The White Sox have placed third baseman Yoan Moncada on a 10-day injured list in a series of roster moves made last Friday.

Yoan Moncada suffered a left hamstring strain during Thursday’s game against the Orioles, which is the latest injury in a string of injuries that he has had this season. The White Sox also placed right-hander Lance Lynn on a bereavement list, took infielder Leury Garcia off the injured list, and recalled right-hander Davis Martin.

Moncada has a .197 batting average with a .581 over 80 games. He’s had 7 home runs, and more than three times as many strikeouts as walks during the games this season. Garcia has been selected to take Moncada’s slot at third base. Moncada also has a very low Wins Above Replacement rating, at 0.5, according to rating calculations at Baseball Reference.

Moncada is set to been the injured list for at least a week and a half, and it still remains unclear on when the White Sox expect him to return. Others players currently on the White Sox’s injured list include Tim Anderson, Aaron Bummer, Garrett Crochet, Yasmani Grandal, and Michael Kopech.

The White Sox have been having a rough season so far, with a minus-37 run differential. Their season ratings and performance is close to the ratings of the Boston Red Sox, Los Angeles Angels, and Arizona Diamondbacks.

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The Bears are maneuvering to get their roster down to 53 players by Tuesday at 3 p.m. and got started by cutting four players Sunday and Monday.

The team waived offensive lineman Jean Delance with a non-football illness designation Sunday, then waived safety Jon Alexander, offensive lineman Corey Dublin and wide receiver Kevin Shaa on Monday to bring them down to 75 players.

Here’s a live tracker of who is leaving:OFFENSEOL Jean DelanceOL Corey DublinWR Kevin Shaa

DEFENSES Jon Alexander

Once the Bears finalize their roster Tuesday, it won’t actually be final. It’s a virtual certainty that they’ll pick up a few players cut by other teams. The most likely positions for that would on the offensive line and at cornerback and wide receiver.

The Bears also must keep injured wide receivers Byron Pringle and N’Keal Harry on the active roster Tuesday, but can put them on injured reserve after that if needed.

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Top-ranked Mount Carmel delivered on Friday, taking down St. Rita with ease in the 100th matchup between the South Side rivals.

Caravan quarterback Blainey Dowling’s maturation was the story of the game. He’s bigger and stronger this season and his accuracy was impeccable. Dowling was 19-for-21 passing for 318 yards and five touchdowns. He connected with seven different receivers.

One player that seems to get lost in the hype around all of Mount Carmel’s future college players is wide receiver Denny Furlong. Last season it was Furlong’s nine-yard touchdown run on that untimed down in overtime that beat Batavia in the second round of the Class 7A state playoffs.

It was a play designed for Furlong to take the handoff and pass to Damarion Arrington. Furlong made the split-second decision to run instead and it gave the Caravan a magical victory.

Furlong (5-11, 185 pounds) was Mount Carmel’s leading receiver last season with 30 receptions for 540 yards and five touchdowns. He was a force in Week 1 against St. Rita, finishing with three catches for 97 yards. His 54-yard touchdown reception was the standout play of the game.

“He’s a kid that is under-recruited,” Caravan coach Jordan Lynch said. “That kid can play FCS Division I football. He’s a heck of a player that comes to work every single day.”

Freshman phenom

The week before the season Bolingbrook coach John Ivlow wasn’t sure which of his talented quarterbacks would start. Ivlow thought having two quarterbacks with “cannons” was a strength of the team and not an issue.

Freshman Jonas Williams got the job. And he delivered a spectacular debut in Week 1, leading the Raiders to a 49-12 win against Minooka, throwing for more than 400 yards and seven touchdowns.

Williams has two standout receivers to target in I’Marion Stewart and Kyan Berry-Johnson. Expect the Raiders’ offense to be one of the area’s most impressive units this season.

Bolingbrook will face Simeon at Gately on Saturday.

Young Mustangs debut

Morgan Park opened on Friday against Richards and wasn’t part of the three-game slate at Gately Stadium, which left them a big out of the spotlight in Week 1.

The Mustangs had the most impressive win of any Public League team in Week 1 though, knocking off Richards 30-2 at Gately. The Bulldogs advanced to the second round of the Class 6A state playoffs last season.

Morgan Park’s young stars all sparkled. Junior Tysean Griffin had nine carries for 97 yards and sophomore quarterback Marcus Thaxton was 13-for-24 passing for 172 yards and three touchdowns.

Jovan Clark, a highly-touted sophomore, was a force at linebacker. The Mustangs are the youngest of the elite Public League football teams but could wind up having the highest ceiling.

New factor in the Fox Valley

Cary-Grove and Prairie Ridge have dominated the Fox Valley and the local scene in Class 6A for several years. The conference has been very solid overall, with Huntley featuring regularly in the Super 25 as well.

Late last season another Fox Valley team started opening eyes. Jacobs finished 8-4 and advanced to the quarterfinals of the Class 7A state playoffs where it lost a tough game to Prospect.

The Golden Eagles opened the season in the preseason Super 25. They have a star in senior Grant Stec (6-6, 220 pounds). The tight end has offers from Cincinnati, Florida, Michigan State, Penn State, Syracuse, Tennessee, Wisconsin and seven other Power Five schools.

Jacobs knocked off Crystal Lake South 41-31 in Week 1 and racked up nearly 400 rushing yards, led by senior Antonio Brown with 18 carries for 163 yards.

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From the day the Bears introduced him as the 17th head coach in franchise history, Matt Eberflus has been talking about holding players to standards. The whole basis of his H.I.T.S. philosophy is using it as quality control to make sure everyone on the field is meeting the expectation every moment.

But what about Eberflus?

There’s no H.I.T.S. application for a coach, but he will no doubt be under evaluation as soon as the Bears kick off their season next weekend against the 49ers. Eberflus was hired to run the whole team and has given defensive coordinator Alan Williams autonomy, but he still must demonstrate the defensive expertise that helped get him this job.

When teams hire an offensive genius or quarterback whisperer, they demand that coach enliven the offense and fix the quarterback. Eberflus’ predecessor, Matt Nagy, did neither and got fired.

Eberflus is supposed to be an exceptional defensive mind even among a league full of them, so there will be no excuses about limited personnel even in a rebuilding year. He’ll insist that this roster as it stands play to his standards, but it’s his responsibility to ensure that it does.

It’s no excuse that he’s going to start at least two rookies in second-round cornerback Kyler Gordon and safety Jaquan Brisker. Eberflus made it work with the Colts in 2018 when Shaquille Leonard was a rookie and he had young, first-time starters in safety Kenny Moore and middle linebacker Anthony Walker.

It’s also no excuse that the roster needed some deconstruction, leading to the departure of Khalil Mack and the lingering possibility of trading Robert Quinn for draft picks.

Shouldn’t be a problem for a defensive mastermind. It wouldn’t have required anything of Eberflus to get a big season out of Mack. He can coach himself at this point. Let’s see Eberflus develop Mack’s former understudy, Trevis Gipson, into a fearsome pass rusher.

With general manager Ryan Poles prioritizing the future over this season, the Bears filled in their defense with budget friendly players like linebackers Nick Morrow (one year, $2.5 million), Matt Adams (one year, $1 million) and Joe Thomas (one year, $1 million), as well as defensive end Al-Quadin Muhammad (essentially one year, $3.5 million).

Their biggest splurge was dropping $40.5 million over three years for defensive tackle Larry Ogunjobi, but that deal fell through on a failed physical. The Bears shifted to Justin Jones for just $12 million over two years.

The returning defenders they kept, particularly the pricier ones, have their own question marks, and again, Eberflus is charged with turning those into rock-solid answers.

Will linebacker Roquan Smith be ready to play after missing so much time because of his contract dispute? Eberflus said he’ll be fine.

Will cornerback Jaylon Johnson continue his progression toward stardom, and can Kindle Vildor be his running mate? Will Quinn play like he did last season (18.5 sacks) or the season before (two)? Which version of safety Eddie Jackson will we see?

Answering those questions is tricky, but an elite coach should be able to do it.

The last defensive coordinator, Sean Desai, was good. Eberflus is supposed to be great. His Colts defense was second in takeaways and 10th in points allowed from 2018 through ’21. He was hired to replicate that here, regardless of the personnel.

And since he’s overseeing the entire operation, he knows as well as anyone that the defense will have a significant impact on quarterback Justin Fields — the most important person in the organization.

Fields was constantly playing from behind last season and didn’t have the benefit of takeaways setting him up with short fields. Neither did Andy Dalton, Nick Foles or Mitch Trubisky before him. Changing those parts of the equation would almost automatically make him better.

It’s a lot to ask of Eberflus, but that’s the job. If he can deliver on those imperatives amid the rebuild this season, that’ll give the Bears a lot of confidence in his future.

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The Chicago Bears looked disciplined in the preseason

The Chicago Bears finished their preseason on a positive note Saturday. They escaped Cleveland with a 21-20 win to cap off an undefeated preseason. Undefeated preseasons don’t mean much (as Mike Martz would tell any football fan about the 2008 Detroit Lions), but the subtle way the Bears are playing is impressive.

Former head coach Matt Nagy didn’t seem to control his locker room well when he was with the Bears. The team looked unprepared for games and undisciplined during them. First-year head coach Matt Eberflus has said he emphasizes details and discipline in his system. One area of measurement already looks better.

The Bears didn’t commit a lot of penalties in their three preseason games. They had 13 penalties throughout all of the preseason. So about four penalties per game. The total number of penalty yards for the Bears was 118, which is 39.33 yards per preseason game on average.

Contrast that to last season. The Chicago Bears averaged 6.2 penalties a game last season and 5.7 in 2020.  In 2021, the Bears averaged 53.8 penalty yards per game. They were ranked 23rd for the most penalties and 22nd for the most penalty yards last season.

The Chicago Bears’ preseason numbers would put them in elite territory

By comparing the Bears’ preseason penalty statistics to last year’s numbers, the Bears would project themselves to be one of the least penalized teams in the NFL this season. The Bears’ preseason numbers in 2022 were at 4.3 penalties per game. In the 2021 regular season, the Green Bay Packers were the least penalized team at 4.1, the Los Angeles Rams at 4.3, and the Cincinnati Bengals at 4.4 per game.

The Bears’ penalty yards per game would put them fourth, right behind where the Packers were last season at 39.1 penalty yards per game. The New York Giants would be right behind them as they were just under 40 yards per game.

The Giants were an outlier of the teams mentioned in this post, as the other teams had fantastic seasons and made the playoffs. The Rams and Bengals made the Super Bowl. It doesn’t necessarily mean that because the Bears curb their appetite for penalties, they will be a playoff team this year.

However, not committing penalties will swing close games in their favor. Regardless of whether or not they can make the playoffs this season, if Eberflus can continue to build a strong foundation in the locker room where the team buys into fundamentals, the Chicago Bears will have a better chance of future success when they add more talent. Not committing stupid penalties and giving the opposition more turf is what championship-caliber teams do.

ESPN gave the Bears a hard time on prime time tv when the Bears played the Seattle Seahawks in Week Two of the preseason. But they applauded that the Chicago Bears looked more fundamentally sound than their opponent. Records in the preseason don’t matter, but praising a team for their discipline is about the highest praise Eberflus and a group buying into his system can get before the season.

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