The Wife, The Little Girl, and The Little Boy started decorating our house for Opening Day (yup, that’s a thing), and it’s very charming to see them all so enthused about the return of regular season Cubs baseball. It does make me a little bummed, though, that Opening Day for the Cubs is actually Opening Night, and the kiddos won’t really be able to see the game live.
That’s actually been the case a few years running now for the Cubs, who’ve opened at night each of the past three seasons.
I’ll still get them all amped up with highlights, and more games that week. (A week that begins in UNDER TEN DAYS.)
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Jake Arrieta says it’s hard to not say the Cubs have the best rotation in baseball (Sun-Times). Not only is that exactly what you’d expect Arrieta to say, given his own ability and confidence, as well as that of his teammates, but I also think he’s right: it’s hard not to say the Cubs have the best rotation in baseball. When you’re fronted by two of last year’s Cy Young finalists and also the guy who won it the year before, you’re already in the conversation. Add a quality, consistent veteran who was very good last year, and then another guy who is consistently excellent when he’s healthy, and that’s about as good as it gets 1-5. Will the Cubs actually wind up being the best rotation in baseball? Probably depends on health – not just theirs, but also the Mets’ rotation, the Nats’ rotation, the Dodgers’ rotation, and maybe even something like the Diamondbacks’ rotation (that might sound crazy, but actually look at the group, and consider how good they could be if all are healthy and at their high-level effectiveness).
Speaking of the rotation, which was announced yesterday as Lester-Arrieta-Lackey-Anderson-Hendricks, in that order, Joe Maddon wants to make sure it’s clear that having Kyle Hendricks opening fifth is not any kind of comment on his ability (Sun-Times). It is simply a reflection of how the Cubs wanted the first set of starts to go, in terms of match-ups and geographic locations, as well as wanting to separate the lefties. (But, you know: best fifth starter in baseball.)
Hendricks doesn’t have the kind of ego that makes waves in these situations, according to Maddon, who also said that Mike Montgomery had a great attitude about starting the season in the bullpen (ESPN).
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He had more than just two great games last year, obviously, but Kris Bryant had two of the BEST games:
Kris Bryant's work on June 27 (5-5, 2 2Bs, 3 HRs) & August 18 (5-5, 2B, 2 HRs) were two of the TOP 5 single game performances last season. pic.twitter.com/5eZMuvYVPP
The World Baseball Classic was a hit in just about every conceivable way, with attendance and ratings up, and general attention-paid (not a real metric, just my sense) way up.
You can get free shipping this weekend on all of our beautiful BN shirts, so you should probably check out the selection. Just use the code FS317 when you check out, and that’ll get you the free shipping.
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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NEWSLETTER
The Wife, The Little Girl, and The Little Boy started decorating our house for Opening Day (yup, that’s a thing), and it’s very charming to see them all so enthused about the return of regular season Cubs baseball. It does make me a little bummed, though, that Opening Day for the Cubs is actually Opening Night, and the kiddos won’t really be able to see the game live.
