This is a weird thing to say about a pitcher who dominated like a fiend en route to winning the National League Cy Young in 2015, but here goes:
Jake Arrieta appears to be just fine, thank you very much.
The 30-year-old right-hander looked very much like his 2015 self in the Chicago Cubs' season-opening 9-0 win over the Los Angeles Angels at Angel Stadium of Anaheim on Monday night. He pitched seven shutout innings with two hits allowed, one walk and six strikeouts.
To put a finer point on it, Arrieta hasn't looked this good since the second half of 2015. That's when he ...
Once an elite prospect destined to help the Chicago Cubs become relevant again, Javier Baez is now a former prospect hoping to latch onto a Cubs team that became relevant without him.
But there's a line between "former prospect" and "afterthought." Baez is still only 23, and he still has the talent that made him a top prospect in the first place. He also has what most afterthoughts don't.
An opportunity.
Coming off a 97-win season that took them to the National League Championship Series, the Cubs don't have a starting role for Baez in 2016. He's a natural shortstop, but Addison Russell has ...
We're through the looking glass, people. We can tell by the way we're gawking in awe at the Chicago Cubs, a team that hasn't won a World Series since Ford was introducing the Model T.
And, heck, we could be gawking in even more awe at the Cubs in the near future. They're already great, but apparently they want to be flawless.
This winter has already seen the Cubs take a roster that produced 97 wins in 2015 and augment it with Jason Heyward, Ben Zobrist, John Lackey and a couple of bullpen additions. Cue Sahadev Sharma of Baseball Prospectus to sum it up: "It’s ...
The Chicago Cubs haven't won the World Series in 107 years. If they have it their way, the counter won't reach 108 years.
And man, oh man, do they appear to be serious about that.
Fresh off a thrilling 97-win season and a trip to the National League Championship Series in 2015, Cubs bosses Theo Epstein and Jed Hoyer have been busy making moves meant to take them even further in 2016. By far the biggest of these went down Friday.
As Gordon Wittenmyer of the Chicago Sun-Times was first to report, the Cubs have agreed to terms with star right fielder Jason Heyward:
According ...
The shame of the 2015 National League Cy Young race is that only one pitcher can win it. Really, the award wouldn't be misplaced on any of the three finalists' mantelpieces.
If there is an odds-on favorite for the award, though, it's probably Jake Arrieta.
That's the opinion of ESPN.com's Cy Young predictor anyway, and it's believable. Arrieta accumulated plenty of numbers to please the Cy Young voters, including an MLB-best 22 wins and a 1.77 ERA that ranked second in MLB. He also was historically awesome after the All-Star break, posting a 0.75 ERA that ranks as the best ever in ...
Through their first five games, the Chicago Cubs made hitting in the postseason look easy. Maybe a little too easy.
As such, a reality check like the one the Cubs were dealt in Game 1 of the National League Championship Series was coming sooner or later. But given that it was the New York Mets who dealt it, the question now becomes whether the Cubs' bats will be able to recover.
The Cubs weren't able to get much offense going against Matt Harvey in a 4-2 loss in the opener of the NLCS at Citi Field on Saturday night. He did his Dark ...
Based on recent headlines, you'd think the Chicago Cubs' rise to power has had everything to do with Jake Arrieta and little to do with, well, anything else.
In reality, however, the bats have also had a lot to do with that. And on Monday evening at Wrigley Field, they made that clear by upstaging none other than Arrieta himself.
After throwing a shutout to lead the Cubs to victory over the Pittsburgh Pirates in the National League Wild Card Game, Arrieta was considerably less effective in Game 3 of the NLDS. The St. Louis Cardinals limited his outing to 5.2 innings ...
Of all the things that happened in 2015, the Chicago Cubs' winning 97 games with a major boost from a pitcher who came to the team as a throw-in player in a throwaway deal was arguably at the top of the "There's No Way This Is for Real" power rankings.
But after what happened Wednesday night, we now know this: This is for real, all right.
The Cubs made their first postseason game since 2008 count, beating the Pittsburgh Pirates in the National League Wild Card Game by a 4-0 final to earn a ticket to play the St. Louis Cardinals in ...
The first time the Chicago Cubs called up top prospect Kyle Schwarber, it was just for a quick look-see that didn't figure to impact the Cubs' season in any major way.
But now Chicago is calling on Schwarber again. And this time around, he's going to get a chance to be just what Dr. Johnny on the Spot ordered.
Last Saturday, veteran catcher Miguel Montero jammed his thumb in a 5-1 loss to the Chicago White Sox. The Cubs are expected to put him on the disabled list Friday, and the word from Jonathan Mayo of MLB.com (h/t Carrie Muskat) is that ...
Behold a question that I doubt anybody expected to be asked at any point in the 2015 season:
Is Kris Bryant finally going to start hitting for power now?
An unexpected question, indeed. But before we get to answering it, let's get to what's prompting it.
On Monday night at Wrigley Field, Bryant had a pretty good game in the Chicago Cubs' 4-2 win over the Los Angeles Dodgers. He went 2-for-3 with a walk and a pair of home runs, giving him the first multi-homer game of his career and pushing his season total to 10.
The first was a two-run dinger in the ...
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