After an injury forced Dylan Cease to miss a couple starts in July, he has struck out 29 over 16 innings in his last four starts while allowing six hits and one earned run. “He’s right where we want him to be and the most important thing is that he’s healthy and getting better,” Eugene manager Jesus Feliciano said. “This was one of his best games so far.” Cease, who is ranked among the top prospects in the Chicago Cubs’ system, allowed two hits and one unearned run while earning his second win and lowering his ERA to 2.50. He said he is “definitely 100 percent healthy.” “Today I was trying to mix my pitches more and keep the fastball down,” Cease said. “I feel like I am making little adjustments that start to build up so it feels great.” Cease has a fastball that hits triple digits, but he showed off even more against the Dust Devils. “He was impressive using all his pitches,” Feliciano said. “This was the first time he has used his off-speed pitches more often so that was awesome. He had confidence in his breaking ball and threw it for strikes. With that fastball, if he shows he can throw his off-speed pitches for strikes, that makes it tougher for the hitters.”
Trevor Clifton has been named Carolina League Pitcher of the Year. Heading into last nights start: 113IP, 2.87 ERA, 94 hits, 4 HRs allowed, .229 BA against, 122Ks, 9.7 Ks per inning, 1.19 WHIP. He then went 6 shutout innings scattering 3 hits with 7 strikeouts against 0 walks. He's really on a roll. Nice season for him. 4 of last 5 starts have been shutout work by him. Won't turn 22 till next May, so he'll be fairly young for AA. Was drafted out of high school in the 12th round back in 2013 but was given third round bonus. 91-94 with two different breaking balls (curve flashes better) and a fringe change-up. With Underwood tanking it's nice to see some guys stepping up.
its really nice to see the pitchers in the farm starting to get it together. Cubs do have some prospects with A+ stuff they need to learn how to use it
2 months ago, on the morning of June 27, he was slashing .265/.357/.520. Of course that night he had the 5/5 3 HR game. Today he is currently slashing .308/.404/.594. OPS went from .877 to .998.
It's still real to me damnit. Holding out hope for a huge September (and October) from Riz to get him right back up there with KB. This team, man. Too fun.
Bruce Levine@MLBBruceLevine 2m2 minutes ago Pedro Strop has a new injury strained groin . Two more weeks rehab ( did it working out yesterday )
Who would have thought six weeks ago that we could lose Strop and Rondon and our bullpen would be better than ever....
This, we don't need him to carry the team, just get a few hits and play great defense, which he has been doing since he sat. Like the announcer said yesterday if the team keeps this up and then add Heyward to that mix, watch out. Feels good to take 3-4 from a team we might be playing in the playoffs.
I've never seen anyone as good at placing tags as Javy Baez. I know that's not a skill set that has a lot of emphasis placed on it because I played 2B growing up in travel baseball and high school, but he is extremely good at it. He makes it look so effortless, but you can tell he's done a lot of work there, and not many do.
So the ESPN crew is talking about playoff rotation. All of them have Kyle pitching 4th in the rotation. I think I prefer Kyle going before Lackey
last cubs game I went to I saw drysdale battle fergi Jenkins . sat behind home plate . watched willie davis hit a inside the park hr . that baseball player could really motor. last bulls game was jerry sloan at guard with norm v l, butter bean love and chet walker w/ Thomas borwinkle at c. I used to watch the bears at wriggly field . no punk ball. and the blakhawks , magnusen , hull , all the bloody fucks so? wtf chitown boys you lost ?
I used to eat real Chicago steaks at geroge diamonds and the stockyard inn . johnnys on the corner ate real deepdish at unos. ate Italian at benuchies in lisle . and still the best fried chicken in the world is white fence farm chicken . lived off Chicago ave on Julian st. now act like real lolo,s or I,ll give up on ya ..