BCB After Dark: Looking towards the future

Welcome back to BCB After Dark: the coolest spot for night owls, early-risers, new parents and Cubs fans abroad. We’re so glad you could join us on this evening. Please come on in and take a table with this late start. The show will start shortly. We’re all raising a toast to Jason Heyward tonight. I hope you brought your own beverage.

BCB After Dark is the place for you to talk baseball, music, movies, or anything else you need to get off your chest, as long as it is within the rules of the site. The late-nighters are encouraged to get the party started, but everyone else is invited to join in as you wake up the next morning and into the afternoon.

The Cubs beat the Nationals, 6-3 tonight. It’s amazing how good a team can look when they’re playing the post-Juan Soto Nationals. Nelson Velázquez also had his first career three-hit day, which included a home run. More on that later.

Last time I asked you who you thought will win the World Series this year. Thirty-six percent of you think the Yankees will end their long 13-year drought and take home the hardware this year. (That’s a long drought for Yankees fans.) In second place were the Dodgers with 24 percent. The Padres were in third with 18 percent.

Normally on Monday night/Tuesday morning, I do a jazz track and write about a movie. But between the Jason Heyward news, family obligations on Monday evenings and a short (30 minute) internet outage, this edition of After Dark is coming out really late after dark. I don’t want to write about a film that won’t get any attention tonight. So I’ll put that off until later in the evening.

Put enjoy some jazz anyway. Unless you don’t want to, and then you can skip that and you won’t hurt my feelings.

Here’s a concert from Horace Silver Quintet from a French jazz festival in 1964. It’s a colorized video, so adjust your expectations depending on how you feel about that.

This performance has Silver on piano, Carnell Jones on trumpet, Joe Henderson on tenor sax, Teddy Smith on bass and Roger Humphries on drums.

Welcome back to those who skip the music.

As mentioned above, Nelson Velázquez homered and had his first career three-hit gamein tonight’s Cubs’ win over the Nationals.

Velázquez made his major league debut in a doubleheader against the Brewers at the end of May, but he went back down to the minors after that. He came up for good on June 20 and while he doesn’t play every day, has been getting regular at-bats since then.

So what’s your opinion of Velázquez? Do you think he’s part of the next great Cubs team? I’m not necessarily asking you if he’ll be a star or even a regular player, but simply if you think if Nelson Velázquez will be on the roster when the Cubs become serious contenders for the World Series again.

Right now, Velázquez is hitting just .239/.307/.489 with six home runs in 39 games. Those batting average and on-base percentage numbers don’t look great, but the slugging percentage sure does. He’s also just 23 years old and is a rookie. He could certainly improve on those numbers as he matures.

So what do you think? Is Velázquez a keeper?

Thank you for joining us with this really late-night edition. We hope you’ve been able to celebrate the Cubs and relax for a little while. Please get home safely. If you checked anything, we’ll get it for you now. Please tip your waitstaff. And join us again next time for another edition of BCB After Dark.