Yesterday, Jay Cutler called Brian Urlacher the P-word and both spent some serious time laughing at it all. Which pretty much sounds like I thought it would. In more important news to Bears fans, training camp opened yesterday. The Bears allow fans to attend practices for free, so if you are near Olivet Nazarene University in Bourbonnais, feel free to drop by. Just FYI, there is no smoking or alcohol allowed on the campus anywhere.
Not much else to report on there.
Yesterday, on the North Side in baseball, the Cubs just laid waste to the Houston Astros. For whatever reason this year, the Cubs just have the Astros number. They swept them in May and then took 3 out of 4 this time around. Oddly enough, they are the only team with a winning record that the Cubs have accomplished that feat against. Hopefully, this is he precursor of good things to come.
In an quirky aside, both teams lost their starting pitcher after the game. The Cubs traded Kevin Hart to the Pirates and the Astros put Russ Ortiz on waivers. That has to be some kind of record, I just don’t know what kind.
BRIAN MCTAGGERT (MLB.com) takes a look at the carnage from the Astro’s point of view.
When the Astros arrived at Wrigley Field on Monday, they were a team on the rise and looking forward to facing the Cubs, who they were chasing in the National League Central division. They left wondering where the momentum had gone.
The Cubs feasted on a Houston starting pitcher for the second day in a row, chasing right-hander Russ Ortiz after nine hits and nine earned runs in 2 1/3 innings to send the Astros to their fifth loss in six games, 12-3, on Thursday afternoon.
Ortiz, who was 0-3 with a 12.23 ERA in five July starts, was placed on waivers following the game for the purpose of giving him his unconditional release.
Houston is now 4 games out of first and not looking like the threat they were when they came in. Things do not get any better for the Astros as they face off against St. Louis tonight. Frying pan? Meet fire.
On the South Side, the Sox faced the Beasts of the East, the New York Yankees, and slipped out with a win. In this case, I mean that literally. BRIAN HOCH (MLB.com) fills us in from the Yankee’s perspective.
The grounds crew at U.S. Cellular Field will have a little extra work to do before the next game, as Andy Pettitte guessed he’d extracted about a one-yard-long divot by slipping on the infield.
Little could the left-hander have known how much that chunk of grass would take away from him. Pettitte’s seventh-inning misstep on the slick turf erased another strong start and set up a costly White Sox rally in the Yankees’ deflating 3-2 loss on Thursday.
“It’s just like a rerun, every start right now,” said Pettitte, who has not logged a victory in five starts. “I’ve been feeling great, and it’s frustrating not to be able to get my team the ‘W.’”
Innings before Chicago’s DeWayne Wise took the flair out of a two-out ninth-inning Nick Swisher homer by driving in the winning run off reliever Phil Coke, Pettitte couldn’t corral a check-swing roller up the first-base line hit by Jim Thome, stumbling and falling as he tried to extend a tag.
“That ended up being a huge play in the game,” Pettitte said. “I’m not winning when I pitch right now, and that’s frustrating.”
An out after Pettitte’s slip, third baseman Alex Rodriguez couldn’t handle an A.J. Pierzynski smash that was originally scored an error before being revised by the official scorer as a hit.
So, to wrap up, the Bears are handing out free Meow Mix (TM) to the media, the Cubs and the Sox are still in contention and my bar tab is clean. All in all, not a bad way to head into the weekend.