Chicago – For the second time in a week, the Chicago Cubs play a win-or-go-home game, this time against the Milwaukee Brewers on Wednesday in Game 3 in their best-of-five NL Division Series.
Once again, the Cubs will turn to Jameson Taillon.
Taillon tossed four scoreless, two-hit innings against the San Diego Padres last Thursday and Chicago went on to take the deciding Game 3 of their Wild Card Series 3-1. The right-hander was focused, striking out four and walking none before five relievers wrapped it up.
This time, the Cubs need to prevail in three straight elimination contests to keep their season alive. The Brewers have a 2-0 lead in the series following 9-3 and 7-3 wins in Milwaukee when they ambushed Chicago’s thinned pitching staff and limited the Cubs to 10 total hits.
“I mean, look, we’ve had experience with it,” manager Craig Counsell said on Tuesday. “We just did it on Thursday. And now we’re going to have to do it three times.”
Teams falling behind 2-0 in a best-of-five postseason series have won just 10 out of 90 times. Any Cubs recovery starts with the 6-foot-5, 230-pound Taillon.
“It starts tomorrow, and obviously being a starting pitcher, hopefully I can do my job and set the tone and see where that can take us,” Taillon said.
“So how that pertains to me is just doing my job, going out there and setting the tone, preparing the right way, taking notes, watching video, going about my process the right way, and making sure I’m buttoned up and ready to go. “
Taillon was 11-7 with a 3.68 ERA in the regular season, his ninth in the majors. He was on the injured list twice, in July with a right calf strain and in August with a groin strain.
On Wednesday, the 33-year-old must hold Milwaukee in check early. The Brewers scored nine runs the first two innings on Saturday and seven on three homers in the first four innings on Monday.
Taillon hopes to channel energy from Wrigley Field fans, even if he won’t show it on the mound.
“I think it’s a good lesson to myself when the crowd is that electric and the moment is that big and the pressure is that big and important, an executed pitch is still the best pitch,” he said. “I don’t need to be out there pounding my chest.
“If I gain a mile an hour from adrenaline, that is not really going to matter. What is going to matter is whether I sequence right and execute pitches the right way. I kind of plan on just doubling down with that again.”
Counsell is banking on it.
“I think what you want from all your players is just the best version of themselves and to, as much as you can, be yourself and kind of let the moment elevate you,” Counsell said. “I think that’s what (Taillon) did. He pitched like he pitches, didn’t try to do something different than he’s good at.
“I think he did let, kind of, the moment take him to another place and that’s exactly what you want.”
Meanwhile, Cubs hitters have to bust out of their funk.
At the All-Star break, Chicago was 57-39 and second in the majors in runs scored with 512. In the second half, the Cubs went 35-31 and scored 281 times as marquee players – most notably All-Stars Pete Crow-Armstrong and Kyle Tucker – slumped for long stretches. Tucker still seems to be dealing with a left calf strain that sidelined him most of September.
But Chicago has no more room for error.
“But part of being great at this is responding to the bad stuff and running towards it, man,” Counsell said. “That’s part of this. You can’t be afraid of it. We put ourselves in a hole this series; no question about it. We get to decide how the story ends.”
Blue Jays’ caps are lucky charm
New York – Wanting to cap Toronto’s season with a title, Jeff Hoffman suggested changing hats.
Six losses in seven games had dropped the Blue Jays into a tie with the New York Yankees for the AL East lead. That prompted the 32-year-old reliever to send Scott Blinn, Toronto’s director of major league clubhouse operations, scrambling to find those retro caps with white panels in the style the Blue Jays wore when they won the 1992 World Series.
Toronto is 5-0 in the historical headgear over the past two weeks as it takes a 2-0 lead into Tuesday night’s Game 3 of the best-of-five AL Division Series against the Yankees.
“I didn’t pack another hat,” manager John Schneider said with a smile Monday.
Following a 7-1 loss to the Red Sox at Rogers Centre on Sept. 24, Hoffman suggested to Binn a switch to the 1992 headgear, which was used during Major League Baseball’s Hall of Fame weekend promotion from July 25-27 – not because he’s superstitious, but because he liked the look. Wearing the white panels, the Blue Jays had taken two of three at Detroit to finish a four-game series.
“`We need a new combo. What should we wear?'” Hoffman said, recounting the player discussion. “And I said, `I know what we should wear. We should wear the blues, the blue jerseys with the white-panel hat.’ And they all kind of like perked up because they didn’t know I knew about them.”
Blinn found the caps in a Rogers Centre storage room. Toronto beat Boston 6-1 on Sept. 25, wearing blue alternate jerseys and the white-panel chapeaus. The next night, a Friday, the Blue Jays were required to wear Nike Connect uniforms topped by pitch-blue caps, suggested by Lake Ontario at night. They beat Tampa Bay 4-2 to remain tied with the Yankees.
On most days, players get to decide which uniforms to wear. Given that option for the final weekend of the regular season, the Jays stuck with the blue jerseys and white-panel hats. They closed with 5-1 and 13-4 wins over the Rays to win the division on a tiebreaker over New York.
Toronto finished the season 58-45 in blue caps, 20-17 in the two-tone hats with powder blue visors and navy crowns that were launched with the return of powder blue alternate jerseys in 2020, 8-3 in Nike Connect games and 5-1 in the white-panel throwbacks. They were also 1-2 in Armed Forces caps with beige camouflage crowns and olive visors from May 16-18, 1-0 in red for Canada Day on July 1 and 1-0 in light blue crowns and red visors for July 4.
The Blue Jays stayed with the white-panel caps and blue jerseys in the first two games of the Division Series, romping over the Yankees 10-1 and 13-7.
“I just wear what’s in my locker. I just will wear what we’re told to wear,” four-time All-Star outfielder George Springer said, spurning superstitions.
Toronto wore caps with white panels for all games from its inception in 1977 through 1990 – with white jerseys at home – then switched to all blue caps for road games in 1991. The Blue Jays dropped the white panel at home on July 6, 1991, in the midst of a five-game losing streak, going with all blue, and beat the visiting Chicago White Sox 5-1 behind six shutout innings from Dave Stewart.
“I’m not sure what the blue caps were all about,” Stewart said after the game, his 150th career victory. “But we won, so maybe we’ll wear them again.”
Blue Jays equipment manager Jeff Ross thought of the change “just to see how it looks with the white uniform.”
“It had nothing to do with the losing streak,” Ross said at the time. “We’d been doing so well at home so I didn’t want to do it while we were going well. This was the time to do it. It looks great after a win.”
Toronto went on to win its second straight World Series title in 1993, and the all-blue caps remained for most games. The Blue Jays brought back the white panels on Aug. 16, 2015, for a “Turn Back the Dial” promotion honoring the 30th anniversary of the team’s first AL East title, and beat the Yankees 3-1. Toronto then used the white panels at least once per season and as many as 27 times in 2018 and 24 the following year, according to uniformlineup.com, but then decreased its frequency.
The team hadn’t worn them since Aug. 27, 2022, before they returned this year for MLB’s Hall of Fame weekend promotion.
“We’ve been playing well since we’ve been wearing them, which is hard for my argument of, hey, it doesn’t matter what hat we’re wearing guys, like, we just need to play good,” Hoffman said.
And even Springer’s disdain for superstition only goes so far. For instance, he won’t think of stepping on a foul line.
“That,” he said, “would be crazy.”
Rays promise Tropicana Field repairs
Tampa, Fla. – The new owners of the Tampa Bay Rays are promising to get hurricane-damaged Tropicana Field repaired in time for next season and beginning a search for a new, permanent ballpark to open in 2029.
The group led by Florida-based real estate developer Patrick Zalupski finalized a $1.7 billion purchase last week from Stu Sternberg, who owned the Rays for 18 years and had long sought to find the team a new stadium. Zalupski and other top executives Ken Babby and Bill Cosgrove said at a news conference Tuesday they intend for the team to remain in the Tampa Bay area.
Zalupski said the search is on for a site in the region that could include roughly 100 acres (40 hectares) that would support retail shops, bars, restaurants and other amenities along with a ballpark. The stadium itself, he said, would be a domed ballpark with a fixed roof.
“We need a new ballpark. I don’t think that’s disputed by anyone,” Zalupski said. “We want to build a sustainable championship team. We’re confident we can be successful in Tampa Bay.”
Babby, described as the team’s new CEO, acknowledged there is longstanding “fatigue” in the area about where the Rays would build a new home – with frequent speculation they might decide to leave altogether. But MLB has repeatedly said it wants the team to stay. Several sites in the area have previously been considered, such as the nightlife-rich Ybor City neighborhood, the grounds of a Tampa community college and even an old greyhound racetrack.
“We’re looking at everywhere,” Babby said. “We don’t want to pigeonhole ourselves to one location or site.”
Meanwhile, work continues on Tropicana Field, which had its roof ripped off and suffered significant internal damage last October during Hurricane Milton. By the end of the week, Babby said, half of the Trop’s 24 roof panels will be installed.
Under their current lease with the city of St. Petersburg, the Rays are obligated to play at the Trop for three more seasons. The mayors of both Tampa and St. Petersburg attended the news conference.
The Rays in March withdrew from a $1.3 billion project to construct a new ballpark adjacent to Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg, citing the hurricane and delays that likely drove up the proposal’s cost. That led Sternberg to sell the team, which had to pay the New York Yankees $15 million to play this season at the Yankees’ spring training ballpark, Steinbrenner Field in Tampa.
Zalupski, CEO of Jacksonville-based Dream Finders Homes Inc., will be the team’s control person and a co-chair along with Cosgrove, CEO of Union Home Mortgage in Ohio. Babby will run day-to-day business operations.
Babby is CEO of Fast Forward Sports Group, which owns the Triple-A Jacksonville Jumbo Shrimp, a Miami Marlins’ affiliate, and the Double-A Akron RubberDucks, a Cleveland Guardians farm team.
During their time in St. Petersburg, the Rays have struggled with poor attendance, although they’ve been successful on the field. The Rays won American League East titles in 2008, 2010, 2020 and 2021 and twice reached the World Series, losing to Philadelphia in 2008 and to the Los Angeles Dodgers in 2020.
This year, the Rays missed the playoffs with a 77-85 record.
Playoffs scheduleALDS
TORONTO VS. NEW YORK
(Toronto leads 2-0)
Saturday: Toronto, 10-1
Sunday: Toronto, 13-7
Tuesday: at New York, 8:08
x-Wednesday: at New York, 7:08
x-Friday: at Toronto, 8:08
SEATTLE VS. DETROIT
(Series tied 1-1)
Saturday: Detroit, 3-2 (11)
Sunday: Seattle, 3-2
Tuesday: at Detroit, 4:08
Wednesday: at Detroit, 3:08
x-Friday: at Seattle, 4:40
NLDS
MILWAUKEE VS. CHICAGO
(Milwaukee leads 2-0)
Saturday: Milwaukee, 9-3
Monday: Milwaukee, 7-3
Wednesday: at Chicago, 5:08
x-Thursday: at Chicago, TBA
x-Saturday: at Milwaukee, 4:38
PHILADELPHIA VS. LOS ANGELES
(Los Angeles leads 2-0)
Saturday: Los Angeles, 5-3
Monday: Los Angeles, 4-3
Wednesday: at Los Angeles, 9:08
x-Thursday: at Los Angeles, 6:08
x-Saturday: at Philadelphia, 8:08
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