AGRI Biz

The Cubs begin May 3 with an average—at best—record of 13-13 and find themselves 4.5 games behind the St. Louis Cardinals (17-8) in the National League Central. Starting pitching remains the team’s strong suit. But if you haven’t noticed, the Cubs—outside of Derrek Lee and Aramis Ramirez—are starting to hit. Chicago spent the first two weeks of the season at the bottom of nearly every major offensive category, but the team is ...

If only the Cubs could play the Milwaukee Brewers every day. The Cubs (9-10) exceeded my expectations with an impressive sweep of Milwaukee over the weekend and flip-flopped places with the Brew Crew in the NL Central. They move to 5-1 against the Brewers and second in the Division. Optimism is back on the North Side, and the Washington Nationals (10-9) come into town to kickoff a ...

Don’t expect the Cubs (6-10) to have an easy go of it facing the Milwaukee Brewers (8-7) this time around. The Cubs opened up their home schedule by taking two of three from the Brewers back on April 12-15—their lone series win to date—but Milwaukee and Chicago are two teams heading in opposite directions. The Brewers piled on 20 runs against the Pittsburgh Pirates yesterday and outscored the ...

If you tune into any one of the Cubs' four upcoming games against the New York Mets, you may get the impression that the umpires misread the calendar and bumped up the first pitch. But, no fear, Cubs fans, the umps did indeed start the game on time, and, no, they aren’t playing any tricks on you. That job is left for Lou Piniella, whose latest ...

So much for home cooking. The Cubs (5-7) started off their first homestand of the 2010 season in strong fashion, just missing out on a sweep of the Milwaukee Brewers. Then the one-win Houston Astros came to town and did just enough to take two of three from a punchless Cubs squad. While it’s not time to panic, I wouldn’t smack you over the top ...

The Cubs (4-5) missed out on a sweep against the Brewers Thursday, but another sweep-worthy team, the Houston Astros, comes to town starting today at 1:20 p.m. The offensively challenged Astros (1-8) got their first win of the season against St. Louis yesterday, but the Cubs should have no problem getting back on the winning track with a three-game weekend series ...

This is how bad it’s gotten for Alfonso Soriano. A day after Lou Piniella defended the left fielder, Soriano went out and had two more defensive gaffes prompting Piniella to make a defensive switch in the seventh inning against the Brewers on Wednesday. Soriano lollygagged and bobbled a ball hit down the third base line in the fifth and ...

After a disappointing road trip to kick off the 2010 season, the Cubs return to Wrigley Field for the home opener against the Milwaukee Brewers at 1:20 p.m. Ryan Dempster (0-0, 1.50) gets the start after throwing a gem in his first start of the year, striking out nine Braves and walking one in six innings of work. Unfortunately, as we’ve already seen one too many times ...

Unlike his counterpart on the other side of town, you’re not going to find Lou Piniella tweeting any time soon. As you probably already know, Piniella responded to a minor Twitter controversy early in the spring sparked by White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen, who joined the social networking site to communicate with fans. Sweet Lou has never been tagged as a web-junky, ...

Cactus League action is winding down and the final roster is set. That means we can all forget about the exhibition season and focus on the games that do count. Five days separate the Chicago Cubs from the season opener against the Atlanta Braves, and players, coaches, and fans are eager for that first pitch. It's time to throw out those spring stats. They don’t really mean anything, do they? Sorry, ...