Cub Tracks’ calliope meets ground

Welcome to 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.

Young colt Justin Steele and his 4.20 ERA faced old warhorse Madison Bumgarner and his 2.21 ERA at the Friendly Confines Saturday afternoon. Both southpaws took the bit and ran with it early, Steele striking out five of the first six batters to face him while Bumgarner allowed some hard contact, notably to Frank Schwindel and Patrick Wisdom, who ballooned Bumgarner’s ERA to 2.68 with deep drives to left and left-center respectively, according to MLB Gameday.

It behooves me to mention that the D-Backs tied it up in the eighth, with an error by Ildemaro Vargas opening that gates, and so neither starter figured in the final decision as the game went into Manfred Man territory and the Diamondbacks turned into the Mighty Quinn. What a waste of a fine pitching performance by Steele.

Willson Contreras left the game early and we’ll have to wait to find out what happened there. For now they’re calling it right hamstring tightness. We might be seeing some John Hicks action soon. Daulton Varsho can’t leave town soon enough.

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• Jon Greenberg (The Athletic {$}): Cubs give Fergie Jenkins his statue at Wrigley Field at long last. “It looks like me,” Jenkins said with a smile.
• Tony Andracki (Marquee Sports Network*): Injury updates on Cubs pitchers Adbert Alzolay, Codi Heuer and what comes next. “Alzolay has been sidelined for more than two months and is currently on the 60-day IL. The Cubs don’t have a timetable yet on when he might be able to return to the mound.”
• Tim Stebbins (NBC Sports Chicago*): Cubs’ Contreras keeping his focus on present. “We cannot focus on frustration, we cannot focus on the negativity,” Contreras said. “The only thing we can control is how hard we come today.” Mark Potash has more.
• Alexander Patt (Cubbies Crib*): Yan Gomes seems to be getting best out of pitching staff. “... Gomes has caught 113 innings (13 games) and Cubs pitchers are posting a 3.19 ERA, .207/.280/.345 slash and .624 OPS against with him behind the plate.”
• Tim Stebbins (NBC Sports Chicago*): Hoerner nearing return, Frazier eager to rejoin Cubs. “He looked pretty good to me,” manager David Ross said. Evan Altman has more of this.
• Braxton Piatt (Cubbies Crib*): Ian Happ making strides as a right-handed hitter. “... it seems like he is staying more patient and closed through the swing instead of opening up his body, leading to more power.”
• Jordan Bastian (MLB.com*): Cubs icons to friendly rivals: Fergie and Billy on facing each other. “Williams launched a second-inning home run in their first meeting as ex-teammates, and the A’s won, 5-4.”

Food for Thought:

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