Making a list, and checking it twice in MLB
It was the kind of night for releasing one’s delegates, throwing in the towel and wondering if football season will ever arrive. Not to mention searching for an alternate Major League Baseball team to call one’s own.
A 10-3 loss to the visiting Chicago Cubs Thursday night did not eliminate the St. Louis Cardinals from playoff contention — hardly, we would say; for any NL Central team, which both are, a light ever glows in the window. Milwaukee leads Cincinnati by a half a game — excuse one for calling it Comedy Central — with the Cardinals tied for fifth (last place), 11 1/2 games out of first and trailing by 10 in the NL wild-card race.
The Cubs, 4 1/2 games back overall and 3 1/2 games out for a wild card, pulled even at 5151 (now 52-51), beating rival St. Louis for the second time after the teams split a weekend series in London. That outcome prompted a call Friday to a Cubs fan in central Arkansaas whose name likely would be familiar to a good many readers. Nice going and all that, the conversation went before it inevitably turned to horse racing.
“Let’s see how they’re doing Monday,” Jeff Krupsaw said. The weekend stand at Busch Stadium should be over by then with the Cubs getting further clues whether it is a seller or buyer at the upcoming trade deadline.
Our Oaklawn handicapper has marched behind the team’s banner for years, living to see it win the 2016 World Series (Cubs over Indians in seven games). Faith of their fathers carried Cubs Nation to the team’s first World Series title in 108 years. The crosstown White Sox, who punted the 1919 World Series to the underdog Reds, won a world title (2005) before the Cubs broke through; the North Siders’ fan base included one Hillary Rodham Clinton, whose presidential campaign against Donald Trump the same year conversely nosedived into Lake Michigan.
The Cubs couldn’t keep that core together, unloading National League MVP Kris Bryant (third base) and slugging first baseman Anthony Rizzo among other players rather than meet their salary demands. Rizzo, now with the Yankees, has stopped hitting the long ball, which grieves a team without reigning AL MVP Aaron Judge, he of a league- and team-record 62 home runs last year. Another ex-cub, Jason Heyward (also once a Cardinal), has been spotted in a Dodger uniform, his team three in front of the Giants in the NL West despite a maligned pitching staff.
To improve their team for the last stretch run into August and September, the Cubs might have to unload pitcher Marcus Stroman or past NL MVP (Dodgers) Cody Bellinger. Think the Yankees, last in the AL East, eight games out of first through Thursday but only 2 1/2 in the wild-card race, couldn’t use a left-handed-hitting outfielder like Bellinger? New York plays in a division that all five teams are over .500 and that the Orioles (63-40) now rule the roost as early-season phenom Tampa Bay has dropped back.
The Cardinals, meanwhile, watch from a distance in the division they won last year in the final go-rounds for presumptive Hall of Famers Albert Pujols and Yadier Molina. Cardinal Nation wonders now whether these are the last days in St. Louis for pitchers Jack Flaherty and Jordan Montgomery and sluggers Nolan Arenado and reigning league MVP Paul Goldschmidt. Montgomery, a former Yankee who came to St. Louis last year in a swap for outfielder Harrison Bader, may be moved in a deal for pitching prospects, the club about to lose retiring veteran righty Adam Wainwright.
If charting the team’s season in the morning newspaper weren’t galling enough, Cardinal fans grimaced when two former farmhands competed in the Home Run Derby on All-star
week in Seattle, Randy Arozarena, wearing a Tampa Bay uniform and Adolis Garcia a Texas Ranger jersey.
Elsewhere, Shohei Ohtani, MLB’S most bankable star, came up big in both games of a Thursday doubleheader sweep against the Tigers. He pitched a one-hitter with eight strikeouts in the 6-0 opener and extended his home-run lead with Nos. 37 and 38 in the 11-4 nightcap, batting second in both games and finishing both as the designated hitter.
A past AL MVP, Ohtani is knocking on the same door that Judge knocked down last September. The Angels, desperate to make the playoffs for the first time with Ohtani and Mike Trout, are just three back in the wild-card race but are chasing several teams.
Owner Arte Moreno is determined to keep Ohtani, whose skills rival those of a young Babe Ruth, at all costs, anything to keep him out of a Dodger uniform across town. That prospect would represent living hell for the Angels.