Ryne Sandberg, a Manager at Wrigley Field and Other Bullets

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  • Get ready to hear a whole lot about Ryne Sandberg. The Phillies’ interim manager makes his return to Wrigley Field today, after a couple years removed from the Cubs’ organization. Sandberg will get a hell of an ovation, as he should. He’ll also probably have very little interest in being the story, but, with two disappointing teams on the field, it’s gonna be Sandberg. In advance of that, here are a couple Sandberg pieces to tide you over: from Carrie Muskat, and from Patrick Mooney.
  • Luke mentioned 20-year-old pitching prospect Daury Torrez in the Minor League Daily as one of the pitchers who had success in the Arizona Rookie League this year, and, indeed, he had so much success that the Cubs don’t want his season to end: Torrez has been promoted to Kane County, where he made his first appearance yesterday. Although it wasn’t great – 5 IP, 3ER, 5H, 1BB, 2K – the promotion is a good sign. Torrez spent the last two seasons in the DSL, and reaching low-A in his first stateside season – having just turned 20 in June – is impressive. With the AZL Cubs, Torrez was absurdly good: 3.31 ERA in 49 innings with 49 Ks and 5(!!!) BBs.
  • (If you happen to look at Torrez on Baseball-Reference this morning, you can ignore what you see: the promotion seems to have broken BR’s stats for Torrez this year. They are all wrong.)
  • Mark Gonzales looks at converting positional players to pitchers, including two youngsters that the Cubs have been working on in that regard – Kyler Burke and Johermyn Chavez. Each is a free agent after this season.
  • Juan Uribe tells Gonzales that Starlin Castro might just be thinking too much.
  • The Cubs have the second best jersey in baseball right now, behind … the Cardinals.
  • written by

    Brett Taylor is the Lead Cubs Writer at Bleacher Nation, and you can find him on Twitter at @BleacherNation and on LinkedIn here. Brett is also the founder of Bleacher Nation, which opened up shop in 2008 as an independent blog about the Chicago Cubs. Later growing to incorporate coverage of other Chicago sports, Bleacher Nation is now one of the largest regional sports blogs on the web.

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