Cub Tracks on Q

Jose Quintana is scheduled to start today. I’d prefer John DeLancie (Q who?)

or even Ryan Yarbrough but the RealCubs™ don’t have him. Only the simCubs™ do. So ‘Q’ is gonna have to do. Jon Lester looked good, and the Cubs even swung the bats a little. Very little, but it’s a start. That eighth inning looked good. 32-22 is not so bad in this season of going where no teams have gone before.

But enough Star Dreck — 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.

• Reuters: Cubs shut out Pirates to end skid. Jon Lester pitched six innings of shutout baseball for the victorious Cubs.
• Maddie Lee (NBC Sports Chicago*): How David Ross is adjusting to lack of ‘flow’ in Cubs batting order. “You just have to hope that at some point we start clicking offensively,” Jed Hoyer said. “What better time to do it than the home stretch and then the postseason?”
• Chris Murphy (Baseball FYI): Lester changed everything. “This was an established big time pitcher willing to immediately step into a leadership role for a franchise with a horrible history and room to grow.” John Grochowski echoes this sentiment. Paul Sullivan says his tank isn’t empty.
• Evan Altman (Cubs Insider*): Jed Hoyer soft-pedals Brailyn Marquez promotion hype, ‘not closing door’ on Lester return. “I think people forget that this is a guy that has never pitched above high-A ball,” Hoyer told the media.
• Jesse Rogers (ESPN*): Cubs set to welcome Quintana back to rotation. “He’s been getting stretched out,” Ross said. “I want to give him a little bit of leash and communicate with him in-game.” Evan Altman also reports.
• Maddie Lee (NBC Sports Chicago*): Cubs’ MLB playoff bubble preparation, quarantine have already begun. “Everybody had to be out of their place by tonight,” Ross said Sunday. Brian Sandalow reports.
• Mark Gonzales (Chicago Tribune* {$}): 4 takeaways from the Cubs-Twins series, including Kyle Schwarber’s benching and what more lineup changes mean for the postseason. “... Twins gave the Cubs a solid primer on postseason play.”
• Jordan Bastian (MLB.com*): Kris Bryant (oblique) exits with another injury. “Bryant’s campaign with the Cubs this year has been plagued by a series of injury setbacks.”
• Patrick Mooney (The Athletic {$}): Ross benches Schwarber, singling out a Cubs player who can handle it. This is the “tough love”. Gordon Wittenmyer says Ross missed the mark.n2
• Tom Haudricourt and Todd Rosiak (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel*): Daniel Vogelbach’s contributions to the Brewers go beyond what you’ve seen on the field. “He’s loud but in a positive way.”

• Cubs birthdays: Doc Marshall, Harry Walker, Harry Bright, Ken Aspromonte, Lou Johnson, Mark Guthrie. Also notable: Bob Lemon HOF, Tom Lasorda HOF.

SimNews:

The simCubs (108-49) begin the penultimate series of the year, two games against the Pittsburgh Pirates (65-91), with Kyle Hendricks (17-5, 2.69) going for his 18th against Trevor Williams (10-8, 3.56), who isn’t all that bad. The Pirates in fact are not terrible and have been around .500 since the All-Star break, after offloading a bunch of older, higher-salaried players. It’s just a two-game road tilt, and the simCub will return to Wrigley for the final weekend series against the St. Louis Cardinals, who are out of the playoffs.

Game time will be noon CT. The game between Iowa and LehIgh Valley will also be ‘televised’ at some point. All game video and related material is available commercial-free, 24/7, at the BCB Media Center.

The simCubs will have the best record in baseball. The Indians don’t have enough games left to catch them. Washington and Milwaukee are the NL Wild Card teams. There are still four teams jockeying for spots in the AL.

The Cubs are all over the leaderboards still.

Food for Thought: