Chicago Sports

CLEVELAND — White Sox center fielder Luis Robert was removed from the team’s 6-3 loss to the Guardians Thursday afternoon after running out a ground ball in the eighth inning.

Robert appeared to tweak something after rapping a ground ball to shortstop.

Adam Haseley moved from left field to center to take Robert’s spot, and Danny Mendick entered the game in left in the bottom of the inning. There was no immediate word from the White Sox as to why Robert came out of the game.

Robert snapped an 0-for-21 slump by lining a 400-foot double off the top of the left-center field wall in the fourth inning and singled in the sixth. He was caught stealing after the base hit.

The Indians (7-5) completed a three-game sweep of the Sox (6-6), who have lost four straight after a 6-2 start.

Franmil Reyes homered against Dylan Cease, producing two of the four runs scored against the Sox starter. The Sox runs came on Yasmani Grandal’s sacrifice fly and a pair of Guardians errors in the seventh that pulled the Sox within 4-3 in the seventh.

The Guardians responded with two runs against Kendall Graveman in the bottom of the seventh.

Robert was on the injured list in 2021 from May 3 through Aug. 9 with a torn hip flexor, an injury sustained while running out a ground ball.

The Sox have been slammed with injuries this season, a list that includes pitchers Lance Lynn, Lucas Giolito, Garrett Crochet and Ryan Burr and position players Yoan Moncada, AJ Pollock, Josh Harrison and Eloy Jimenez.

Pollock (hamstring), an outfielder, is expected to rejoin the team Friday in Minneapolis. Giolito is expected to pitch Sunday after missing two starts. Harrison and Jimenez have dealt with minor injuries and are not on the IL.

The Sox lost their third in a row to the Guardians and fourth in a row overall.

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Bears safety Eddie Jackson knows how last year looked. He saw it just as clearly as you did.

“Yeah, it wasn’t the best at all,” he said after Thursday’s final voluntary minicamp practice at Halas Hall. “I think that’s probably one of my worst seasons. I gave up too many deep balls. Just trying to eliminate that. The little things with your eyes, breaking on the ball, attention to details. Little things, little fixes that you could make.”

You could make a similar case for Jackson’s 2020 season, too. An opportunistic player that once embodied the Bears’ NFL-best defense turned into someone who struggled to make tackles and explosive plays.

Consider this: In the three years before Jackson signed a four-year, $58.4 million contract extension to stay with the Bears in January 2020, he had 15 takeaways — 10 interceptions and five fumble recoveries. In the two years since the contract extension: no interceptions, one fumble recovery.

Jackson is one of the last vestiges of the Bears’ dominant 2018 defense — he and linebacker Roquan Smith are the only two starters left on the roster.The man that drafted Jackson and signed him to his extension, former GM Ryan Pace, is gone, too. Jackson is the only member of Pace’s once-ballyhooed 2017 draft class still at Halas Hall. The safety might be playing somewhere else, too, butthe Bears would have had to pay $24.6 million in dead cap money had they released him this offseason.

Jackson can benefit from new head coach Matt Eberflus’ new defensive scheme, which, over the last four years in Indianapolis, produced the second-most turnovers in the NFL. If he doesn’t, Jackson might not be around longer. Jackson’s dead cap charge shrinks to $9.6 million next year; his new GM, Ryan Poles, doesn’t have the same attachment to him that Pace did.

Eberflus liked what he saw during the Bears’ three-day voluntary minicamp. For one, Jackson participated on two of three days –other veterans, like cornerback Jaylon Johnson and edge rusher Robert Quinn, didn’t practice at all.

“I can see it in [Jackson’s] attitude and his demeanor,” Eberflus said. “I could see it in his eyes when I talk to him –that he is energized and he sees it as a fresh start for him. I can see it in his practice, too, just the way he’s carrying himself. He’s been great in the meetings and he’s been great on the practice field.”

Jackson thinks Eberflus’ base Cover 2 scheme will help him keep the ball in his line of sight.

“It’s probably a lot simpler,” said Jackson, who is playing for his third coordinator in as many years. “It’s not too much ‘Eyes here, eyes there.’ You just see what’s in front of you and play. … Just seeing what’s … breaking in front of your eyes, not in 1,000 places.”

Now the Bears need him to make those plays. Pro Football Focus last year ranked him 66th among safeties — alarming, considering there are only 64 starters league-wide.

“That’s what I want to get back to, is, making those plays,” Jackson said. “That’s the biggest thing for me is, just go out there flying around and lead my guys. That’s by playing good, making plays and getting back to how you know you’re capable of playing.”

Jackson said he needs to control what he can. That includes his effort, execution and willingness to embrace the new defense.

“I’m going to do whatever it takes,” he said. “I’m willing to buy in. Whatever it takes. Whatever they ask of me, I’m willing to do it.”

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Fresh faces entered this week’s Chicago Bears voluntary minicamp learning new offensive coordinator Luke Getsy’s system. While Bears followers weren’t expecting perfection from the new group in April, things aren’t looking good early on.

The bulk of complaints were implicating Justin Fields and the passing game.

Fortunately for the offense, the calendar reads April 21, 2022. There’s still a long way to go yet before the season and the team is installing a new offense under Luke Getsy.  So there will be growing pains along the way.

The Bears will have plenty of opportunities to get better in their new offense in the offseason. The roster isn’t even complete yet, with the Bears expecting to pick up new offensive weapons in the 2022 NFL Draft.

It’s not time to panic just yet, but still this might not be a great sign moving forward.

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

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The Chicago Bulls have made this a series after stealing Game 2 in Milwaukee backed by a career-game from DeMar DeRozan and excellent defense led by Alex Caruso. Chicago’s win has evened the series at 1 and they very well could have a 2-0 lead after storming back but falling short in Game 1.

As the series shifts back to Chicago, the Bulls feel like they have a shot in this series and are starting to regain their form. And a meeting last week may have been the key to that.

Following the game both Billy Donovan and Nikola Vucevic pointed to a meeting on the first day after the regular season to help them prepare for whats to come in the playoffs:

With an incredible defensive effort led by Caruso, who the Bulls are really going to need again in every remaining game, it sort of felt like the team we watched for the previous months before the struggles happened.

And after the game, Caruso himself talked about that via Rob Schafer of NBC Sports Chicago:

“We had a long season. We had a lot of adversity. It was almost a little bit of, we were just trying to start the playoffs already. We were kind of in a hole,” Caruso said. “But we got our spirit back. We talked to each other about the opportunity we had in front of us. It’s the playoffs. If you’ve gotta get up to play for the playoffs, you probably shouldn’t play. It just comes with the territory.”

Can the Bulls keep this up? That’s the biggest question going forward and if they do, they have a shot at upsetting the defending champions. However, Giannis and the Bucks won’t be an easy out even if the Bulls do win Game 3.

But things just got a whole lot more interesting in this series.

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

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When NBC switched Bryant Gumbel from hosting sports to hosting the “Today” show in 1982, some viewers couldn’t see him making the change.

“There were a lot of people who were saying, ‘Oh, my God, how is he gonna talk to presidents and prime ministers? He never talked to anybody brighter than a linebacker,’ ” Gumbel recalled this week.

But he figured that no matter whom he interviewed, the basics were the same – ask intelligent questions and make sure that the answers are clear to the viewers.

With that simple game plan, Gumbel was a rousing success, hosting “Today” for 15 years. He carried that success into his next major endeavor, hosting HBO’s “Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel,” which launched in 1995. In its 28th season, the show celebrated its 300th episode Tuesday. It’s available to stream on HBO Max.

“It’s very gratifying,” said Gumbel, 73. “I’ve never made any secret that this is the best show on which I’ve ever worked. I attribute it to a lot of good people who’ve worked very hard to make it possible. I’m glad that there’s still room on the American landscape for good, intelligent television.”

“Real Sports” is a sophisticated sports show in an industry that’s lacking them. Rather than yell thoughts and opinions in your face, Gumbel does what he always has – speak eloquently, explain the facts and provide perspective. He’s one of the few broadcasters who can navigate between news and sports.

Gumbel has kept “Real Sports” in sports fans’ conscience despite an evolving media landscape. Competition for consumers has grown, and there’s more instantaneous media available. How has a monthly magazine-style show stayed relevant?

“At the risk of oversimplifying it,” Gumbel said, “I would say that we have remained consistent in what we wanted to try to do, which is tell good cultural stories with sports as the centerpiece and to try to do them with a degree of professionalism and never try to dumb it down for the audience.

“I always say that our show is about sports like ‘Rocky’ was about boxing. ‘Rocky’ was about self-esteem, opportunity, class warfare, economics, education. Boxing happened to be the vehicle that gave us an opportunity to explore all those elements. And that’s what we use sports for.”

The show also has affected change. A segment in 2004 uncovered boys in the United Arab Emirates being forcibly taken to be camel jockeys. They lived in horrible conditions, and many were killed or crippled in competition. The practice became illegal because of the expose.

“Real Sports” can tackle challenging topics because it has no affiliations. The show and HBO don’t have relationships with leagues, they don’t have sponsors and they’re not driven by ratings.

“Two of the worst words in modern sports television are ‘broadcast partner,’ ” Gumbel said. “I’ve been on the other side of this, having worked at NBC for 25 years and having worked at CBS, and I’m aware of the limitations that are exercised because you have a relationship with leagues or with sponsors.”

Gumbel and his brother, Greg, who works for CBS Sports, grew up in Hyde Park and graduated from De La Salle Institute. They have such similar demeanors and styles, viewers might think it’s inherent. But whereas Greg has said he was influenced by broadcasting peers, Bryant’s influence came at home.

“I’ve always said that I’m my father’s son,” Gumbel said. “And I’ve always tried to conduct myself in that fashion. He was in every way a better person, a smarter person, a harder-working person than I could ever hope to be. And I wanted to do his memory proud and be like him.”

Richard Gumbel was a World War II veteran and a Chicago judge who put himself through college and law school. He died of a heart attack in his courtroom in April 1972, six months before Bryant became a sportscaster at KNBC-TV in Los Angeles.

“My only regret is that my dad died before I was ever on the air,” Gumbel said. “He never got a chance to see anything. I never got a chance to let him enjoy the many things that I could not have possibly learned but for him.”

This fall, Gumbel will have spent 50 years in television. He has shown no signs of slowing, and he doesn’t know when he’ll stop. Gumbel has a year and a half left on his HBO contract, at the end of which he’ll be 74.

“Hopefully I’ll still have all my marbles, hopefully I’ll still be in good health,” Gumbel said. “But in television, as in sports, you’d rather leave a year early than a day late. And I never wanna be the guy who used to be Bryant Gumbel. I’ll asses it a year and a half from now and see what’s going on.”

Remote patrol

Game 3 of the Bulls-Bucks series Friday will air on NBC Sports Chicago and ABC 7. ESPN is putting its top crew on the game – Mike Breen, Jeff Van Gundy, Mark Jackson and Lisa Salters. Game 4 on Sunday will air exclusively on ABC 7. Dave Pasch, Hubie Brown and Malika Andrews will call it.The White Sox-Twins game Saturday will air on NBCSCH and FS1, which will carry it nationally. Aaron Goldsmith, former Cub Eric Karros and Ken Rosenthal will have the call.For those still interested, the Blackhawks’ game Monday against the Flyers is exclusive to ESPN+ and Hulu.Read More

CLEVELAND — All-Star shortstop Tim Anderson moved on from a horrific fielding game, turned the page and chalked it up as a learning experience. He went so far to say he was “glad it happened.”

“You need things like that to happen,’ Anderson said Thursday morning, a day after making three errors in the first two innings of an 11-1 loss on the front end of a doubleheader sweep by the Guardians. “You want to be great, so you’ve got to always go through the process where you learn, to where you understand yourself. In a situation I haven’t been in, haven’t been there before. It’s something you can learn and grow from.”

Manager Tony La Russa took blame for his team not looking ready to play after two consecutive postponed games in Cleveland due to bad weather.

“That’s a lot for him to say, but at the end of the day he wasn’t the one out there fielding the ground balls, he wasn’t out there hitting,” Anderson said.

“It’s just understand that we’ve been sitting around for two days, no excuses, but you know you’ve got to get yourself ready to play. In those situations you’ve got to understand that you have been sitting around for two days and you have to up the level of focus more. I can understand that I wasn’t on point yesterday. But now it’s a new day.”

Anderson’s fielding funk Thursday afternoon, though. His throw on Armed Rosario’s routine ground ball in the first inning pulled first baseman Jose Abreu off the bag, his fourth error in two games.

Anderson, who made a pair of good plays and doubled home the Sox’ only run of the game after the errors, appeared to let a heckler get the best of him later in the game, and was seen on the TV broadcast raising a middle finger toward the stands. He declined comment on that Thursday.

“Move forward, flush it, keep growing and learning and try to make today better than yesterday,” Anderson said.

Anderson has hit safely in his first eight games.

Leury in the 3 hole

La Russa batted Leury Garcia third for the second straight game, a move that raised eyebrows considering Garcia’s .077 average going into Thursday. For a team that had averaged two runs over its previous six games, La Russa, citing Garcia’s .385 average (5-for-13) vs. Zach Plesac and his 1-for-3 game with a walk and fly ball to the warning track Wednesday night.

“And when you’re kind of in a funk, sometimes a change of scenery does something,” La Russa said. “It’s not really dramatic, it’s just that one move. But he’s been known to get hot and if can get hot, he does a lot of things for your offense. So we’ll see. I thought he was inspired yesterday. He took really good at-bats, ran the bases.”

Money

Lefty Tanner Banks, the 30-year-old rookie, is unavailable for a couple of days after throwing four more scoreless innings Wednesday. Banks has not allowed a run over 9 1/3 innings covering four games.

“You can tell he feels confident, he’s making better pitches,” La Russa said. “The trick in this game is to maintain the anxiety that keeps you focused. You don’t want to drift into, ‘Oh, I got it now.’ Or you get spanked. But man, he’s really done a good job.”

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This past offseason the Chicago Cubs made some major changes in their bullpen bringing in some new faces. New faces were needed after trading away key names like Craig Kimbrel, Ryan Tepera, and fan-favorite Andrew Chafin last year at the trade deadline. One familiar face from last season who is still around and making his presence known is Keegan Thompson out in the bullpen.

This Chicago Tribune article described Thompson perfectly in their title with including the quote from Kyle Hendricks, “he’s just dominant right now.”  Hendricks is right because Thompson is just so lethal out there to start off the 2022 campaign. There is no better word to describe his pitching out there on the mound at the moment than dominant.

Thompson so far in the 2022 season has not given up a run in 9.2 innings pitched. In those 9.2 innings pitched he has struck out 11 batters, only given out 2 free passes with walks, and allowing just 4 hits to the opposition. It is a small sample size, but not many guys around the league in the bullpen can say they have as good of stats as Thompson two weeks into the season.

This is year two for Thompson pitching at the major league level for the Cubs. Last year in 2021, Thompson made 32 appearances, starting in 6 of those games. He finished the season going 3-3 with a 3.38 era. He started out his big league career throwing a scoreless inning against the Cincinnati Reds. There were a few spot starts after being called up, but pitched majority out of the bullpen. Then towards the end of the season the Cubs gave him a few more starts in the rotation. Those last few starts were a bit rocky compared to his time in the bullpen.

Flash forward to 2022 and Keegan Thompson was not one of the five selected to be in the starting rotation. This sure is looking like the right call with how well he is pitching in relief. He also just looks more comfortable out there again in the bullpen. His array of pitches has been key in his dominance out there on the mound. Thompson has a fastball, curveball, and a really nasty cutter to keep the hitters off balance and not sitting on one pitch. Tampa Bay Rays player Ji-Man Choi will be the first to tell you how nasty Thompson is out there on the mound after watching this video below.

Another key to Thompson’s success is his ability to attack hitters. His confidence is extremely high right now, so that helps with coming in and attacking hitters right away. He is doing a great job of coming in and consistently throwing strikes and getting ahead in the count. Getting ahead in the count and being effective does not allow the hitters to get comfortable in the box. There also is going to be a lot of confidence in your stuff when you have not given up a run in 9.2 innings of work.

Respect could be another word that you can use to describe Thompson on this Cubs roster. It is still unclear if Thompson was told to hit Brewers outfielder Andrew McCutchen in the opening series by manager David Ross, or if he did it on his own. One thing that is for sure now is the respect from catcher Willson Contreras, and others if he did not have it already on his end. Going out there and having your teammates back day in and day out goes along way in the clubhouse.

From Thompson’s time in the bullpen last year, and now in 2022 so far it sure seems like the Cubs have found an elite reliever in their bullpen for hopefully many years to come moving forward. You can never have too many quality arms on the roster. Thompson is hoping to get his number called in this upcoming series against the Pirates a few times to help the team raise the W flag at Wrigley Field.

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

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MILWAUKEE – It wasn’t just Billy Donovan trying to play head games with coachspeak.

He wanted his Bulls players to understand the needed physicality of a playoff series against the defending NBA Champions, the “price of admission” – as Donovan called it – each would have to be willing to pay.

Alex Caruso was not only willing to pay his own way after the Game 1 loss, but threw his wallet on the bar, gathered his teammates around him, and yelled “next round is on me!”

“He’s the anchor to our defense,” veteran DeMar DeRozan said of Caruso after the Game 2 win on Wednesday. “Bringing the intensity, being vocal. I think I told him not too long ago I lean off him for his energy defensively. Just him being vocal. He’s a leader when it comes to that. He gets me going, even if he’s not talking to me directly there’s a lot that I take from it. I kind of take on that challenge, especially when you see him go out there and competing against whoever it is. If it’s Giannis [Antetokounmpo], Jrue [Holiday], whoever it is, you want to match that same intensity as him.”

Almost impossible to do, especially in the wake of Caruso’s latest gritty piece of artwork.

Two of the team’s seven steals, two blocks, including one on 7-footer Brook Lopez, a huge offensive rebound with 35.1 seconds left and the game still in the balance, and then drawing the game-ending charge on Antetokounmpo 30 seconds later.

Then factor in the combo guard’s 10 assists, three three-pointers, and his game-high plus-16 in plus/minus, and just like that the “Caru-Show” tour bus spoiled the night for the home crowd, packed up the bus, and drove back to Chicago filled with a new confidence in a best-of-seven series now tied at 1-1.

And Caruso’s attitude about the somewhat shocking Game 2 win?

“Go to Game 3,” Caruso said very matter-of-factly. “We gotta win three more times. Lot more games to play.”

The perfect attitude for a Bulls team that is filled with playoff inexperience. Besides Caruso, only Tristan Thompson has kissed a Larry O’Brien Trophy at the end of a season. Thompson, however, is only a role player for this team, while Caruso is the head of the defensive snake.

What they have in common is both being disciples of LeBron James.

According to Caruso, the championship he won with James two years ago with the Lakes taught him the importance of embracing the details. Whether it’s a game plan or an opponent’s tendencies through film study.

That was all on display in Game 2, as well.

As good as Caruso was, Donovan’s defensive game plan was masterful. Not only because of the schemes, but the way they changed from possession to possession.

Yes, Antetokounmpo often had a wall of Bulls players built in front of him when trying to attack the paint, but it was also the way the Bulls blitzed certain Bucks players depending on where they were on the floor, and then other times look like a blitzing double-team was coming, only to pull it off.

It left veteran players like Holiday and Khris Middleton looking uncertain and confused, evident by the 10 combined turnovers for the two.

Caruso was the voice behind a lot of the defensive calls, but Donovan was the architect of the controlled chaos.

“I think if you show the same thing over and over and over they kind of get a beat on it, so we’ve tried to sprinkle some things in where we give guys some latitude and freedom [on defense] to understand what we’re trying to get accomplished,” Donovan said. “Sometimes faking, sometimes going … we obviously cleaned up some things coming out of Game 1.”

Made easier with Caruso’s IQ and voice.

“He’s just really smart out there,” Donovan added of Caruso. “He’s going to give you everything he has.”

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GLENDALE, Ariz. –This hasn’t been the Blackhawks season Jake McCabe envisioned.

“I’m prettyunhappy with it,” he said Wednesday, wasting no words. “We weren’t winning this year. [We] had pretty high expectations and didn’t get it done.”

McCabe can’t be blamed for feeling frustrated. He left the Sabres after six losing years and signed with the Hawks as a free agent last summer, optimistic about the fresh start in his offseason home city, only to suffer through arguably his most miserable season yet and see his new team launched into a rebuild a few steps behind the Sabres.

At age 28, as he wraps up his seventh season as a full-time NHL defenseman, he has yet to make the playoffs. He has yet to even enjoy a tight playoff race. In 422 career appearances entering Wednesday, he has experienced 163 wins and 259 losses.

And with three years left on his Hawks contract, his record seems destined to get worse in the seasons ahead –although he’s not about to declare defeat himself.

“Yeah, it sucks,” he said. “But I’m committed to helping turn this thing around here and continuing to work my butt off every night and trying to help us find a culture and identity here.”

Of course, McCabe’s individual struggles this season are one of many factors that have contributed to the Hawks’ team struggles. He admitted he’s equally “unhappy” with his own season.

When ex-general manager Stan Bowman signed him last summer, McCabe’s impressive analytics in Buffalo had convinced him McCabe could complete the Hawks’ reconstructed defense and form a shutdown pairing alongside longtime friend Connor Murphy.

None of that has come to fruition. The Hawks’ defense has remained equally porous and ineffective. Murphy has battled injuries. And McCabe’s analytics have taken an ill-timed dive.

McCabe allowed 55.6 shot attempts (per 60 even-strength minutes) with the Sabres; he has allowed 64.4 with the Hawks. He allowed 24.7 scoring chances with the Sabres; he has allowed 31.8 scoring chances with the Hawks. He allowed 2.62 goals with the Sabres; he has allowed 3.58 goals with the Hawks. Those numbers match what has been visibly evident –that McCabe has gotten lost in coverage or been caught in transition too often.

Intriguingly, he has shown a bit more offensive upside than expected. He has tallied 20 points, tied for ninth on the team and second among team defensemen (behind only Seth Jones); his 0.99 points per 60 even-strength minutes are a career high. But those flashes of offense haven’t fully made up for his defensive shortcomings.

“We’d like to see our ‘D’ play a little bit more defense,” interim coach Derek King said April 1 when asked about McCabe. “[He] doesn’t have to be jumping up in the rush all the time. There’s a time and place for it. I’m happy for him. He’s creating stuff. But we’ve got to watch ourselves.”

King took a slightly softer stance Wednesday.

“For the most part, [McCabe has] played pretty well for the season we’ve had as a team,” he said. “He’s really good on the ‘PK.’ he’s a smart player. But sometimes when you’re in the situation like we’re in, [where] you lose some bodies [and] we’ve got young kids in the lineup, it’s not easy to play. It gets a little sloppy at times. So hopefully he’s one that can settle things down.”

Coming off major knee surgery in March 2021, it’s fair to wonder if McCabe hasn’t been 100% healthy this season; he has appeared slow to get up at times, especially lately. He also played through an illness a few weeks ago.

One way or another, though, it hasn’t been the season he envisioned.

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