SKIP INTRAS, BRING ON CUBS
Renteria’s Sox ready for final tuneups vs. North Siders, Brewers
The daily intrasquad games are, for the most part, over.
It’s time to bring on the Cubs. In this weird, strange, masked summer of pandemic baseball, the White Sox have crammed loads of drills, indoor and outdoor batting practice, bullpen sessions and scrimmages against each other into two weeks of preparation.
On Sunday night, we’ll see an actual baseball game when the Sox play a crosstown exhibition against the Cubs at Wrigley Field. The Sox will face the Cubs again Monday at Guaranteed Rate Field, and on Wednesday, they’ll host the Milwaukee Brewers at Guaranteed Rate Field as they build for the season opener at home against the American League Central champion Minnesota Twins.
That the Cubs and Brewers are the teams of choice to play in the tuneups is all about geography and convenience. That it’s the Cubs adds local flavor, color and ESPN for audiences outside Chicago. And it will give us a first look at what baseball with two teams on one field will look like.
It’s also a Sox-Cubs appetizer for three games at Wrigley Field the weekend of July 21 and at Guaranteed Rate Field to close a 60-game season Sept. 25-27.
Imagine if a playoff berth or — better yet — two playoff berths are on the line in that final series. It will mean the Sox have arrived after three years of rebuilding and 11 years of playing way too many meaningless games in September.
How they measure up against the Cubs is symbolic and meaningful for the Sox, who know they’re the second-most popular team in town. It doesn’t mean they have to like it.
“I understand what the White Sox are all about,” 2018 first-round pick Nick Madrigal said Saturday. “I also know there’s a team across town that might get a little more attention in the media.
Sox manager Rick Renteria, a former Cubs manager, was embracing the Sox-Cubs competition coming Sunday as a thing, even if it’s played at an empty Wrigley Field. It’s baseball, it’s back and it’s the Cubs.
It sure beats another intrasquad game for his players, even if Drew Anderson is Renteria’s starter. He’ll throw Dallas Keuchel at the Cubs on Monday.
“It gives them a little bit more of an incentive when you’re playing against some opponents, let alone our opponents on the North Side — which should be fun,” Renteria said. “I hope everybody is able to take advantage of watching it.”
The Wrigley rooftops, NBC Sports Chicago and Marquee Sports Network are the ways locally to take advantage. Your radio choices are The Score and WGN.
Meanwhile, the Sox still have six days left of the three weeks allotted to get ready for the first game, a far cry from the normal sixweek ramp-up, including a month’s worth of daily games to prepare. Three weeks, and hitting the ground running from Day 1, have been physically stressful for the players, Renteria said.
“We’ve been pushing these guys,” Renteria said. “The fundamentals, the ground balls, the way it’s set up for everyone to get in their work, it’s fatiguing being out here for the hours, let alone playing the intrasquad games. It’s a unique situation.
“But this is a different time, and they know it. They know they’re pushing themselves and being mindful of what their bodies are doing.”
The Sox have had minimal bumps and bruises in camp, though, and Renteria is optimistic Yoan Moncada, who recovered from COVID-19, can be ready for the opener even though he took the field only two days ago.
“All the indications so far right now, knock on wood ... he looks good,” Renteria said.
The Sox have had enough of competing against each other, especially the pitchers who don’t throw inside with the same purpose against teammates as they would against another team.
“I don’t want to brush any of our guys back,” left-hander Carlos Rodon said. “When a different uniform steps in there, it’s game on, for sure.”