While I wouldn’t be so presumptuous as to say that I’m “healed” just yet, I did manage to sleep relatively well last night for the first time in three days, and have managed to keep my fever in a normal range for about 12 hours now. Now that I feel like I’m probably on the mend, I can admit that I was actually a little scared yesterday. No, it doesn’t look like this will have wound up being anything too terribly serious, but, when my fever got up over 104 degrees for a few hours, in addition to all of the discomfort you might imagine, I was having a little trouble with my brain. I wasn’t thinking as clearly as usual, and a couple times, I couldn’t remember things that I should have been able to remember (like my address). I had already started the process of getting some medical assistance at that point, but, the lesson here is: I should have done it a lot sooner. The first time my fever peaked above 104, that was the time to get help – not 10 hours and a fitful night later.
Lesson learned, convalescence ongoing, and borderline normal posting to resume today (assuming I continue feeling well enough). Thanks to all for the kind words, well-wishes, and good humor over the past day.
Yoenis Cespedes won the Home Run Derby again last night, besting Todd Frazier in the final by a mile (actually, that may not be just a metaphor – Cespedes beat Frazier by 8 homers, and if we say he averaged 400 feet on those homers, that’s 3200 feet, which is like 3/5 of a mile). Although he didn’t win, Giancarlo Stanton did do what folks have been waiting so long to see: he hit six monster bombs in the first round, including one that was projected at 510 feet.
Javy Baez on his Futures Game performance, his future position, his success in the minors, and his possible promotion schedule.
Cubs top pitching prospect C.J. Edwards has been out since late April with a shoulder issue that, although not structural, clearly gave the Cubs enough pause to take it very, very (very) easy with his return. As is the standard for our time, the latest update come from Edwards, himself:
Of course, it’s not entirely clear if that means Edwards will be returning to game action on July 23, or doing his first side session from the mound on the 23rd. Although we haven’t yet heard about him throwing off the mound in bullpen sessions, I would be surprised to learn that he hasn’t. So I’m going to tentatively guess that the 23rd is when Edwards will actually pitch in a game, likely in Arizona with the rookie league team (and an earlier Edwards tweet suggests just that). From there, it would be at least a few more appearances before he could be back at AA Tennessee to close out the year with maybe four or so starts.
In case you missed it last night, Kyle Schwarber is being promoted again, heading up to High-A Daytona. The aggressiveness of his promotions this year are reminiscent of Kris Bryant last year (he also ended his first partial professional season at High-A, before playing in the Arizona Fall League). No, I wouldn’t expect Schwarber to match Bryant offensive up the ladder, but I do find it very encouraging to see the Cubs comfortable throwing these challenges at him.
CSN’s Tony Andracki sent me a message about CSN showing a replay of Greg Maddux throwing a July 17, 2004 shutout tomorrow at 7pm CT. There will be no other baseball for you, so why wouldn’t you want to watch Maddux be Greg Maddux 10 years later? The game was quintessential Maddux, with just 103 pitches required to complete the game, and no walks issued.
The BN Blogathon is just 15 days away, and you’ve done an incredible job giving to a good cause so far:
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