It’s a day for awards and honors, apparently.
Having earlier discussed Kyle Schwarber’s huge month of August (and Kyle Hendricks’s, too, at the big league level), there’s another honor in the bag for Schwarber: he’s the Cubs’ organizational player of the month.
Joining the honors parade is Pierce Johnson, who is the Cubs’ pitcher of the month for August. After getting through some injury issues, which probably led to some command issues, Johnson was all-world in August: 1.72 ERA over 31.1 innings with 34 strikeouts and 14 walks. On the year, Johnson’s numbers are shaky, mostly because of the walks (14.5% at AA). But the stuff is legit, and he really did seem to turn a corner in the second half. You can look for Johnson to get serious consideration for the jump to AAA next year, and, if so, he’ll at least be on the radar for the 2015 rotation by midseason, if the need arises.