Cub Tracks fills in the blanks

24, in case you wanted to know Craig Kimbrel’s new number. Plenty of other Kimbrel coverage and a few scattered non-Kimbrel pieces await you.

Here’s today’s Cubs News and Notes. As always, * means autoplay on, or annoying ads, or both (directions to remove for Firefox and Chrome). {$} means paywall. {$] means limited views.

• Tony Andracki (NBC Sports Chicago*): Cubs’ red-hot starting rotation is ‘the engine that’s gonna drive the vehicle’. “All five of our guys, if you look at them all, legitimately nobody’s a No. 5 starter and probably nobody’s a 4 starter, either,” Joe Maddon said.
• Jordan Bastian (MLB.com): Cole Hamels leads Cubs to W with 10 Ks, 8 scoreless. “Some days you have to say, ‘Man, that’s some pitching right there,’” Cardinals manager Mike Shildt said.
• Jordan Bastian (MLB.com): What you need to know about Kimbrel on Cubs. “... expect the process to take between two to three weeks.” Bruce Miles {$} has thoughts about this. So do Teddy Greenstein and Paul Sullivan {$}. Patrick Mooney {$} gets the last out.
• Tony Andracki (NBC Sports Chicago*): How David Ross and Jason Heyward helped the Cubs land Kimbrel. “I actually talked to quite a few guys,” Kimbrel said. Jesse Rogers has more. Tommy Birch finds the catch.
• Tommy Birch (Des Moines Register* {$}): The story behind Iowa Cubs catcher Taylor Davis’ surprising rise to big-leaguer. “Davis proved he was more than just a funny face on a video.”
• Patrick Mooney (The Athletic* {$}): How the Cubs are handling the Ben Zobrist situation that factored into the Kimbrel deal. “I think we have to be prepared mentally that he’s not going to. But that doesn’t mean that he’s not going to,” said Maddon.
• Connor Byrne (MLB Trade Rumors): David Bote: Starman? “Bote has slashed his strikeout percentage from 28.6 to 25.1, cut his swinging-strike rate a hair and made more contact.”
• Stephon Johnson (The Sports Fans Journal): Getaway Day – Maybe the old heads have a point? I think the game has changed and it’s not as fun anymore,” said Mo Vaughn. Frank Thomas also had words. I wonder what Jon Lester thinks.
• Cubs birthdays: Tom Lee, Tim Donahue, Terrance Gore. Also notable: Eddie Gaedel.

Food for thought:

• Atlas Obscura: Jeppson’s Malört. One of the world’s least-loved liquors calls Chicago home. “only one out of 49 men will drink Jeppson’s Malört.”
• Kyle Plantz (Science News*): 50 years ago, scientists wanted to build solar panels on the moon. “Excerpt from the June 14, 1969 issue of Science News”
• Yasemin Saplakoglu (Live Science): Scientists just found the limits to human endurance. “The long-term cap is about 2.5 times the body’s resting metabolic rate...”

Thanks for reading.