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Welcome to today’s edition 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.

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I went into Friday night’s game fully prepared to hate-watch. I knew Wade Miley didn’t have the best record against the Bronx Bombers (0-4, I think JD said) and figured their right-handed power would come into play, even though they’ve been statistically in a funk most of the year. Luis Severino has some good stats coming in, and he didn’t disappoint early:

But Miley was up to the task. He even had surprises. But he left early and a succession of relievers came in and preserved the game. Hell, they pickled it.

The Cubs did get going a little in the third, but...

Though there was more action, the game stayed at ground zero for a minute. Daniel Norris was summoned from the depths of the bullpen and held the Yankees to a single tally on Gleyber Torres’ deep drive.

Jason Heyward brought his bat to New York City and supplied a tally of his own.

It stayed that way for a long, long time. Amazing. Did you see it? Baseball is nuts. Unlucky 13. Check out Al’s recap for further details.

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• Evan Altman (Cubs Insider*): MLB experimenting with minor leaguers’ balls to find best sticky substance. “That means pitchers in the Texas and Southern League — the latter of which is home to the Tennessee Smokies — have been using major league balls all season.”
• Logan Whaley (Cubbies Crib*): A Kyle Hendricks trade will not happen anytime soon. “Teams have difficulty when it comes to juggling their trade window with players.”
• Brett Taylor (Bleacher Nation*): Theo Epstein talks about limits on shifting and how it could actually bring back great defense. “Discussions about limiting the shift are primarily about the impact on the batter...”
• Evan Altman (Cubs Insider*): What’s market value for Willson Contreras and are Cubs manipulating it? “I want to compete for a playoff spot, and I want to compete for a World Series shot again,” Contreras told the Sun-Times. Sahadev Sharma has more Contreras talk {$}.
• Meghan Montemurro (Chicago Tribune* {$}): P.J. Higgins made a late transition to catching. But his pitch calling has been an asset for the Chicago Cubs. “That’s something that can be learned but also is a little bit of just innate ability to understand competition and being able to adjust in the moment from going from Plan A to Plan B to Plan C sometimes,” David Ross said.
• Brett Taylor (Bleacher Nation*): Anthony Rizzo says he’s going to steal one on Contreras this weekend. “... Rizzo has just one thing on his mind: speed.”
• Tony Andracki (Marquee Sports Network*): Anthony Rizzo reflects on time with Cubs: ‘I think forever I’ll be connected to Chicago’. “I spent a long time in Chicago,” Rizzo said. “We established things in the organization and a culture that you want to see hopefully pass on to the next guy. I want them to have success.”
• Gordon Wittenmyer (NBC Sports Chicago*): Cubs? Rockies? DJ LeMahieu biggest winner of bad trade. “It’s funny,” LeMahieu said. “[Epstein] texted me a couple years ago, and it was just funny to hear from him. He was, ‘Hey, I messed that one up, but good luck to you.’
• Tony Andracki (Marquee Sports Network*): The most impressive part of Christopher Morel’s hot start with Cubs. “Morel is slashing .239/.357/.457 (.814 OPS) with 2 strikes.” Richard Johnson has more Morel. Luke Parrish joins him.
• Patrick Mooney (The Athletic {$}): Cubs’ Patrick Wisdom is a hit amid the swings and misses of this rebuilding stage. “That’s big-time pop and those guys are hard to find,” Cubs manager Ross said.
• Tim Stebbins (NBC Sports Chicago*): Cubs’ Ian Happ wants to remain with team ‘for Life’. “This is the best place in the world to play baseball, with this fan base, this organization, the history, what it’s meant to me coming up here,” Happ told David Kaplan.
• Maddie Lee (Chicago Sun-Times* {$}): Cubs’ Clint Frazier: Hard to understand ‘where it went wrong’ with Yankees. Make that Chicago, also.

Food for Thought:

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