I’ll confess that I don’t love ‘Field of Dreams.’ The movie. It has just enough warts that, while I’ll watch it and can certainly enjoy parts, I wouldn’t call it one of my favorite baseball movies or anything. (It’ll forever be pretty tough to top ‘Major League.’) The *IDEA* of ‘Field of Dreams’ is really compelling to me – guy hears the voices, builds the diamond, ghosts come, and guy can reconnect with his father, etc. – but that idea outpaces the actual movie.
I guess that’s why I can still be into the Field of Dreams Game, though. That’s more about the idea of baseball’s history, its ubiquity, and the connections it can foster within families. That stuff all still speaks to me, even if it’s totally sappy and overwrought. It’s OK to be that way sometimes.
For example, remembering that this exists, after Scully’s passing, is definitely hitting me right in my wistful bone:
The Field of Dreams Game is tonight at 6:15pm CT on FOX, with the pre-game festivities starting at 5pm. It should be a lot of fun, and probably tug on some heartstrings.
They played a minor league game at the Dyserville ballpark this week:
A man hears Fox is testing a reanimated Harry Caray in hologram form for tomorrow's Field of Dreams game? Someone who has seen the footage says it is "unconvincing" and "possibly offensive"— Timothy Burke (@bubbaprog) August 10, 2022
I expect Wade Miley will be returning to the big league rotation pretty soon, as his rehab start last night for Iowa went 66 pitches and 4.2 innings (2 ER, 4 H, 1 BB, 5 K). Right now, the Cubs have five in the starting rotation – Marcus Stroman, Justin Steele, Drew Smyly, Keegan Thompson, and Adrian Sampson – so it’s TBD how they’ll handle Miley’s return.
I think several paths are possible: the Cubs may go with a six-man rotation for a while, the Cubs may wind up with some surprise injury by the time Miley actually returns (sadly, it happens), or the Cubs may keep Miley on a regular schedule while skipping Steele and Thompson starts as an innings-limiting mechanism, the Cubs may start piggybacking someone(s) to limit innings, the Cubs could simply move someone to the bullpen, or the Cubs could send someone like Adrian Sampson to Iowa to keep starting. I really think just about any of those options is as plausible as the others at the moment, though I’d personally want to lean toward one that starts winding down the innings for Steele and Thompson in the coming weeks, as they are both solidly into career-high territory now. That could be a six-man, piggybacks, or periodic start-skipping.
Speaking of anticipated pitching moves, I wonder how much longer Cam Sanders will pitch at Iowa in relief before he gets the big league look. As a starter, the results were mixed, but it was very clear that he had a power reliever’s toolkit. So, even though he’s made just four relief appearances at Iowa since the conversion, I suspect the Cubs will want him working with the big league coaches sooner rather than later. As a guy who is almost certainly going to be added to the 40-man before the Rule 5 Draft anyway, and as a guy who is already over 75 innings on the season, I just think the Cubs are going to want to see him soon (if he’s coming up at all this year).
Michael Rucker hasn’t allowed a run in his most recent call-up (5.2 innings, 5 appearances), but he has walked (3) more than he’s struck out (2). He’s allowed just one hit over these appearances, and I tend to think it’s just a matter of stuff equalizing out (he’d previously seen worst results than the underlying data suggested he’d “deserved”). In other words, I think he’s still pretty much pitching like a 4-ish ERA and FIP guy, which is frequently useful in middle relief as an up-down guy, but is going to make for a tough 40-man roster decision this offseason.
Nico Hoerner hit his 7th homer of the year, pushing his season line to a truly impressive .300/.342/.421/111 wRC+:
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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