1. Cubs Fever: Catch It
So who starts Game 1, Jon Lester or Jake Arrieta?
It's got to be Arrieta, now 10-2 with a 2.08 ERA over his past 15 starts. Right?
OK, so maybe we're getting ahead of ourselves. First, the Chicago Cubs must win the National League Wild Card game. But given that the Cubs are threatening to get ahead of themselves right about now anyway, it's OK think ahead a bit, no?
"The Giants had better focus on winning their division," one longtime scout declared the other day. "Because three playoff teams are coming out of the NL Central."
It's a tad early here a month before the NFL season even starts to declare the NL playoff race over in the traditional, John Belushi, Bluto Blutarsky, nothing-is-over-until-we-say-it-is-over sense. But for now, the Pirates and Cubs have a vice grip on the wild-card slots.
And it is worth noting that the Cubs, at 67-49 entering the week, would be residing in first place right now if they played in any other division but one of the Centrals (St. Louis, Pittsburgh and Kansas City are the only clubs with better records).
If the Cardinals, Pirates and Cubs all make the postseason, it will be the second time in four summers of expanded playoffs that the NL Central sends three clubs. The Cardinals, Pirates and Cincinnati Reds did it in 2013, with the Pirates knocking off the Reds in the one-game wild card playoff in Pittsburgh.
With his scraggly beard, manager/Cubs charmer Joe Maddon is looking like a mix of beloved Cubs fan Bill Murray, the mad scientist from Back to the Future and a wizard. And as expected, Anthony Rizzo looks better as a slugger than as a prognosticator.
It was Rizzo who last winter guaranteed an NL Central title for the Cubs.
Though he still could be right, the Cardinals, with a 7.5-game lead on Chicago, remain the heavy favorites.
Until they ran into the buzz saw that is Chris Sale on Sunday, the Cubs had won nine in a row. As things stand heading into Tuesday's series opener with Detroit, these Cubs have won 15 of 17.
Right now, the Cubs are getting the last laugh in so many areas, including on Twitter:
And they're learning as they go, just as Maddon envisioned would be the case in so many instances this summer. In Sunday's 3-1 loss, the Cubs loaded the bases against Sale with two out in the sixth inning, only to see the Sox ace whiff Jorge Soler on a crushing, unhittable 82 mph. slider.
"The moment when Soler struck out really had a playoff moment attached to it in a visceral sense," Maddon told reporters after the game, via MLB.com's Carrie Muskat. "It was all about the crowd, the moment, the bases loaded, everybody going nuts. It was outstanding.
"All those moments will contribute to our guys getting into September and, eventually, October."
Cubs president Theo Epstein continues to have the golden touch, but he may have been wrong about one thing. This spring, he told B/R the only negative he saw with the Cubs' collection of young talent is that they were surrounded by so much hype that they "risk missing out on that opportunity to surprise people, where they can have that season where they sneak up on teams and at the end of the year people look back and say, 'Wow, they were better than I thought they'd be.'"
The Kansas City Royals were that team last summer.
At 18 games over .500, despite the hype, the young Cubs are faring very well for themselves. Rizzo and Maddon could say whatever they wanted last winter, but for the Cubs to be sitting here in mid-August with the game's fourth-best record, no matter how much young talent they've amassed, that part is still at least a mild surprise.
"That might be gone now, and that's fine," Epstein continued during our spring talk. "It's good to hold the organization accountable, hold me accountable to the highest expectation. But individually, I'd like our young players to be afforded a little bit of patience and have a little bit of time to find their games. Because it takes time to find your comfort level as position players in the big leagues."
In a way, that's exactly how things have played out. Especially at shortstop, where Addison Russell has supplanted the scuffling Starlin Castro. Russell started the season in the minors, was summoned to the majors in April and was handed more and more responsibility as the season rolled along. And the Cubs stubbornly started Kris Bryant in the minors as well for business reasons (though they would never admit that).
At the time, the outcry was, 'What if the Cubs miss the playoffs by one game?' Then, the thinking went, they would be sorry for playing three weeks in April without Bryant.
As things look now, though, they've played everything nearly perfectly, right down to Maddon's camouflage socks.
The manager revealed Sunday morning that during his team's winning streak, he had worn the same pair of socks to the park every single day.
Superstitious?
Nope, the manager said, before grinning and unreeling one of his favorite Michael Scott lines from "The Office."
"I'm just a little 'stitious'," he said.
Apropos, in that the Cubs aren't super yet, either.
But they're getting there.
2. The Hit King II, Ichiro Suzuki
Part-diva, part-rock star and part-magician when he arrived from Japan in 2001, one story from Ichiro Suzuki's first spring in Seattle's camp remains vivid.
As Cactus League games played out, the only man in the majors with his first name on the back of his jersey looked very much like a slap hitter. Nothing special. And finally, famously impatient Mariners manager Lou Piniella could wait no longer.
"Hey Ichiro, do you think you can turn on a ball?" Piniella asked one day in the dugout.
Next at-bat, Ichiro yanked a pitch over the right-field fence.
He rounded the bases, jogged into Seattle's dugout and looked toward Piniella with a mischievous grin.
"Like that?" Ichiro asked.
So right about the time cynical scouts—and a certain manager—were close to deciding this guy was overrated, Ichiro, maybe sandbagging so as not to show rival pitchers too much during his spring introduction, dipped into his bag of tricks.
Fifteen years later, there he was Sunday in St. Louis, standing on first base after surpassing Hall of Famer Ty Cobb with a first-inning single for his 4,192nd career hit.
It is esoteric, in that you will not find Ichiro on MLB's official hit list because his first 1,278 hits came during his nine seasons with the Orix Blue Wave of Nippon Professional baseball in Japan. Following his second hit Sunday to boost his total to 4,193, he now has 2,915 hits in the majors.
So, no, he does not officially rank second all-time to Pete Rose. But if he signed a few autographs as "Hit King II", especially in his native Japan, who would quibble?
Bottom line is, Ichiro will be a Hall of Famer one day soon, and just 85 hits away from 3,000 in the majors, he should hit that milestone next year. Already, he owns the MLB record for most hits in a season at 262. That came in 2004, when he broke Hall of Famer George Sisler's old record of 257 set in 1920.
Sisler played for the St. Louis Browns and, reminded of that, Ichiro visited Sisler's grave there when the All-Star Game was played in St. Louis in '09. A student of the game, Ichiro also has looked up Cobb in Cooperstown.
"I go to the Hall of Fame," Ichiro told reporters Sunday through his translator. "I've been there, and I've been able to touch his bat and read some of the letters he wrote.
"I don't know him too much, but now I want to go back to the Hall of Fame and be able to get to know him more and maybe look at more of his stuff."
3. Dodgers Continue to Search for Winning Combo
Still looking to put distance between themselves and San Francisco in the NL West, the Dodgers significantly raised eyebrows by changing third-base coaches Monday, hiring Ron Roenicke, who was fired as manager by Milwaukee in early May.
Lorenzo Bundy, who was the Los Angeles third base coach, will remain on staff but be banished to the dugout and placed in charge of outfielders. Assistant hitting coach John Valentin now will only help before games and then be taken out of uniform during games.
The move is notable because with Roenicke's four-plus seasons of experience guiding the Brewers, including managing them into the 2011 National League Championship Series, he will be viewed as a potential successor to Dodgers skipper Don Mattingly if Los Angeles falters down the stretch.
The Dodgers, who have only 44 games left, did not comment on the move Monday.
4. Carlos Beltran Awakens From Season-Long Slumber
Funny how this game works sometimes. On Friday night in Toronto, veteran Carlos Beltran contributed more to the Yankees on a supposed day off than he had in any of his previous "workdays" this summer.
In the opener of an enormous series in Toronto, the Yankees were losing 3-1 in the eighth inning when Beltran smashed a pinch-hit, three-run homer against the Jays' Aaron Sanchez to vault New York into a 4-3 win.
How unlikely was that moment? Consider:
Not only that, according to the Elias Sports Bureau, it was the Yankees' first go-ahead pinch-hit home run in the eighth inning or later of a road game since Don Mattingly against the Angels in July, 1994.
5. I Scream, You Scream, Jays Have Moseby Screaming for Ice Cream
Things are rocking again in Toronto's Rogers Centre.
Last week, we told you that the Blue Jays had sold 300,000 tickets since the Troy Tulowitzki trade and that Sportsnet television ratings are soaring.
This week's update comes from Lloyd Moseby, the legendary old Blue Jays' outfielder, who told Stephen Whyno (seriously, I am not making that up, that is the byline) of the Canadian Press that he can't even leave his seat anymore, things are so exciting.
"You can't leave," Moseby told Whyno. "I'm going to get some popcorn, I can't leave because Tylo's up and then, aw, damn, [Josh] Donaldson's up. I can't even get no damn ice cream."
In tribute to Toronto's first AL East title 30 years ago, Moseby, Jesse Barfield and George Bell were honored with a shared bobblehead doll on Sunday—the same day the Jays drew their fifth consecutive crowd of 40,000-plus.
As analyst Buck Martinez said on the telecast, that hasn't happened since 1995.
As for Moseby, no word on what his favorite ice cream is. Me? I'll take Ben & Jerry's Milk & Cookies.
6. This Week With the Padres
On Friday night in Colorado, Matt Kemp temporarily brightened a dreary summer by producing the first cycle in San Diego Padres history. Yes, believe it or not: It took 7,444 games for San Diego to achieve a cycle. Now, the Padres remain the only franchise without a no-hitter.
So after the game, Padres analyst (and former big league pitcher) Mark Grant was in the clubhouse when third-base coach Glenn Hoffman mentioned to him: Add 7+4+4+4 and what do you get? Tony Gwynn's number, 19. So cool.
Then, a night later: Another frustrating moment in an incredibly frustrating season boiled over when Justin Upton flung his batting helmet in the dugout and drilled Yonder Alonso in the head. Not so cool.
Upton, a good guy who uncharacteristically lost his cool, felt horrible and apologized. So the next day, Alonso showed up prepared:
7. Weekly Power Rankings
1. Masahiro Tanaka: Masterful in beating Toronto on Sunday. Now, can he repeat that performance a few times?
2. David Price: Tormenting the Yankees since 2008.
3. Ty Cobb: Only thing missing when Ichiro passed him the other day was Eric Show sitting down on the mound.
4. AT&T: So now we learn that the telecommunications company helped the National Security Agency spy on "vast quantities of Internet traffic passing through the United States." Were the Houston Astros included?
5. Deflategate: Hey, wait a sec. I thought everyone was talking about the Twins since going 20-7 in May.
8. In With the New in Cincinnati
With Johnny Cueto having been dealt to Kansas City and Homer Bailey out since April (elbow), the Reds now have sent rookie starters to the mound in 18 consecutive games.
Their current rotation consists of all rookies: right-handers Keyvius Sampson, Raisel Iglesias and Anthony DeSclafiani and lefties John Lamb and David Holmberg.
So far, eight rookies have made 64 starts for the Reds. That's the most by rookies for a Cincinnati since 2001, when rookies started 77 games (Chris Reitsma, Lance Davis, Jose Acevedo, Brian Reith and Jared Fernandez.
Lamb, 25, is the grandson of the late John Ramsey, who was the Los Angeles Dodgers' public address announcer from 1958-1984.
9. Relief in Pittsburgh
They're not the Shark Tank (as they dubbed themselves two summers ago), but the Pirates bullpen still has plenty of bite:
9a. Rock 'n' Roll Lyric of the Day
The Chicago White Sox sure could use a winning streak right about now. Which, coincidentally, is the name of this new song from a talented country artist who just happens to be the wife of Sox pitcher John Danks (in fact, one of the songs on her newly released record The Blade is called On To Something Good, a song she was inspired to write, she says here, of her romance with Danks).
"Well, my mind is unadjusted
"And my guitar strings are rusted
"Had somebody that I trusted
"Leave me broke and busted
"On a game of fools
"Now I'm drowning in defeat
"Yeah, if losing's a game, I'm on a winning streak
"Oh, baby, if losing's a game I'm on a winning streak
— Ashley Monroe, Winning Streak
Scott Miller covers Major League Baseball as a national columnist for Bleacher Report.
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