and 10th innings it was Cleveland’s turn to make some magic happen and that is just what they did. Jordan Luplow walked to start the inning to put men on 1st and 2nd on base. Rene Rivera would lay down a sacrifice bunt to move Luplow to second and Josh Naylor to third. The Cubs opted to intentionally walk Harold Ramirez to load the bases and managed to get a two-pitch pop out from Cesar Hernandez. With two outs in the inning and a possible 11th inning staring them right in the face, it was Amed Rosario who came up to the plate and delivered. Rosario ripped the third pitch of the at-bat into right field to give Cleveland a 2-1 walk-off win.

Rosario drove in both runs for Cleveland on the day, delivering with Hernandez on second to tie the game at 1 in the 6th inning. The Cleveland shortstop finished the game 4-5 with Hernandez collecting two hits and Franmil Reyes the only other player with a hit in the contest.

Sam Hentges started the game and pitched fairly well for Cleveland. There were quite a few baserunners during his 4.2 innings of work (four hits and four walks), but Hentges was able to keep the Cubs off the scoreboard.

Ramirez, Hernandez homer in win over Cubs

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Cleveland scored all of their runs on home runs in their 3-2 win over the Chicago Cubs.

As per usual, the Cleveland Baseball Club scored all of their runs on home runs Tuesday night. Jose Ramirez was the first player to homer for Cleveland as he tied the game at 1 in the 4th inning.

Cesar Hernandez would follow up with a two-run shot to take the lead from Chicago.

This is pretty much how things have gone for Cleveland this season, when they score runs it is on the long ball.

As far as pitching was concerned it was another spectacular performance from Shane Bieber. Bieber struck out eight batters in 6.2 innings, extending one MLB record and closing in on another. Bieber’s MLB record of consecutive starts with eight or more strikeouts extended to 20 in a row and he is tied for second all-time in games with 7 or more strikeouts behind Randy Johnson.

Things were a little dicey in the 9th with Emmanuel Clase on the mound. Clase allowed two one-out singles before inducing a game-ending double-play to secure the 3-2 victory.

Cleveland remains 1 game behind the Chicago White Sox in the division after the win over the Cubs.

Shane Bieber starts at home versus Cubs

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The Cleveland Baseball Club returns to action Tuesday when they play host to the Chicago Cubs.

After Sunday’s finale with the Cincinnati Reds was postponed and Monday’s off day, the Cleveland Baseball Club returns to action Tuesday against the Chicago Cubs with Shane Bieber on the mound.

Cleveland has won the previous two starts with Shane Bieber on the mound. Bieber struck out 20 batters in those games as he continues to lead all of baseball in strikeouts. The only time this season that Bieber has failed to reach 10 or more strikeouts in a a game was in a 2-1 loss to the Yankees three starts ago. Considering that the Cubs have the sixth-highest strikeout total in baseball the season, it is very possible that Bieber continues his new double-digit strikeout streak.

Starting opposite of Shane Bieber will be Adbert Alzolay. Alzolay is making his sixth start of the season and is looking to continue his trend of strong starts. The Cubs starter has allowed 6 runs in his previous three starts against the Dodgers, Braves, and Brewers. Cleveland’s offense will not pose the threat of those three teams so that could result in another good performance from Alzolay.

First pitch is scheduled for 6:10 P.M. at Progressive Field

Jose Quintana signs with Angels

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The former Chicago White Sox and Chicago Cubs pitcher has agreed to a deal to join the Los Angeles Angels.

Jose Quintana is headed west after agreeing to a deal with the Los Angeles Angels.

The deal will be for one-year and worth $8 million.

The deal will reunite Quintana with former Cubs manager Joe Maddon.

Jose Quintana spent 2012 through mid-2017 with the White Sox before heading being traded to the crosstown Cubs. Quintana was significantly better with the White Sox, compiling a 3.53 ERA, 1.250, and a 7.6 K/9/. While with the Cubs Quintana did have a higher K/9 (8.6), but did not have an ERA below 4.00 or a WHIP below 1.300 in a full season. Quintana’s 3.74 ERA and 1.103 WHIP in his 14 game stint in 2017 may be an outlier considering that his numbers afterward reverted to his pre-Cubs form from earlier in the 2017 season.

The Angels will be hoping that Jose Quintana continues to be durable and helps bolster a rotation that certainly needs some help. In addition to Quintana, Los Angeles has Andrew Heaney, Dylan Bunny, Griffin Canning, and Jaime Barria. The Angels also have Shohei Ohtani, but he only made two starts last season due a right elbow injury. How the Angels handle their pitching rotation for 2021 will be interesting considering how many options they have and how much they want Ohtani to be a part of those plans.