Chicago Sports

Chicago Bulls guard Zach LaVine underwent arthroscopic knee surgery on his left knee on Tuesday in Los Angeles.

The team announced the surgery was successful and that LaVine is expected to make a full recovery. LaVine, who will become an unrestricted free agent this summer, managed discomfort in his knee for most of the second half of the season, after he landed awkwardly grabbing a rebound against the Golden State Warriors on Jan. 14.

LaVine flew to Los Angeles just before the All-Star break to visit Dr. Neal ElAttrache – who performed LaVine’s ACL surgery in 2017 and Tuesday’s procedure – and received a platelet-rich plasma therapy, a cortisone shot and had fluid drained from his left knee to continue playing the rest of the season. He missed 13 of the team’s final 43 games for maintenance on his knee.

“I have to go into the offseason and figure out how to get back to 100 percent, I played this year not at 100 percent. [I will] figure out the best plan, strategy to get my knee feeling back to normal,” LaVine said on a video conference with reporters following the Bulls first round loss to the Milwaukee Bucks.

“Everybody has to deal with stuff throughout the year, I don’t think anybody is playing at 100 percent. If you want to play, you’re going to do whatever you can.”

LaVine averaged 24.4 points, 4.6 rebounds and 4.5 assists in 67 games this season while shooting 47.6% and 38.9% from 3. He made the All-Star game for the second consecutive season despite laboring through the injury for stretches in the second half.

At his season-ending press conference, Bulls vice president of basketball operations Arturas Karnisovas said he wanted LaVine in Chicago long-term and the status of LaVine’s knee would not affect the team’s interest in re-signing him this summer.

“What he had to go through the second part of the season, we definitely appreciate him being in and battling in every game,” Karnisovas said then. “He’s another one that is going to see doctors and going to get healthy, but I enjoyed again the second year with Zach, two years in-a-row being an All-Star, working with Zach and getting to know him. He has a great relationship with Billy, he has a great support system here with our coaching staff and front office, so I hope he’s here for a long time.”

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Marquee Sports Network’s new Sunday show “The Reporters” didn’t air a recorded segment in which the panel questioned Cubs president Jed Hoyer’s transparency regarding the team’s roster rebuild.

In response to questions about the incident, Marquee general manager Mike McCarthy said the show will now air live.

“A judgment was made on the fly that in retrospect was overly sensitive,” McCarthy said. “Going forward, the show will be live, and the reporters on it are completely unedited, as the intention really has been all along. Because the luxury of taping the show was in place, some people decided to get a little careful and avoid, among other things, repetition from other shows.

“It’ll be pretty hard to censor somebody that’s on live television. We’re going to remove that element to it because people make decisions that other people wouldn’t make. But this is not like a Cubs management-Marquee upper management swath across the bow that no one’s ever critical of the Cubs because that’s not the case in this show’s brief history. And it won’t be going forward.”

On Sunday, the panel — which consisted of host Bob Sirott of WGN radio, David Haugh of The Score, Peggy Kusinski of ESPN 1000 and Maddie Lee of the Sun-Times — had begun to discuss the different approaches between former Cubs president Theo Epstein and Hoyer, who has been reticent to describe his plan as rebuilding.

After Kusinski and Haugh spoke, Lee said she was about to speak when a producer said they needed to restart the segment because of technical difficulties. But before they began, the panel was told to steer clear of talk about transparency.

“We all looked at each other very confused, like, is this happening?” Lee said. “I said it’s peak irony that they’re going to blame technical issues in restarting a segment about transparency.”

Sun-Times sports editor Chris De Luca told the staff Tuesday that the Sun-Times would no longer participate in the show.

In partnership with Sinclair Broadcast Group, Marquee launched in 2020 as the exclusive home of Cubs local game broadcasts. The network created “The Reporters” in the same vein as “The Sports Writers on TV,” which aired from 1985 to 2001. A panel of sports reporters sits around a card table beneath a pool-hall light and discusses the topics of the day

“The conversation wasn’t anything that I thought in the moment was controversial,” Lee said. “Transparency has been a common topic of conversation. I don’t blame the people working on it, they’re in a weird spot. They have that in the backs of their heads. This is the problem with team-owned stations. They were probably trying to avoid the specific criticism of how Jed was handling the messaging.”

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White Sox center fielder Luis Robert landed on the COVID-19 related injured list Tuesday, hours before the team opened a three-game series at home against the Boston Red Sox.

Infielder Jake Burger was recalled from Triple-A Charlotte.

Robert has been one of the Sox’ most productive hitters this season and has recently assumed the No.3 spot in manager Tony La Russa’s lineup. He is batting .285/.319/.438 with a team-high six homers, three doubles, 17 RBI and 21 runs scored in 33 games.

He is second on the team in hits, RBI, runs scored, stolen bases and total bases (60).

Burger is hitting .239 with two homers, two doubles and seven RBI in 21 games with the Sox in 2022.

He is 10-for-47 (.213) with three homers and eight RBI over 13 games with Charlotte this season.

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A Bulls road trip next season will take them all the way to Paris.

The NBA announced Tuesday morning that the Bulls will play the Pistons in a regular-season game at Accor Arena in Paris on Thursday, Jan. 19, 2023. The Bulls played two preseason games in Paris in 1997.

The Pistons have played regular-season games in London in 2013 and Mexico City in 2019. This will be their first game in France.

“It is a great honor to bring Chicago Bulls basketball back to Paris for The NBA Paris Game 2023 — an event that illustrates the league’s commitment to amplifying the national and global impact of basketball,” Bulls vice president Arturas Karnisovas said in a statement released by the NBA.

The Bulls-Pistons matchup will be the first NBA game in Europe since 2020 and the league’s 12th game in France since 1991. The NBA’s first regular-season game in Paris was played Jan. 24, 2020, between the Charlotte Hornets and Milwaukee Bucks.

Fans can visit www.nbaevents.nba.com/paris/nba-paris for ticket presale information.

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A Bulls road trip next season will take them all the way to Paris.

The NBA announced Tuesday morning that the Bulls will play the Pistons in a regular-season game at Accor Arena in Paris on Thursday, Jan. 19, 2023. The Bulls played two preseason games in Paris in 1997.

The Pistons have played regular-season games in London in 2013 and Mexico City in 2019. This will be their first game in France.

“It is a great honor to bring Chicago Bulls basketball back to Paris for The NBA Paris Game 2023 — an event that illustrates the league’s commitment to amplifying the national and global impact of basketball,” Bulls vice president Arturas Karnisovas said in a statement released by the NBA.

The Bulls-Pistons matchup will be the first NBA game in Europe since 2020 and the league’s 12th game in France since 1991. The NBA’s first regular-season game in Paris was played Jan. 24, 2020, between the Charlotte Hornets and Milwaukee Bucks.

Fans can visit www.nbaevents.nba.com/paris/nba-paris for ticket presale information.

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The Chicago Bears lost some talent at wide receiver but are hoping the depth works out to their advantage for quarterback Justin Fields

Elite wide receivers are expensive, and for the Chicago Bears, they’re hard to come by right now. Allen Robinson leaving the Bears receiving core to go to the Los Angeles Rams this offseason has the Bears looking at their roster without a definite number 1 wide receiver.

Darnell Mooney was the best wide receiver on the roster that’s returning this season, but many analysts don’t know if he’s a number 2 receiver on most NFL teams. Second-year quarterback Justin Fields was gifted Velus Jones Jr. in the 2022 NFL draft’s third round. This offseason, the Bears acquired Byron Pringle and a slew of other wide receivers in free agency to bring the depth at the position to 14 by OTA’s.

Fields, in an interview with Scott Polacek for a Bleacher Report exclusive interview, acknowledged the Bears don’t have an elite play at wide receiver this year. Here’s what Fields told Polacek:

“We don’t have an Odell [Beckham Jr.] or a Cooper Kupp on our team, but at the end of the day I think if everybody is on their P’s and Q’s, and we’re on top of everything and not making mistakes, the players we have right now are good enough,” he told Bleacher Report in an exclusive interview. “The front office thinks that, too. The fans outside of the facility, they don’t know what’s going on at practice. Just because we don’t have a big-name guy, doesn’t mean those guys aren’t talented. I have plenty of confidence in myself and my teammates that we’re going to get the job done.”

Good enough

Fields understands that with the lack of elite play, the pressure will be on him and the wide receivers they have to be near damn perfect on every route and throw this season with little margin for error. “Good enough” isn’t exactly a ringing endorsement for an NFL group. It certainly isn’t as comforting as say, great.

To make the NFL, players who make rosters for training camp have to have talent. That’s not much for the quarterback to say, because it’s doubtful he’d call out members of the unit to the media that would cause division in the locker room.

While Bears fans aren’t seeing what’s going on in practice outside of a few tweets—exceptions being the pass rookie Trestan Ebner dropped in practice last week—they can read reports of “struggles” the offense had during voluntary minicamp.

It’s great that Fields thinks they can get the job done, even if he admitted the Bears’ best receiver isn’t as good as the Rams trio of Robinson, Kupp, and Beckham Jr. But a player as smart as Fields knows his skills are not being elevated to what they could be with an elite receiver such as Beckham Jr. (Note, Fields used the Super Bowl-winning Rams has his example, a team that pulled all the stops to make Mathew Stafford look competent again.) Beckham Jr. would be the perfect player for the Bears to go after this offseason if they can negotiate with him in free agency.

Make sure to check out our Bears forum for the latest on the team.

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CINCINNATI – As Cubs third baseman Patrick Wisdom’s three-run homer dropped in the right-center field seats at Great American Ball Park, it extended a streak the club hadn’t witnessed in years.

Including the Cubs’ 7-4 win against the Reds on Monday, Wisdom has homered in four straight games.

The last Cub to do so was Anthony Rizzo in 2015.

That year the Cubs’ rebuild surged ahead of schedule. A lot would have to fall the Cubs’ way for that to happen again. But a flexible approach to team building partially explains president of baseball operations Jed Hoyer’s unwillingness to put a date on the next time the Cubs will be a division contender.

As for where the Cubs are in their team-building cycle now, Hoyer is just as hesitant to make any promises.

“Evaluating where we are, evaluating our division and where we are playoff-wise,” Hoyer said of how the Cubs will decide whether to sell at the trade deadline. “And now, obviously, you’re taking a look into the next few years as well. There are certain pieces that are, quote unquote, rentals that may not be back. But there are certain pieces you get asked about that are part of your future.”

Last season, an 11-game losing streak before the trade deadline made up Hoyer’s mind for him. As Cubs fans won’t soon forget, their team traded away one-third of its opening day roster, including championship core members Rizzo, Javy B?ez and Kris Bryant.

Back in 2015, those three pushed up the Cubs’ championship timeline.

“You hear about all the guys that are potentially coming,” Cubs manager David Ross said of joining the organization as a player in 2015. “But you know, from a veteran player standpoint, I think the message is, we’ll see when they get here. … I think that that holds true.”

The Cubs were seven games over .500 (47-40) in the first half of that 2015 season, before going on a 50-25 run in the second half. They made a surprise trip to the National League Championship Series, signaling to the front office that it was time to go all in on a championship.

“I don’t think anybody would sit there and early in the season and see that type of team from what we had,” Ross recalled, “but a few holes filled in, and good things happen, guys get confidence.”

Maybe those kinds of timeline-altering players are on the Cubs’ roster now. Utility player Christopher Morel and pitcher Brandon Hughes made a splash in their major-league debuts last week. Maybe they’re in the minors, waiting for their turn, like right-hander Caleb Kilian, who’s expected to debut this season. Maybe the Cubs have yet to acquire them.

In the meantime, this team is starting to round into shape, still navigating a slew of injuries. But the rotation is finally whole, with Wade Miley (left elbow soreness) and Marcus Stroman (COVID-19) returning from the IL in the past couple weeks.

“It’s great,” Miley said. “It’s a little bit different than most rotations in the game, right? Not to say other guys aren’t pitchers, but we’re more reliant on location, and we’re more reliant on pitching in a sense – we can’t just go out there and blow doors off and think we can get away with it.”

The Cubs (17-24), one-fourth of the way through the season, sat tied for third place with the Pirates in the National League Central standings after thewin Monday.

“A lot of good progress has been made,” Ross said, pointing to the work shortstop Nico Hoerner, Wisdom and outfielder Ian Happ put in during the offseason, in particular. “I thought we’ve gotten much better on the bases than when we started. I still think there’s some areas where we can grow.”

On Monday, Happ went 2-for-3 with a game-winning three-run home run.

Are the Cubs improving quickly enough to usher in a championship-caliber season ahead of schedule?

Wisdom’s fourth straight home run game could very well be one of only a few 2015-like moments for the Cubs this year. But as Ross said, “narratives can change really fast.”

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CINCINNATI — Wade Miley’s son had a special request on Monday, with the family visiting Cincinnati for the Cubs’ four-game series against the veteran lefty’s former team. Jeb wanted Graeter’s Ice Cream for lunch.

“When we lived here, it’d be probably three or four days a week, nine o’clock at night, my wife or Jeb would be like, ‘Hey, let’s go to Graeter’s,'” Miley recalled. “And we’d take off.”

So, on Monday, they had ice cream for lunch.

Miley isn’t scheduled to pitch in the four-game series, but on Tuesday, Cincinnati plans to present him with the Reds Most Outstanding Pitcher award for 2021, voted on by the local BBWAA chapter. The Cubs claimed Miley off waivers from the Reds this winter, as Cincinnati plunged into a rebuild.

The Cubs (16-24) and Reds (12-28) entered play Monday as two of the bottom three teams in the division, along with the Pirates (16-24).

“I think [Reds general manager] Nick Krall knows what he’s doing,” Miley said. “I think he’s got a plan, and I wish them nothing but the best.”

The Reds roster looks much different than it did at the end of last season, but Miley still knows a few players on the other side of the field. He sprinted out of the dugout during afternoon batting practice to greet Mike Moustakas. And Joey Votto notably remained on the team through the offseason upheaval.

“During the COVID season, you spent a lot of time with your teammates because we were in a bubble,” Miley said. “So, we were hanging out together and didn’t have a choice. … So we got really close. We found ways to have fun and enjoy those times.”

Contreras out of lineup

Cubs manager David Ross said he was confident that catcher Willson Contreras will avoid the injured list after leaving Saturday’s game with a right hamstring strain. He was out of the starting lineup Monday and his status remained day-to-day.

“We’ll see how he is, get out, move around a little bit,” Ross said Monday afternoon. “We’ll give him a couple of days to rest up.”

Hoerner approaching return

Cubs shortstop Nico Hoerner is “close” to returning from the 10-day IL (right ankle sprain), Ross said. Hoerner fielded ground balls and took batting practice before the game Monday.

“Hopefully in a few days, we’ll see,” Ross said

In other injury news…

Cubs second baseman Nick Madrigal is progressing toward a rehab stint, but Ross did not give a timeline for when it will begin, saying that the Cubs will continue to monitor him. Time in Triple-A could also help Madrigal get in a groove at the plate after starting the season with an uncharacteristically low .203 batting average.

Cubs outfielder Clint Frazier (appendicitis) is five games into his rehab assignment with Triple-A Iowa, hitting .176 in 17 at-bats. Ross said didn’t have a sense for how many games Frazier will need before returning.

Cubs left-hander Sean Newcomb (left ankle sprain) is scheduled to start a Triple-A rehab stint Tuesday.

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It has been a mere seven years since Chris Sale struck out 274 batters, breaking Ed Walsh’s White Sox record of 269 that had stood since 1908.

Sale’s record might be outside Dylan Cease’s reach. Sale pitched 208? innings in 2015. Cease’s top total was 165? last season, and he’s on a pace for just more than 170 in 2022.

Per nine innings, however, Cease is on a pace to shatter his own Sox record. With 226 strikeouts last season, he averaged 12.28 per nine innings, besting Lucas Giolito’s 12.07 in the COVID-shortened 2020 season and Sale’s 11.82 in 2015.

With 67 strikeouts in 43? innings so far in 2022, Cease is one-upping himself with 13.81 per nine innings to top the majors.

Strikeouts aside, Cease has been brilliant — and perhaps even better than his 4-1 record and 3.09 ERA. Fangraphs lists him in a sixth-place tie with a 1.4 pitching WAR, and a calculation of normal results on balls in play against him lead to a 2.23 expected ERA.

Statcast data at baseballsavant.mlb.com indicate Cease’s opponents’ batting average of .209 and slugging percentage of .325 are higher than the expected .182 and .314.

That’s in contrast to the major-league trends. The major-league batting average of .236 is lower than the .253 expected batting average and the .380 slugging percentage is much lower than the .435 expected slugging percentage. The combination might suggest the ball isn’t carrying as far, whether because of weather, winds, a deadened ball, ballpark humidors or early-season chance.

If Cease stays at 13.81 strikeouts per nine innings, it would rank third in history behind Shane Bieber’s 14.20 in 2020 and Gerrit Cole’s 13.82 in 2019.

There have been 30 pitcher seasons of ERA title qualifiers striking out 12 or more batters per nine innings. Only six were before 2000, all in the 1990s.

Kerry Wood’s Cubs record of 12.6 in 1998 is in that group, along with Pedro Martinez at 13.2 in 1999 and Randy Johnson four times (12.3 in 1995 and 1997 and 12.1 in 1998 and 1999).

Two pitchers, both White Sox, are on track to join the list this season: Cease and Giolito, who is at 12.5 strikeouts per nine innings in 31? innings.

By contrast, total strikeout leaders are spread through baseball history. Since the two-league era began in 1901, there have been 38 seasons of 300 or more strikeouts, from Rube Waddell’s 302 in 1903 to Cole’s 326 and Justin Verlander’s 300 in 2019.

Nolan Ryan is No. 1 at 383 in 1973, and the 1970s have the most 300-strikeout seasons with 11.

Cease and other modern pitchers are short on innings to build such lofty totals. The fewest innings in a 300-strikeout season were Cole’s 212,, in 2019. In 2021, only four pitchers threw 200-plus innings and only Zack Wheeler (213,,) exceeded Cole’s 2019 total.

Cease’s pace toward 170 innings would require 15.88 strikeouts per nine innings to reach 300 — two more strikeouts per game than his major-league-leading pace.

For his era, Cease is carrying a normal workload. Sox fans can be happy he’s bringing far better than normal results.

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