Weekend Catch-Up: Two Trades, Two Wins, More Than Two Roster Moves

bn baseball featureIt proved to be a surprisingly busy weekend over the holiday, so if you were out on the boat or lighting off fireworks, see what you may have missed …

Friday, July 3

  • The Cubs’ sweep of the Mets was actually historic.
  • The Eugene Emeralds are loaded with prospect talent.
  • Jake Arrieta came in for some well-earned love.
  • The Cubs were reportedly among four teams scouting Scott Kazmir’s latest start.
  • He doesn’t have the title, but Jason Motte sure gets used like the closer these days.
  • A small trade helped the Cubs pick up some IFA money and a low-level pitching prospect.
  • Despite a great outing from Jason Hammel, the Cubs couldn’t put together enough offense to win.
  • The Cubs picked up a new pitcher from the Pirates, and he started on Saturday.
  • Saturday, July 4

  • If you missed it on Friday, there’s video of Harry Caray singing the 7th Inning Stretch on the video board at Wrigley.
  • The Bullets for the holiday.
  • The Smokies walked off and Kyle Schwarber had a huge game, among other things in the minors.
  • Clayton Richard readied himself to start for the Cubs and I talked about the rotation.
  • It was the one-year anniversary of the huge trade with the A’s.
  • David Ross headed to the 7-day concussion disabled list and Taylor Teagarden came up to take his place.
  • The Cubs sent Tommy La Stella to the 60-day DL and DFA’d Gonzalez Germen.
  • Kris Bryant went off on the Marlins and the Cubs won big on the 4th.
  • Sunday, July 5

  • The scores and highlights and what-have-you from the minor leagues.
  • Re-living Kris Bryant’s two homers was fun.
  • Jorge Soler finally returned to the Cubs after his ankle injury.
  • Matt Szczur headed back to AAA Iowa to accommodate the return of Soler.
  • Clayton Richard was great on Saturday, but with Tsuyoshi Wada heading for a rehab stint, his future with the Cubs is unclear.
  • The Cubs took the series from the Marlins behind a stellar Kyle Hendricks outing. That made Luis’s post on Hendricks’ increasing dominance all the more prescient and well-timed.
  • The starters for the All-Star Game were announced, and there were no Cubs.
  • 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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