Shep's Baseball Happenings

The 2018 MLB season is not even a week old but some are already set to go changing the game again.   This time it’s extra innings and no, not by putting a runner at second base or anything silly to start the 11 th or 12 th , but instead just calling the game a draw after a certain amount of innings. Pardon me? I get baseball has changed.   When the rules were first written and the game first began to be played professionally 150 years ago bullpens were hardly even a thing, let alone such a key part like they are today. We’ve seen starters go from guys that were counted on to go get you 27 outs, to guys who were then asked to go get you 7 innings, and then 6, and now in many cases anything after out number 15 is a major bonus. Yes, we have more specialists than ever before, but it doesn’t mean they have to be used that way, either. During Tuesday’s Dodgers TV broadcast, Joe Davis mentioned that the night before LA was likely an inning from seeing position play

Opening Day.   If “Game Seven” are the two best words in sports, “Opening Day” is easily number two. Baseball, your summertime sports companion is back in near full force, as all MLB member teams were scheduled to open on the same date in 50 or so years.   Unfortunately rain in Detroit and Cincinnati prevented that from occurring but 26 teams that played were welcomed back by fans from Miami to Seattle. Where should we start our day 1 recap? How about with Ian Happ, as the Cubs switch-hitting second year player was making his first career Opening Day start, leading off in the season’s first game.   He wasted no time sending a belt high fastball into the right field stands in Marlins Park, giving the Cubs a 1-0 lead.   A helluva way to start but in his final four at-bats the youngster did strikeout three times and popped out weakly to third base.   It was still obviously a heck of a way to enter the season with a bang but some anticipated growing pains were also obvious. Jo

By Nick Shepkowski:   @Shep670 Has there ever been an easier Chicago athlete to root for than Mark Buehrle? I ask that because he was not only a damn good pitcher, fully worthy of this weekend's celebration but was just about as easy of guy as you'll ever find to root for in any sport, on any team. His list of accomplishments is plenty long with a World Series to his name as well as a "Perfecto" and another no-hitter.  But it wasn't just those things that made Buehrle so easy to pull full whether you were a White Sox fan or not during the first part of this millennium. His tarp slides whenever it'd rain on the South Side helped endear him to fans but the fact any of us even know Mark Buehrle's name comes a surprise. The guy who would end up with the 8th most wins in White Sox history was taken as the 1139th overall pick in June of 1998.  Forget being overlooked by the rest of baseball, the White Sox themselves even drafted 24 different

By Nick Shepkowski:   @Shep670 It’s shocking that it actually reached this point but at the same time hard to feel too surprised by the news of a .171 hitter being demoted. Kyle Schwarber is struggling, as his on base percentage being .295 even feels a bit high for those who have watched him in 2017.  Sure, he does still hit the ball seemingly a mile when he connects but those cases have been few and far between for the amount of poor at bats he's had this summer. Theo Epstein was on the radio with Danny Parkins and Matt Spiegel after the news came out Thursday and mentioned that Schwarber “will be defined by how he responds”.  Epstein added there was no emotional attachment to the move before sighting several current stars who were demoted back to the minors after poor play at the top level. So how will the man who seemingly came out Hollywood script last October to help the Cubs win their first title in 108 years, respond? Things from here obviously could go a n

By Nick Shepkowski:   @Shep670 It's one thing to be bad.  It's entirely another to be an @______. That's what I'm left thinking after John Lackey again got hit around, and out of the Citi Field Monday night. A Cubs team that has been struggling of late didn't do themselves any favors offensively as they put up just 2 runs in Queens, NY, but yet again it was the veteran starter getting hit hard for the duration. Lackey allowed 8 baserunners in 5 innings pitched against the Mets Monday, but more concerning was the fact that 3 of those 8 were by way of long ball.  That brings Lackey's total to 19 home runs allowed on the year, fewer than only 40 year old Bronson Arroyo, who has actually done that despite no-longer having an attached right arm. I get it, Lackey is 38 and has seemingly little, if anything left in the tank.  He supplied the Cubs with a solid year in 2016 as the fourth starter and despite playoffs struggles, ate nearly 190 innings on the mo

By Nick Shepkowski  @Shep670 : I had the Cubs and Marlins on Tuesday night when I decided to check Twitter to see what was happening in the world.  Rather quickly I saw Scooter Gennett's name mentioned a bunch and my immediate thought was that something bad happened: hit in head by pitch, some kind of accident, I'm not real sure but I wasn't thinking it'd be because he homered 4 times. But as sure can be that was the case. Scooter Gennett, who only calls himself Scooter because he didn't want to get in trouble with the police when he was 5, hit 4 home runs in a single Major League Baseball game. One of my favorite things about baseball is undoubtedly that you can watch 100,000 games and you'll see something unique in every single one of them. But, for as long as I live I don't think I'll be able to fully process that Scooter Gennett went yard 4 times tonight. Scoots just became the 17th player to accomplish the feat in the entire history o