Chicago Sports

The Chicago Bulls played their final home game of the regular season on Friday night, a 133-117 loss to the Charlotte Hornets. Earlier this season, the Charlotte Hornets had been a team that the Bulls handled with ease, but that was not the case on Friday.

At halftime, the Bulls trailed 79-51, setting the record for the most points the Bulls have allowed in the first half this season. Frustrations that have been building throughout the second half of the season seem to have boiled over in this game. The boos rained in from disapproving fans at the United Center as the team shuffled into the locker room at halftime. Both fans and players have become incredibly frustrated with the team’s performance of late. In his post-game press conference, guard Zach LaVine addressed the booing:

In their last 20 games, the Bulls are 6-14. Fans have seen a stark difference in the team’s performance in the second half of the season compared to the first half. With only one regular season game remaining, the team has little time to try and correct things before the playoffs. There have been plenty of blowout losses that could have served as wake-up calls for the Bulls. An optimist may suggest that this monumental loss to the East’s 10th seeded Hornets could be what they needed, but don’t get your hopes up.

The Bulls conclude their regular season on the road on Sunday, taking on LaVine’s former team, the Minnesota Timberwolves. The NBA Playoffs begin on Saturday, April 16th, with the Play-In Tournament that the Bulls were fortunate to avoid.

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

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After a very good start to the season, the Chicago Bulls have faded a bit despite still making the NBA playoffs. If there’s one thing this season has taught us, it’s that the Bulls need another big man in the paint as Nicola Vucevic hasn’t proven to be reliable down the stretch.

But one option the Bulls may have is a Chicago native in Anthony Davis.

Following the Los Angeles Lakers loss to Phoenix that eliminated them from the playoffs on Tuesday, Davis was asked about his future with the franchise. He offered up a simple, yet truthful answer about potential trade rumors:

“I can’t control those things,” Davis told ESPN after the Lakers’ loss to the Phoenix Suns on Tuesday, which eliminated L.A. from play-in tournament contention. “That’s an upstairs thing. A Klutch, Rich Paul thing. My agency.

“I mean, my job is to go out and play basketball. Obviously I love it in L.A. If that’s something that they’re considering, then we’ll have a conversation about it. I don’t know what they’re talking about, what’s the plan.”

As ESPN notes, there is no indication that the Lakers will trade him but the franchise is at a crossroads going into the offseason. How long will LeBron James stay in Los Angeles? How will they rebuild with no draft capital?  Is there young talent they can build around? And what are they going to do with Russell Westbrook?

The Lakers need to acquire young and talented players which is something the Bulls may not want to offer up in terms of someone like Patrick Williams. It’s at minimum an option for the Bulls to explore the trade for Davis but the injury history has to factor in as well.

Whatever happens, it feels like the Bulls will be involved in a lot of rumors moving forward this offseason as they continue to construct their roster for the future.

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

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Chicago White Sox Opening Week: 4 Things to Watch

The Chicago White Sox start their season this weekend against the Detroit Tigers as they open up what they hope is a very exciting year. The ceiling for the team is a World Series while the floor is failing to make the playoffs which would result in a chaotic offseason. The opening week particularly isn’t going to be about whatever the White Sox win per se.

Rather, if there are any glaring issues within the roster or players look poised for a breakout season.

The White Sox have a roster built to compete for the World Series but there are more than enough questions with this roster. What will the bullpen look like with Craig Kimbrel gone? Who will step up in the middle of the starting rotation? There is a lot to focus on in the first few games of the season and manager Tony La Russa will have a lot to work on in a still maneuvering roster.

Brett Davis-USA TODAY Sports

AJ Pollock’s Role in the Outfield

AJ Pollock was the major acquisition ahead of the 2022 season, helping secure outfield depth and finding a replacement for the injured Andrew Vaughn. Pollock initially is going to play in right field, playing alongside left fielder Eloy Jimenez and center fielder Luis Robert.

Pollock is one of the better fielders in the game and gives the White Sox a fielding advantage in the outfield. However, it should be noted that Pollock by trade is a center fielder and has been throughout his 10-year career with the Arizona Diamondbacks and the Los Angeles Dodgers. Moreover, the 34-year-old hasn’t played right field since 2013 when he briefly moved over from center in his early years with the Diamondbacks.

The transition will be relatively easy for the rangy fielder but as the season progresses, the question should be if Pollock will eventually move around in the outfield. Robert is the White Sox’s best fielder but on off days, Pollock will likely slide over and play center field. Moreover, the veteran outfielder can play left field to replace Jimenez throughout the season. The outfield movement will happen a handful of games into the season but watching where Pollock plays early on will be telling of how the White Sox use the versatile fielder.

White Sox Backend of the Rotation

Lance Lynn is out to start the season and won’t make his first start until at least May. This is a tough blow to the White Sox rotation as they lose last season’s American League Cy Young Award finalist. However, the effect might truly test the later part of the rotation. Lynn was the ace last season, but Lucas Giolito, Dallas Keuchel, and Dylan Cease look poised to step up as the top three starters in the rotation early on.

The fourth and fifth spots in the rotation and possibly the sixth spot are up in the air. The signing of Johnny Cueto to a minor league deal can eventually help secure the rotation. Considering Cueto signed late in spring training, it’s likely going to take time for the 36-year-old right-hander to integrate himself as a regular. Likewise, 25-year-old Michael Kopech has the ceiling to become one of the best pitchers in the rotation. However, Kopech is expected to be on an innings count early on in the season, even as a starter.

This leaves the backend of the rotation in question. The first few games will particularly give us a glimpse at what the starting pitching situation is going to look like. A few promising starters are available but likely in limited roles.

(Photo by Jamie Sabau/Getty Images)

Who Replaces Kimbrel in the Bullpen

The Pollock for Kimbrel trade helped the White Sox, giving the team a viable option in the outfield. Unfortunately, the trade subsequently opens up a hole in the bullpen.

Liam Hendriks remains one of the best relievers in the game and is building off a season where he pitched 71 innings with a .169 expected opponent Batting Average .320 expected opponent Slugging Percentage with 38 saves. Moreover, Hendriks was a surefire closer for the ninth inning but also gave the White Sox two strong innings at any point if need be.

The question is who gets the ball to Hendriks. Kimbrel was a trade deadline acquisition last year and the White Sox have the familiarity of life without the veteran reliever. However, this team was anticipating a bullpen duo that could secure a victory from the seventh inning onward. Aaron Bummer is still expected to play a major role in the bullpen. Otherwise, there’s still a lot in the air about who comes into the game and when.

White Sox Lineup Alignment

Yoan Moncada starts the season on the injured list with a strained oblique. Moncada slashed .263/.375/.412 with 14 home runs in 144 games last season and the White Sox will start the season without the emerging valuable hitter in the middle of the batting order. For the most part, the lineup is set. Tim Anderson leads off while Jose Abreu, Eloy Jimenez, and Yasmani Grandal carry the middle of the order. However, the depth of the lineup is going to take a hit. Watching how La Russa juggles the back half of the lineup early on will be telling of how the White Sox can score runs with the depth their roster possesses.

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The Chicago Cubs were rumored to be in on prized free agent shortstop Carlos Correa for a long time and when the lockout ended, some even expected him to end up in the Windy City.

But it didn’t happen. Instead, Correa signed a three-year deal worth $105,300,000 with the Minnesota Twins to join the AL Central. The Cubs struck out and couldn’t add the free agent shortstop and now we may know the reason why.

MLB Network’s Stephen Nelson of Intentional Talk was on 670 The Score on Wednesday with host Laurence Holmes and he talked about the Correa situation. Nelson revealed that the Cubs offered Correa a 7-year deal worth more than $30M/year. The problem?

It never got to Correa….

Ouch.

If that’s true, then that is a tough thing to hear if you’re a Cubs fan especially with the prospects of Correa joining that lineup and making an immediate impact.

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

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The Chicago Bears have big needs at key positions like defensive back, wide receiver and offensive line among other spots come April’s draft. But would you be shocked if they looked to add another weapon to their offense?

Ahead of the draft in a few weeks, the Bears are doing their homework on an intriguing tight end that could help be a key piece in their offense. Maryland tight end Chigoziem Okonkwo posted on his Instagram story that he is at Halas Hall for one of the Bears Top 30 visits ahead of the process.

The 6-foot-2, 238-pound Okonkwo is a raw prospect with some intriguing traits in his game. He stole the show at the combine posting a 4.52 40-yard dash time at the NFL scouting combine, the fastest among tight end prospects.

While he has that speed and it showed at Maryland, Okonkwo will need to polish up his game at the next level including getting better in run blocking and pass blocking situations. He does have YAC ability but his hands aren’t the greatest in terms of catching passes, another area of his game he needs to work on.

Okonkwo could turn into a good piece for an offense and really could be a steal on Day 3 for a team. But will that team be the Bears?

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

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Two officers were hospitalized and a woman was critically injured Sunday morning in a fire in South Chicago on the Far South Side.

Officers responded to the fire inside a house in the 3000 block of East 79th Place about 1:20 a.m. and found a woman unresponsive, Chicago police said.

She was carried outside by officers, where they began chest compression, police said.

She was taken to Trinity Hospital, where she was in critical condition, officials said.

Two responding officers were taken to a local hospital for smoke inhalation, police said. Both were in good condition, authorities said.

No other injuries were reported.

Fire officials extinguished the blaze and were investigating.

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Because of the shortened spring training, Justin Steele and the rest of the Cubs’ pitchers are probably two weeks behind where they’d normally be at this point of the season. On Saturday, it was hard to tell with Steele, who threw five scoreless innings in his first start of 2022.

“It felt really good,” Steele said. “My four-seam [fastball] and my slider, coming into this outing, is something I really wanted to have honed in and I just felt really good as far as execution with my pitches.”

Steele moved to the rotation last August and could be a piece of the Cubs’ long-term future. Saturday was a good start for him this year.

“We need him to be good for us to have success,” manager David Ross said before the game. “He’s a big part of our future and success. I’ve definitely seen a maturity of still working through some things.”

The offensive approach
Besides getting hit by pitches, the Cubs offense found ways to get on base and score against Milwaukee and starter Brandon Woodruff. Cubs hitters drew seven walks total and set the tone in a three-run first when Woodruff threw 40 pitches.

“Some really good pitchers we’ve faced to start off,” Ross said. “Guys are staying committed to their approach in their zone and I think good things happen because of that.”

Seiya Suzuki had a hit and drove in three runs. Before leaving the game, Ian Happ got two hits and scored three times.

“You’ve got to put together some at-bats like we did against Woodruff to kind of get to the end of his rope and really force him to throw a bunch of pitches,” Happ said.

Bullpen roles
Having a defined closer makes things easier for a manager, but that’s not the priority for Ross. Whether it’s through an established ninth-inning guy or whoever fits the matchup, Ross is looking for one thing.

“I tell all the relievers I just like outs,” Ross said. “I’ll try to set people up for the right pockets, but if you have somebody you can establish in the ninth then it kind of works its way backward to get to that spot. It is easier to work that way, from my seat, but not a necessity.”

The first save chance this season went to veteran David Robertson, who successfully finished the Cubs’ 5-4 Opening Day win Thursday. Robertson, like the rest of the bullpen, will have to be flexible as Ross goes with a committee approach. And if somebody stands out from the group, they won’t necessarily get the ninth.

“If the biggest moment, the biggest pocket, is in the eighth and David lines up the best to face these three, four hitters, then I’m going to bring him in the eighth and try to lock that down,” Ross said. “I think it’s like leveraging the whole situation of the game. That’s the most important part.”

Health news
Shortstop Andrelton Simmons (right shoulder inflammation) is continuing a throwing program in Arizona. Pitcher Wade Miley (left elbow inflammation) is playing catch, and fellow pitcher Alec Mills (low back strain) threw a light bullpen Thursday and was expected to do so again this weekend.

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For months under interim coach Derek King, the Blackhawks played losing but respectable hockey.

The past few weeks, however, they haven’t.

“After the [All-Star] break, we were playing pretty good hockey,” King said Saturday. “We were still motivated to correct this. [We were] trying to build our values, culture, identity. And then all of a sudden, that faded. … After the trade [deadline], we just haven’t been the same.”

The Hawks have lost six straight games, including embarrassing home losses against three of the NHL’s worst teams –the Sabres, Coyotes and Kraken.

One more loss Sunday against the Stars will give them twice as many total losses (48) as wins (24) on the season. They’ve fallen to 26th in the league and are just three points out of 29th, although that drop would improve their draft lottery odds.

Since the second intermission March 26 against the Golden Knights (a span of just over five games), they’ve been outscored 25-10. Since March 14 (a span of 11 games), the Hawks at even strength rank 31st in the leaguein shot-attempt ratio (42.9%), shots-on-goal ratio (41.9%) and expected-goals ratio (38.9%) and 30th in scoring-chance ratio (40.2%).

“It’s unacceptable,” Alex DeBrincat said after the shutout loss Thursday, for stretches of which the whole team looked alarmingly disinterested.

“Even though we’re out of the playoffs, we want to win games. It sucks losing. It’s no fun. We’re battling hard for two of three periods, but it’s not enough, obviously. We’ve got to find a way to score some goals and play a full 60 [minutes]. That’s been our downfall most of the year and that’s why we’re in the position we are.”

King said Thursday night he’d “address” the lethargy and — in practice Saturday — address it he did, completely scrambling the forward lines that had been stable for a relatively long time.

“I caved,” King said. “I didn’t want to [change the lines], but we’ve lost six [straight]. It rattled in my brain a little too long, but we decided to shuffle them up a little bit.”

The formerly red-hot first line of Dylan Strome centering DeBrincat and Patrick Kane has finally met its demise.

Taylor Raddysh now skates alongside DeBrincat and Strome, intriguingly reuniting the trio that formed a dominant line for the Erie Otters in 2016-17. DeBrincat tallied 127 points in 63 games, Raddysh 109 points in 58 games and Strome 75 points in 35 games that season as the Otters claimed the OHL championship.

They’ve spent only 5:10 together so far since Raddysh’s arrival in Chicago, but that number will likely more than double Sunday. King said he’ll see if “there’s any magic left” in them.

And Jonathan Toews now centers Kane, with Philipp Kurashev on the other side. During 148 even-strength minutes with Kane and Toews together so far this season, the Hawks have outshot opponents 80-75 but been outscored 16-7, indicating some bad luck during those situations.

Even the new third line –Kirby Dach centering Lukas Reichel and Sam Lafferty –is interesting. The Lafferty-Dach duo makes logical sense because Lafferty can take faceoffs while Dach handles the other center duties, but the Hawks have struggled (outshot 79-58 and outscored 12-3) during their 132 minutes together so far.

Perhaps Reichel, who has looked fine through his first six NHL appearances but is still searching for his first point, can add some spice. Playing wing instead of center is expected to free up the young German for more offensive opportunities, especially in transition.

Even if the new lines don’t work, however, they’re worth trying with 11 games left. Those 11 games may not matter in the conventional sense, but they certainly matter for individual player evaluations entering the offseason.

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If Zach LaVine knew how to fix it, the All-Star guard swears it would have been repaired.

That in itself is the real concern.

The Bulls resemble a lost ship at sea, broken, directionless, and headed into the belly of a storm they have no protection from.

A long journey that doesn’t feel like it’s going to end well.

“We’ve got to figure it out,” LaVine said of a season suddenly gone very wrong. “We’re not doing that, plain and simple. Everybody, top to bottom, coaching staff, everybody’s involved. We just got to do a better job because it’s (the playoffs) right around the corner. We can’t let this happen. It’s embarrassing. I’m going to fight. I’m going to go down swinging either way.”

Tough talk, but there have been very little swings of retaliation lately, and it likely won’t be coming in the season finale on Sunday, with the Timberwolves locked into their play-in position and having nothing at all to play for.

That means any sort of competition felt by this Bulls team before they step into a playoff game for the first time since 2017, will have to come in practice and against each other.

It will be up to coach Billy Donovan to figure out how often and how hard they go at each other this next week.

“I do think taking a day and letting those guys recover [on Monday] would be important,” Donovan said. “And then I do think that because there’s a length of time where these guys could be so out of rhythm, they’re used to operating every other day or back-to-backs, so we’re going to have to incorporate some kind of scrimmage and contact, banging and doing those things because I don’t think you cannot not play for six days or seven days, and then all of a sudden go into your playoff game.

“They’ll be a recovery piece, too. And how do you manage Zach’s knee during that time? Medical will be heavily involved in that. How do we manage Alex [Caruso’s] back? They’ll be heavily involved in that. I just don’t think you can necessarily go out there and script or just go through defensive concepts. There’s always that line you’re walking where is it too much or not enough?”

Especially with a team that looks completely out of sorts like the Bulls have the last few weeks.

April is expected to be the time a team is playing its best basketball of the season. The Bulls look like a team that feels like the season came to an end on April 1.

Now they will be expected to go from dead-team walking to a powerhouse capable of ending the hopes of the No. 3 seed in the Eastern Conference, all in the flip of a switch?

“It’s one of those tests we wish we would have had earlier in the season,” veteran DeMar DeRozan said. “We had so much success so fast I knew at some point we were going to have to deal with this type of adversity. You never want it at the end of the road.

“It’s kind of like going through high school, you’re getting all A’s as a freshman and sophomore, and then junior and senior year you have AP [Advanced Placement] classes and it’s just extremely hard.”

Especially when the last four tests have come back with F’s.

As far as who the Bulls will play starting next weekend? That won’t be situated until Sunday. But unless there’s major changes with the mindset of this roster, the opponent won’t matter much.

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It didn’t even take the Cubs and Brewers two games before tensions boiled over.

In the eighth inning of their 9-0win Saturday over Milwaukee, Cubs reliever Keegan Thompson was ejected for hitting the Brewers’ Andrew McCutchen. Both dugouts and bullpens emptied but there were no punches thrown, though both teams formed a giant huddle between home plate and first base.

Thompson’s purpose pitch didn’t come out of nowhere.

Brewers pitchers hit three Cubs batters. Milwaukee starter Brandon Woodruff grazed Nick Madrigal as part of a three-run first. Then in the fourth, Willson Contreras was hit by a Woodruff sinker. Contreras was also hit in Thursday’s season opener, and has now been hit 10 times by Milwaukee since the beginning of the 2020 season.

The costliest hit-by-pitch, however, might have come in the bottom of the seventh. Brewers reliever Trevor Gott’s slider hit Ian Happ directly on the left kneecap, with Happ crumpling to the ground. Perhaps encouragingly for the Cubs, Happ was able to walk off the field under his own power.

Making his big-league debut in the ninth, Cubs reliever Ethan Roberts hit the Brewers’ Christian Yelich, but play continued without incident.

The eventful ending overshadowed an otherwise-ideal day for the Cubs, who have won their first two games of the year. Making his first start of the season after joining the rotation last August, Justin Steele threw five scoreless innings, needing 77 pitches to strike out five while allowing four hits.

“We need him to be good for us to have success,” manager David Ross said before the game. “He’s a big part of our future and success. I’ve definitely seen a maturity of still working through some things.”

Suzuki drove in threeruns and Happ had two hits with two RBIs and three runs scored before exiting.

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