OSS: Pitching, defense, and baserunning wins the day! Three up: Three-ish down: Next up: The teams have tomorrow off, then Bill Rhinelander takes on Justin Steele at 1:20 PM CT on Saturday.
Series Preview: Milwaukee Brewers (0-0) at Chicago Cubs (0-0)
Hooray, it’s baseball! Much like it seemingly has been for the past few years, the Cubs are opening the season against the Beers. The Brewers had a relatively quiet offseason. Their only significant free agent signing was Wade Miley, but they did do some wheeling and dealing. Amongst other moves they traded for William Contreras, which surely made beat writers …
Dreamcast 58: Next Starts Somewhere
Okay kids, we’ve made it to Opening Day. I’m very tired, but this is done before first pitch and you can listen to RC, berselius, BVS, and AC talk about how much the Brewers suck and the Cubs will destroy them in the opening series. Topics include: You can check out the podcast page or just click on the embedded …
Cubs Opening Day 2023 Preview
Well, folks, after a month of generally entertaining (and brisk) Cactus League games, we have mere hours until first pitch on Opening Day at Wrigley Field. The Cubs will face off against the Milwaukee Brewers for a brief home opening series before they head on the road because schedules are wack, and while it is probably true that the Brewers …
One Last Roster Prediction Attempt Before the Official Announcement (UPDATES)
The Cubs have completed the official Cactus League slate, with two more random exhibitions against the White Sox (allegedly still at Sloan Park per the ticket buying thingy on the Cubs dot com website) as the final tuneup before Opening Day on Thursday. I think most of the decisions have been made by now, and while rosters aren’t due in …
More Off Day Thoughts
This represents the final scheduled off day for the Cubs in the Cactus League until the one right before Opening day, and by this time we’re expecting the starting rotation guys to be able to comfortably go five innings, and hoping that the hitters have better performances for the most part, small sample size be damned. There’s also the World …
The Ever-Changing Rulebook
I think the new rules are probably the biggest topic of the spring other than the inevitable injuries to players that shake up the plans for the entire season, and most of this has to do with the pitch clock. Of course there is also the World Baseball Classic, but as one game famously took like three hours to play …
Hot Takes for the Off Day
You know how they say that spring training doesn’t matter and also keep harping on the whole small sample size thing? Well, the sample and performance probably doesn’t matter much for the guys you know are going to be making the team, but for the ones who are on the bubble, more often than not you’d like them not to …
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 …
Welcome to March
The Cubs are winless since their spring training opener, but since this is all practice, the scores don’t so much matter as the part where most everyone we care about stay healthy…ah nuts, but we’ll cover that later. Anyway, we are heading into March with less than a month to go until Opening Day when the games actually do matter, …