Cub Tracks’ one hump or two?

Welcome to today’s edition of Cub Tracks news and notes™, featuring material from current beat writers, bloggers, and the occasional in-house habitué, moonlighting. These pieces center around #Cubs, #MiLB, and #MLB baseball.

I guess Nelson Velazquez is behind the ‘break glass in case of emergency’ sign. What the actual gamethread word? The decisions made daily by the Cubs’ ‘brain-trust’ utterly defeat me. I do not trust them, Sam I am. Why is he even there? It’s not like he’s going to hurt the chances of winning more than the others... remind me again why the artist formerly known as ‘Clint’ Frazier was sent down and DFA’d.

C’mon. You know what day it was. Which ones are the real Cubs?

Keegan Thompson (6-2, 3.27) vs. Jerad Eickhoff (4-3, 4.84 at Indy). The Cubs unloaded in the second inning. The Pittsburgh-area native capped it off with a long blast. Rafael Ortega and Patrick Wisdom also contributed well-placed hits to the cause.

And that wasn’t all!

* means autoplay on, or annoying ads, or both (directions to remove for Firefox and Chrome). {$} means paywall. {$} means limited views. Italics are often used on this page as sarcasm font. The powers that be have enabled sarcasm font in the comments.

• MLB.com*: Injuries and moves. Prospect updates.
• Paul Sullivan (Chicago Tribune* {$}): Chicago Cubs are once again fair game for late-night talk show jokes — just like the 1990s. “No one likes to be the brunt of jokes, the Jay Leno stuff,” Riggleman said. “I haven’t seen it, but I heard about it. But this is the situation we put ourselves in.”
• Sahadev Sharma (The Athletic {$}): Why can’t the Cubs be as consistent as the Cardinals? Will Jed Hoyer spend? Part one of Cubs mailbag.
• Patrick Mooney (The Athletic {$}): David Ross’ job security, Manny Machado on Christopher Morel and Marquee’s position. Part two of Cubs mailbag.
• Tim Stebbins (NBC Sports Chicago*): Jed Hoyer: Cubs were too ‘stubborn’ with former core. “Thinking back on it, should we have made some of those moves earlier?”
• Jake Misener (Cubbies Crib*): Hoyer’s latest comments have Cubs fans all fired up again. “... it’s feeling more and more like those dark days from a decade or so ago.”
• Maddie Lee (Chicago Sun-Times* {$}): Cubs rotation gets promising news from Marcus Stroman, Drew Smyly’s bullpens. “They both went really well,” Cubs pitching coach Tommy Hottovy told the Sun-Times. “I think they’re both progressing the way we expected them to.”
• Tony Andracki (Marquee Sports Network*): Cubs hope top prospect Caleb Kilian can hit the ‘reset button’ in minors. “We just talked about being aggressive and finding what he does well,” David Ross said. Maddie Lee has more. Meghan Montemurro has still more {$}.
• Evan Altman (Cubs Insider*): Willson Contreras leads NL Catchers in first look at ASG voting. “Contreras is the only Cubs player anywhere near the top of the position lists...”
• Brett Taylor (Bleacher Nation*): Cubs catching prospect Moises Ballesteros gets some rankings love. “... Ballesteros has never gotten as much attention as he deserved.”
• Michael Clair (MLB.com*): Remember Kyle Farnsworth? Well, you should see him now. “He’s like a 1980s action figure come to life through whatever magic powered “Weird Science.””
• Ryan O’Rourke (Cubbies Crib*): Cubs running out of reasons to keep Jonathan Villar around. “Villar has been worth -0.5 WAR with the Cubs and sports an unsightly 63 OPS+ which ranks as the worst of his career.”
• Tony Andracki (Marquee Sports Network*): The under-the-radar play that helped spark Cubs offense in huge inning. “... when he realized the throw was coming in towards home plate, Hoerner motored into second.”
• Tim Stebbins (NBC Sports Chicago*): What Pete Crow-Armstrong is showing Cubs they didn’t expect. “... Crow-Armstrong — the Cubs’ No. 3 prospect, per MLB Pipeline and Baseball America — is hitting the ball with authority this season.”
• Tim Stebbins (NBC Sports Chicago*): Report throws cold water on potential Judge-Cubs pairing. “He’s not going to sign with a loser like the Cubs are right now. I don’t see him signing up for the rebuild.”

Food for Thought:

Please be reminded that Cub Tracks and Bleed Cubbie Blue do not necessarily endorse the opinions of writers whose work is linked to in this series of articles. Feel free to discuss in a civil fashion. If you have any question as to what kind of discourse is allowed, here are the site guidelines. Thanks for reading!