MAIN ACTORS IN CHICAGO’S HOPE OPERAS

There’s an audience for Cubs’ Murphy, Sox’ Kopech

Hope is the currency of the sports world. Everybody deals in it. The Cubs did for decades, and fans waited year after year for next year.

There was a spectacular outbreak of hope Tuesday. Heat-throwing Michael Kopech made his much-anticipated debut for the rebuilding White Sox, and by “muchanticipated,’’ I mean that when he finally walked to the mound at Guaranteed Rate Field, Sox fans either had an out-of-body experience or a loss of bodily function. Or both.

Hours earlier, the Cubs acquired their former nemesis, Wrigley Field-loving Daniel Murphy, and some of their fans saw him as a cure for whatever was ailing the team’s bats. That he wasn’t in uniform Tuesday night in Detroit explained the fact that the Cubs scored only one run for the fifth consecutive game. Obviously.

OK, forget the other news that hit Tuesday — that Yu Darvish was done for the season because of a bone bruise in his elbow. It would ruin my premise that hope is the coin of the realm. Wait, I just had a vision of Darvish helping the team next season! You call it a hallucination. I call it hope.

We have two strains of hope in our town. The Cubs still have the best record in the National League, though it certainly doesn’t feel that way right now. After their 8-2 victory Wednesday against the Tigers, they’re 17-15 since the All-Star break. So fair or not, Murphy is expected to be the bellows for the embers of the Cubs’ offense. One hit by him, and everybody gets hot is the thinking/praying. closer in 2016. His first pitch at Wrigley was clocked at 101 mph, and suddenly everybody had amnesia about the incident in which he allegedly choked his girlfriend and fired eight bullets in his garage. So I’ll take a leap and guess that Murphy’s controversial 2015

comments about gay people — “you can still accept them, but I do disagree with the lifestyle, 100 percent” — will be a oneor two-day topic and then forgotten.

The Cubs hope that adding Murphy to the lineup will remind everyone, including themselves, that they have a chance to do some damage in the postseason.

The Sox hope that bringing up Kopech to the big leagues will be the first of many firsts that will someday lead to the playoffs.

Immediate hope and long-term hope. Different kinds of hope, but hope just the same.

AP The Cubs are hoping that Daniel Murphy (left) will give their offense an immediate boost down the stretch, while the White Sox have more of a long-term outlook for fireballing right-hander Michael Kopech.