Cub Tracks’ fit to be tied

Welcome to your Sunday, and today’s episode 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 hope Alfonso Rivas finds his way back. I maintain my faith.

Saturday’s game started well enough but didn’t stay that way. Mark Leiter Jr. had a bit of trouble and C.J. Cron went deep. Leiter still looks like a good option for innings. Patrick Wisdom looks like he’s warming up a little.

The team had some late life — a seventh-inning rally nearly overturned the verdict, but it wasn’t quite enough, and the Cubs are 4-4 heading into today’s afternoon contest. Al will have details in his recap.

* 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 provided sarcasm font in the comments section.

• Gordon Wittenmyer (NBC Sports Chicago*): Cubs Coach Willie Harris on hometown pride and protecting a dream. “It’s mine. It’s my dream, no matter what no one else thinks; it doesn’t matter.”
• Jordan Bastian (MLB.com*): Chicago’s young arms writing new narrative. “Absolutely,” Cubs pitching prospect Kohl Franklin said during Minor League Spring Training. “That’s our main goal, basically.”
• Meghan Montemurro (Chicago Tribune* {$}): How Chicago Cubs’ Ethan Roberts developed a nasty slider — and ‘exceeded whatever your loftiest expectations can be’. “... Daniel Moskos figured it was worth trying to tap into a next-level slider that would give Roberts more punch-out ability.”
• Gordon Wittenmyer (NBC Sports Chicago*): Cubs’ Keegan Thompson to start serving reduced MLB suspension. “... I’m going to just take my suspension and come back in a couple days.”
• Alexander Patt (Cubbies Crib*): The pros and cons of putting the ball in play so far. “... the offense still lacks power.”
• Meghan Montemurro (Chicago Tribune* {$}): For Jason Heyward, Jackie Robinson Day is a reminder ‘to do my part’ — and the Chicago Cub is doing just that. “There’s going to be way more years I’m not playing than I’m playing, so just making the most of that while I can.” Maddie Lee has more JHey.
• Jordan Bastian (MLB.com*): Honoring Jackie more than one day for Stroman, Heyward. “Heyward joined a group of players involved with the Players Alliance who donated their full salary from Friday to help charity programs around the country.”
• Patrick Mooney and Sahadev Sharma (The Athletic {$}): What we’re hearing about Cubs prospects: Kohl Franklin, Ed Howard and Kevin Alcántara. “Franklin is focused on sharpening his four-seam fastball up in the strike zone and then playing off that with a knuckle curveball and a changeup.”

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!