The Comeback-iest Cubs We’ve Seen, the Caratini Mystery, Maddon on Fowler, and Other Bullets

A Happy Fourth of July to all who understand the greatness of what this country can be, who respect the humanity of those who seek to be a part of this land, and who know that loving a nation is not incongruous with wanting to see things get better. Also: fireworks. Fireworks are cool.

  • The Cubs are on a season-high (tied) five-game winning streak, which they can top this afternoon against the Tigers. The crazy thing about this particular streak? The Cubs have trailed early in every single one of the five wins. As ESPN points out, that’s not solely a recent event, either – the Cubs lead baseball with 25 come-from-behind wins, and the Cubs are 21-22 after their opponent scores first in the game. No team has been at .500 or better in that category in 12 years. These are the comeback-iest Cubs we’ve seen in a while.
  • And it seems like that’s the kind of thing that can beget more winning – as a group feels more and more comfortable knowing that, whatever the opponent’s lead, they can still come back, then they do not press at the plate, they continue to play sharp defense to hold the line where it is, and they pitch as though the game is still very much winnable.
  • (Photo by Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images)

  • (UPDATE: It is indeed a call-up for Caratini.) We’ll see if the outcome is a call-up today, but there was a little mystery last night as to Victor Caratini’s whereabouts, and his manager at Iowa as not inclined to solve it for us after their game:
  • It’s not a trade, as Birch said earlier (and wouldn’t make much sense right now anyway, given how thin the Cubs are in upper-minors catching). So it’s either a promotion, a one-off random time away situation, or an injury. The injury probably would have been answered by the manager, so I think we can rule that one out.
  • Joe Maddon says that what’s happened over the last few days with respect to the Cardinals and Dexter Fowler is unfortunate, and that he sees Fowler as “effervescent. He is gregarious. He always lit up the room when he walked in. That’s how I see Dex. He and I had great conversations all the time.” (NBC Sports Chicago) Maddon also declined to offer up any specifics on whether the Cubs ever talked to Fowler about his effort, saying only “That’s St. Louis, not me.”
  • Maddon is hopeful that the extra break Kris Bryant is getting due to his shoulder soreness will help him overall on the rest side of things (Cubs.com).
  • Sometimes you can extremely miss your spot, but the pitch is so nasty it doesn’t matter:
  • https://twitter.com/PitchingNinja/status/1014255127014801408

  • That’s quite a tease:
  • The Cubs are very high on their top two pitching signings in the class, Richard Gallardo and Joel Machado, both out of Venezuela, and guys they see as the top righty and lefty in the class.
  • Former Cubs pitcher Casey Coleman (remember him? last appeared in the org in 2014) is coming back on a minor league deal, per Tommy Birch. The now 31-year-old righty has bounced around minor league systems since departing the Cubs, intermittently having excellent seasons at AAA as a reliever, and also struggling as a starter.
  • To me, it’s kinda wild that the Reds – after starting the season 8-27 – now have a better record than the Padres, Mets, Marlins, Royals, White Sox, Twins, and Orioles. They’ve gone 29-22 clip since then, a .569 clip. If they’d done that in those first 35 games, they’d have gone 20-15, which means they’d be 49-37 right now … a half-game behind the Cubs. That’s how good they’ve been now for nearly two months.
  • Checking out the “bargain bin” in the Amazon Warehouse section. It’s like being at a garage sale on Amazon.
  • 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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