Cub Tracks’ north side blues

The North Siders didn’t fare too well, Saturday in their own park. The interlopers from eight miles south bombed the city streets with baseballs, three of which were sent skyward by Jesus Abreu, and the home team fell for the second in a row to the streaking Pale Hose. Al will have full details in his recap.

Here’s Cub Tracks 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. Italics are often used here as sarcasm font.

“We want to win them all. If we start taking one team lighter than the other or vice versa, then that’s not the kind of brand of baseball that we want to play here for the Cubs.” — David Ross.

• Tim Stebbins (NBC Sports Chicago*): White Sox just another team with a ‘butt’ Cubs’ Ross wants to kick. “Just me personally, I wanna kick everybody’s butt on the other side,” Ross said Saturday.
• Jordan Bastian (MLB.com*): Jose Quintana returning, but in what role? “we’ve had conversations with Q on how we want to build him back into the team,” said Ross. Maddie Lee reports on this as well. Mark Gonzales adds some words about KB too.
• Laura Messer (Cubs Insider*): Lack of production from Javier Báez, other stars weighing Cubs down. “... the Cubs are 4-6 over their last 10 games and have won consecutive games only once in that stretch.”
• Ben Clemens (Fangraphs*): I respect you too much to make this title an Ian Happ pun. “Happ has the skills to make it work; he’ll just have to keep varying his approach to keep pitchers guessing.”
• Brett Taylor (Bleacher Nation): Theo Epstein hints at Cubs trade priorities this year: A lefty for the bullpen, and a bat to hit lefties. “... I think there’s a lot of room for improvement,” Epstein said, in part. Gordon Wittenmyer covers the trade possibilities also. Evan Altman adds to the discussion. Patrick Mooney tops it off {$}.

Cubs birthdays: Fred Andrus, Red Downs, Lew Richie, Roy Leslie, Guy Bush, Lonny Frey, Dave Dowling, Danny Murphy, Al Montreuil, Jerry White, Jeff Manto, Mark Bellhorn, Cole Liniak, Also notable: George Davis HOF, George Kell HOF

SimNews:

Max Fried served notice early that he might be in need of a shower as Paul DeJong whacked a fastball into the bleachers to stop the parade of doubles in a three-run, 25-pitch first inning while Dakota Hudson served up a meatball that Greg Jones smoked into right for a double, wild-pitched the Jason Kipnis into scoring position, staked them to a run with another errant offering, and served up a fatburger to Kris Bryant, who hit it to simAl’s section for the tie.

Fried more or less settled down after that, allowing a couple of solo homers but nothing more.. Hudson didn’t. KB hit another homer. He hit a third later, good for 7 RBI in a 12-6 victory. Jones served notice that he’d be a fine leadoff man candidate. Fried ended up with the win to even up his record at 4-4, and the simCubs tallied their 90th victory of the season with a month of baseball still to go.

Tyler Olson and Tanner Scott switched places on the Iowa train.

The Cubs will play the third game of this home series at 10 am CT, so as not to interfere with the Cubs network broadcast. Jack Flaherty (9-9, 3.60) will face Yu Darvish (9-6, 4.05), who has been underwhelming this year. Anthony Rizzo and Kyle Schwarber rejoin the starting lineup heading into the off-day.

All game video and related material is available commercial-free, 24/7, at the BCB Media Center. There are seven games left with St Louis — four on the road, September 10-13, and three at home, September 25-27, closing out the regular season. The simCubs take off for an East Coast swing, with three each against the Marlins and Mets, starting Tuesday.

Food for Thought:

Thanks for reading!