Considering he was able to sleep in his own bed Thursday night, would this rank as half a home game for Cubs manager Craig Counsell?
“That’s a good way to say it,’’ Counsell said while the Cubs’ Seiya Suzuki and Shota Imanaga were posing for photos with fellow Japanese star Munetaka Murakami of the White Sox before the opener of the crosstown series Friday.
“It’s nice when you look at the schedule, and you see nine games of gray boxes [road games], but then you finish at home. Yeah, it is nice.’’
The Cubs played three in Texas against the Rangers, three in Atlanta against the Braves and flew home Thursday night after salvaging the series finale 2-0.
Count Counsell among those who don’t consider Cubs-Sox as a blood rivalry on the field.
“I think this is a great series for the fans,’’ Counsell said of a three-game set that is expected to draw more than 100,000 fans and is all but sold out, though tickets always pop up on the secondary market. “That’s what this is to me.
“You could sit next to your mom and dad, and they might be rooting for different teams. Or your in-laws, your friends, rooting for different teams.
“This is a fan series, and that’s what makes it fun. Fans create the atmosphere of the stadium, and the atmosphere of the stadium is good every time these teams play.’’
This is the first time since 2008 that both have winning records when they square off, but, again, Counsell said that’s fodder for the fans more than the players.
“I’ll be honest,’’ he said. “Players don’t care about standings when the game starts. Nobody cares.’’
Hendriks’ grand vision
Liam Hendriks beat Stage 4 cancer, then had Tommy John surgery on his right elbow 10 days after returning to the Sox, and he came back from that, too.
Did you really think Hendriks, 37, was going to call it a career after the Twins released him in spring training?
Not on your life, say those close to Hendriks, whose two All-Star seasons (2021, 2022) as the Sox’ closer were as electrifying as anything seen on the South Side since Bobby Jenks.
But it was not happenstance, either, that led Hendriks to sign a minor-league deal with the Cubs this week. After discussions with the Cubs’ pitching department, headed by Tyler Zombro, the team’s vice president of pitching strategy, and with Hendriks already working with the pitching gurus at the Cubs’ facility in Arizona, he has his sights focused on more than just pitching at Triple-A Iowa.
The bigger vision is this: Hendriks, whose arm is healthy, has been persuaded that the Cubs have the sophisticated analytical tools that will help him rediscover the mechanics that made him so dominant in the past, even if the velocity might not be the same.
The plan is for him to spend maybe two to three weeks to ramp up in Arizona before being assigned to Iowa, but that’s just a way station to Hendriks’ ultimate goal: winning a position at the back end of the Cubs’ bullpen and pitching in meaningful games in September.
Will it happen? Have we learned by now not to bet against the Aussie?
Thielbar update
Left-handed reliever Caleb Thielbar, sidelined by a hamstring strain, is scheduled to pitch in a rehab assignment Saturday for Class A South Bend in Appleton, Wisconsin, Counsell said.
