CUBS ARE STUCK IN SAN TRAP
Team’s seven All- Stars could use a break instead
There isn’t a team in baseball that needs the All- Star break more than the Cubs. A club that has lost 15 of its last 21 can use the time to get away from the game, to recharge, to escape the intense media attention — basically, to seek the solitude that only four days off can provide. Oh, wait. The Cubs have seven All- Stars, including the entire starting infield for the National League. What seemed like such a great honor only a few weeks ago now seems like another heavy-legged step on what has been a slog.
It’s only one game, and it’s supposed to be fun, but to say the Cubs are scuffling would be an insult to scufflers everywhere. Before their 6- 5 victory Sunday over the Pirates, they had lost five consecutive games.g
Perhaps the time me in San Diego will remind mind the seven Cubs how ow dominant they were ere in the early part of the the season, when they started 25- 6. Maybe they can take a look around the NL dugout and remember that they are there for a reason — because e zealous Cubs fans s had voted over and over again in All- Star balloting. OK, strike that. Maybe the Cubs can remember that they’re still pretty good.
At least Dexter Fowler won’t be playing. The center fielder has been out since mid- June with a hamstring injury but had hoped to take part in the game Tuesday. One minor- league rehab game Friday apparently told him he wasn’t ready yet. Smart thinking. The last thing the Cubs need is Fowler reinjuring himself in a mostly meaningless game.
Jake Arrieta and Jon Lester will arrive struggling — especially Lester, who has given up 13 earned runs in a combined 4„ innings in his last two starts. If Joe Maddon throws himself in front of Lester on the lefty’s way to the mound in San Diego, no one will be surprised.p
TheThe winnerwi of the All- Star Game gets home-home field advantage in the World Series, Series, so so the Cubs, despite their twomonth month fun funk ( a 28- 29 record since May May 10),10), s still have designs on playing in the FallFal Classic. Maybe that will perk them them up. up. Nothing else has.
Let’s Let’s call it a working vacation.
Different trips for Rodon, Quintana
If you’re a White Sox fan, you might have conflicting ideas these days about the existe existence of God. OnOn the downside, Carlos Rodon
slipped on the dugout stairs Friday night and sprained his wrist. He couldn’t have gotten hurt giving up another home run. Oh, no. He had to slip on the way to the field for the national anthem. Would a supreme being have such a cruel sense of humor? Surely not.
On the plus side of the ledger, Jose Quintana was named to the American League All- Star team Sunday. This is proof that there is a loving God who fixes injustices, rewards the patient and likes a left- hander who can nibble at the corners. Quintana is a replacement for Indians pitcher Danny Salazar, who has elbow discomfort.
Quintana is 7- 8 with a 3.21 ERA, which is to say he is having a typical Quintana season — a low ERA and a mediocre record, thanks to the Sox providing him with a measly 3.08 runs per start. It’s about time something good happened to the e guy.
I’ll allow thatt there is some dedebate over whetherher Rodon’s trip to the disabled list t is a good thing or a bad thing for the semi- hot Sox. He’s 2- 7 with a 4.50 ERA. But the third pick overall verall in the 2014 draft needs s work, not rest.
The Sox havee gone from a season- worst three games under der .500 on June 19 to two games over. r. Everything with h the team seems s so tenuous this year. Do you want even the slightest disturbance of the apple cart?
If your answer is a resounding “yes,’’ it’s understandable. But you’d have to agree that the only thing more over- thetop than slipping on the dugout steps would involve a banana peel.
Shameless NBC doesn’t care about Gatlin’s cheating past
Justin Gatlin will be one of the stars of the Summer Olympics. That’s not your trusted scribe talking. That’s NBC promoting the heck out of the sprinter, without any apparent sense of shame. The network has hitched its wagon to Gatlin, who too often in the past has put illegal additives in his fuel tank. In 2007, he was given a four- year ban for using performance- enhancing drugs. At the time, Gatlin’s coachcoa said the athlete’s urineu sample had been sabotaged. That wouldw be the same coach, Trevor Graham, who has had eight of his athl athletes test positive forfo drugs or serveser a suspension for PED use use. Non None of th this has stopped NBC from using Gatlin in its ads for the U. S. track and field trials, which ended Sunday, or for the upcoming Summer Games.
Everyone does indeed deserve a second chance. But it doesn’t follow that everyone who gets a second chance deserves a parade. It isn’t fair to all the athletes who compete clean.
Gatlin shouldn’t be one of the faces of the Rio Games, but it sure looks like he will be.
Why would NBC put itself in a position in which it could be badly embarrassed?
Does it have information that Gatlin is now an upstanding competitor? Doubtful. Seems like a risky proposition for the network.
NBC likes American winners, a lot, and Gatlin is extremely talented. He finished only .01 seconds behind Usain Bolt in the 100- meter dash at the 2015 world championships.
With Bolt dealing with a hamstring injury, the 34- year- old Gatlin might be able to win gold in the 100 and 200 in Rio de Janeiro.
It would be one thing if NBC played up his dark past. Viewers could decide if they see him as someone who has turned over a new leaf or as someone who probably is still cheating. Instead, the network is all but acting as if it never happened.
When it comes to waving a flag and earning profits, there’s no room for the messy past.