CHICAGO — The Cubs have called up their top pitching prospect, righty Caleb Kilian, to start Game 2 of their doubleheader against the St. Louis Cardinals on Saturday evening.

Kilian, 25, will make his major league debut after being acquired by the team from the San Francisco Giants last July in exchange for former MVP Kris Bryant.

Kilian is 2-0 with a 2.06 ERA in nine starts for Triple-A Iowa this season. He had 41 strikeouts in 39.1 innings before being called up.

The Cubs are in the midst of a busy schedule, having to play two doubleheaders this week while veterans Wade Miley and Drew Smyly are both on the injured list.

Kilian was acquired with outfielder Alexander Canario last July 31 for Bryant as part of the Cubs roster tear down. He has a career 2.08 ERA in three minor league seasons after being drafted in the eighth round by the Giants in 2019.

To make room on the 40 man roster, the Cubs DFA’d pitcher Conner Menez. They also recalled righty Anderson Espinoza to serve as the team’s 27th man for the doubleheader. Killian will be the team’s eighth player to make his major league debut this season.

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Winter, spring, summer or fall?

All you’ve got to do is make the call.

In this week’s “Polling Place,” your home for Sun-Times sports polls on Twitter, we wanted to know (with apologies to the great James Taylor) which is the best season for sports.

“Springtime,” @ChiTownSports commented, “when the pucks and baseballs are flying around.”

Basketballs, too. And footballs! You know, the USFL. OK, fine, never mind the “footballs” part.

“Fall,” @chris_burbano wrote, “because of NFL and college football, plus you get hockey and the MLB playoffs.”

October is when the NBA gets cracking, too. Undoubtedly because of football more than anything else, a majority of respondents went with fall.

But not @FatDudeRunning, who offered this in regard to Chicago’s sports scene: “Winning-it-all season would definitely be the best one. Can we get one of those?”

We also asked for your NBA Finals prediction — Celtics or Warriors? — and invited you to look at the four Stanley Cup playoff semifinalists and pick an eventual champ. On to the polls:

Poll No. 1: Which is the best season for sports?

Upshot: Do the Bears really bring you people this much joy? What about baseball’s spring training (winter) and football’s fall camps (summer)? What about the college basketball postseason (winter and spring) and all those summer sports we actually can — here’s a concept — go out and play ourselves? Come to think of it, @FatDudeRunning probably nailed it: The best season is whenever one of our teams is in the mix to win it all.

Poll No. 2: Who’s your pick to win the NBA Finals?

Upshot: You should know that some of the voting occurred before the Celtics shook up the basketball world with a 40-16 fourth quarter in Game 1. If you were rolling with the Dubs heading in, do you change picks now that they’re down 1-0? Most probably wouldn’t, and that’s because we all know Steph Curry and his pals can still outshoot anybody on any night, in any gym.

Poll No. 3: Which will be the last team standing in the NHL?

Upshot: When your backup goalie — in this case, the Avs’ Pavel Francouz — gets a start and shuts out an opponent as ridiculously talented at the offensive end as Edmonton is, you know you’ve got everything going. How strong are the Avs? Strong enough that their 2-0 series leads seems impenetrable and a first Cup title in over two decades seems almost inevitable.

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The Chicago Bears have a ways to go before impressing national media

Another analyst is handing out a sour early prediction for the Chicago Bears. It seems to be a trend lately, as the Bears scramble to plug their talent gap under a new regime. With a new head coach and new faces all over the roster, most Bears fans know the team has a mountain to climb to prepare for this season.

Adam Schein, an NFL.com contributing columnist, thinks the Bears won’t conquer that mountain before the end of the season. In his “Bold predictions for 2022 NFL season”, Schein foretold that the Bears would finish with the league’s worst record.

Here’s what Schein wrote:

The Chicago Bears can beat the Falcons

The Atlanta Falcons receiving corps might have the edge, but the Bears will have an improved secondary this season. Marcus Mariota has been dismal since the 2016 season. It’s hard to imagine him reinventing his career with the Falcons enough to be a major factor, even with Pitts.

Schein is correct the Bears don’t have elite talent around Fields on offense. But if Fields leaps forward in his sophomore year with the Bears, the team should beat them in both the head-to-head game on Nov. 20th and the final wins column in week 18.

Bold predictions are well… bold

When reading his piece, it’s key to remember these are Schein’s “bold” predictions. Some of the other hot takes to intrigue readers include the Kansas City Cheifs being the worst team in their division was so obvious that it didn’t qualify as bold, among other facetious-seeming speculation. So take this hot air balloon ride for what you will.

This prediction shouldn’t alarm Bears fans as much as the ones from the people who crunch numbers for money in the desert do. The Bears have time to get better. Talent will change for the better and worse for most NFL teams. Injuries will also cause a lot of dominos to fall for every team’s final record.

The Bears just need to focus on improving this season and learning the new scheme. That should be the plan anyway. If they do, wins should follow.

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

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On May 26, the White Sox lost 16-7, yet they still weren’t the Chicago team to allow the most runs that day. The Cubs were in Cincinnati and lost to the Reds (which is embarrassing enough) 20-5, the first time this century the Cubs allowed 20 runs in a game.

The Cubs have allowed 20 or more runs 12 times in team history and, believe it or not, they are 1-11 in those games. Just about 100 years ago, August 25, 1922, to be exact, they beat the Phillies 26-23. In that game, the Cubs scored 10 runs in the second inning and 14 runs in the fourth and still had to hang on as the Phillies scored eight in the eighth and six in the ninth and ended the game with a strikeout with the bases loaded. The Phils got some measure of retribution against the Cubs on May 17, 1979, as they defeated the Cubs 23-22 in 10 innings despite three Dave Kingman homers and seven RBI from Bill Buckner. The Phillies were also the last team before this year to score 20 runs against the Cubs, winning 21-8 on July 3, 1999.

Let’s see how good your 20-20 hindsight is during this week’s quiz.

1. Two Cubs pitchers have had six 20-win seasons. Who are they?

a. Mordecai Brown

b. Orval Overall

c. Fergie Jenkins

d. Lon Warneke

2. Who was the last White Sox 20-game winner?

a. Jack McDowell

b. LaMarr Hoyt

c. Mark Buehrle

d. Esteban Loaiza

3. Since 1901, one Cubs pitcher had two seasons with 20-plus losses. Who is this -unfortunate soul?

a. Larry Jackson

b. Toothpick Sam Jones

c. Dick Ellsworth

d. Bob Rush

4. Reader Peter Butler suggested I give a little love to former White Sox pitcher and knuckleballer Wilbur Wood, and I agree. Wood was a pitcher for the Red Sox and White Sox, and he was a workhorse. I’m going to make you work on this question. Please tell me if each of the following statements are true or false.

a. Wood was the last pitcher to make at least 45 starts in a season.

b. Wood was the last pitcher to pitch at least 345 innings in a season.

c. On July 20, 1973, Wood started both ends of a doubleheader against the Yankees and won both.

5. What do Wilbur Wood, Walter Johnson and Phil Niekro have in common?

a. They are all Hall of Famers.

b. They each had four seasons of 300-plus innings pitched.

c. They each were known for their knuckleball.

d. They each had a season in which they won 20-plus games and lost 20-plus games.

6. Since 2010, who had more 20-plus homer seasons while playing for the White Sox or the Cubs?

a. Anthony Rizzo

b. Jose Abreu

c. The same

7. Who had more seasons with 20-plus saves while -pitching for a Chicago team?

a. Lee Smith

b. Bobby Jenks

c. Bobby Thigpen

d. The same

8. The Cubs will face the Yankees next week. Alfonso -Soriano played for both of those teams. From 2007 to ’12, who had more seasons with 20-plus homers, -Soriano with the Cubs or Paul Konerko with the Sox?

a. Alfonso Soriano

b. Paul Konerko

c. The same

9. We recently lost a Goodfella, the prolific actor Ray Liotta. He was great in many films and TV shows, but it won’t surprise you that my favorite was his work in ”Field of Dreams.” What role did Liotta play in that classic film?

a. Henry Hill

b. Shoeless Joe Jackson

c. Ray Kinsella

d. Moonlight Graham

ANSWERS

1. Fergie and Brown are the six-timers. Warneke did it five times and Orval Overall (one of my favorite -baseball names) twice.

2. Loaiza went 21-9 in 2003.

3. In 1962, Ellsworth was 9-20, and just to prove it wasn’t a fluke, he went 8-22 in 1966. All the rest lost 20 just once.

4. The first two are true, but the last one is true and false. Wood did indeed start both ends of the doubleheader. After Wood got no one out in the opener and the Sox lost 12-2, manager Chuck Tanner proved that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over again and expecting a different result. Wood started the nightcap, and he and the Sox lost 7-0.

5. Johnson and Niekro are enshrined in Cooperstown. Johnson had eight 300-plus IP seasons. Wood and Niekro were knuckleballers. In 1916, Johnson was 25-20. In 1973, Wood was 24-20. In 1979, Niekro was 21-20.

6. Since 2010, Rizzo had seven seasons with 20-plus homers, and so did Abreu.

7. They each had five seasons with 20-plus saves.

8. Soriano and Konerko each had seven seasons with 20-plus homers.

9. Liotta was wonderful as “Shoeless” Joe Jackson.

Shameless plug: My book with Bob Ryan, “In Scoring Position: 40 Years of a Baseball Love Affair,” will make a great gift for Father’s Day.

Write me at [email protected], and you might be a part of the quiz.

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After the Fire’s 3-2 loss Saturday to Toronto FC, coach Ezra Hendrickson bemoaned individual errors and officiating decisions that contributed to the defeat. He also stressed that, if the Fire fix their individual mistakes, they can turn their season around.

“We have to stay confident,” Hendrickson said. “This team is going to be a good team.”

Fire fans and observers have heard that before, and they have every right to be skeptical that this is the time the club will follow through.

Over the last decade, there have been similar comments from coaches Frank Yallop, Veljko Paunovic and Raphael Wicky after losses that would be unthinkable for other franchises. Though they are different coaches with different backgrounds and philosophies, they all failed to fix a club that seems to invent new ways to lose.

Through four games, this group appeared to be different. The Fire were stingy in front of their own goal and opportunistic enough offensively to pick up eight points, sparking optimism that maybe the tide had turned in the Fire’s favor.

Then, even as the roster got better with the addition of wingers Chris Mueller and Jairo Torres, the Fire declined. The team’s defensive lapses picked up, and the personal slips got worse. And perhaps no game showed that more than the latest loss, when the last-place Fire outshot Toronto 33-5 and had 63% of the possession but still ran their MLS winless streak to 10.

“It was an incredible game,” defender Miguel Navarro said through a translator. “Sometimes [soccer] is like that; it’s unjust. We have to keep working hard and look over everything. It was really incredible. We have to keep our heads up and keep working hard and keep moving forward so that we can get points.”

Perhaps for other clubs, a game like that would be incredible, especially against a lowly team like Toronto. But the Fire have almost become predictable, and so far, the second build by sporting director Georg Heitz has only resulted in a pricey, top-heavy roster with little usable depth.

Sure, it’s possible the players will mesh and the team will start winning more games. Yet there was the same hope after Yallop signed three new designated players for the 2015 season. There was hope that a fourth year together was all Paunovic and executive Nelson Rodriguez needed to get it right, and that continuity under Heitz and Wicky in 2021 would bring better results.

Of course, those hopes were dashed. And that showed even though the club changed owners, stadiums, front-office brass, coaches, players and even logos, some things can stay the same.

This Fire team is in danger of continuing that trend.

“We’ve just got to believe in ourselves, believe in that, believe in what it is that we are doing and just cut out some of these individual errors,” Hendrickson said. “If we cut those out and continue to build and continue to progress like we have, I think we’ll be fine.”

Don’t believe it until it happens.

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Curtis Granderson’s role on TBS’ MLB coverage brings him back to his childhood. Growing up in the south suburbs of Chicago, Granderson wasn’t a Cubs or White Sox fan. He liked the Braves, whose games were available on superstation TBS.

When Granderson would come home from school, all he wanted to do was watch “Saved by the Bell,” which aired on WGN. But the show would be preempted if the Cubs were playing a day game. It frustrated him to no end.

“I was like, Why are the Cubs playing these day games? Everyone else plays night games. I’m trying to watch my show,” Granderson said. “Then at night on the superstation, here come the Braves, and they’re dominating, and I’m like, I like this team.”

Now Granderson, who played for seven teams in a 16-year MLB career, is a studio analyst for TBS’ Tuesday night games. He’ll be on the pre- and postgame shows next week with fellow analysts Pedro Martinez and Jimmy Rollins and host Lauren Shehadi for the Sox’ game against the Dodgers. Brian Anderson and Ron Darling will call the game on TBS, whose broadcast will be available in Chicago.

Granderson, 41, appeared on TBS’ postseason coverage before the network bought its new package. Turner Sports has a history of assembling quality casts, from its highly acclaimed “Inside the NBA” to its new “NHL on TNT.” Its MLB crew has clicked, as well, and Granderson said that starts at the top.

“Everybody that puts the show together, the consistent message is be yourself,” Granderson said. “Nothing is scripted. If we’re supposed to talk about the White Sox and all of the sudden the conversation shifts, that’s not wrong. That makes everybody at ease. That allows everybody to flow and go, and that’s the chemistry you see on TV.”

Granderson grew up in Lynwood — his parents still live there — and went to Thornton Fractional South High School in Lansing. He was back home two weeks ago to throw out the first pitch at Lynwood Little League’s Opening Day. When he played there in the late 1980s, Granderson said the league had almost 200 kids. He said in the mid-2010s, it fell to about 30 across all levels.

“So collectively we’ve been doing a ton of different things from the schools to the community,” Granderson said. “This year it was exciting. We had 97 kids signed up. So it’s starting to come back, which is great to see.”

Despite his baseball prowess, Granderson thought he was a better basketball player after high school. He chose to attend UIC because, in addition to giving him a baseball scholarship, the school gave him a chance to play basketball. Unfortunately for him, he was behind two of the best guards in UIC history. Cedrick Banks is the school’s all-time leading scorer, and Martell Bailey led the nation in assists in 2003.

“The chances of me getting on the court were very slim,” Granderson said.

They went to zero when Granderson broke his thumb in baseball practice the day after his tryout with coach Jimmy Collins. Once he recovered, Granderson locked into baseball, particularly after his sophomore year when he played in Mankato, Minnesota, in the Northwoods League. His play caught the attention of players from across the country.

“I’m on a team with kids from UCLA, Baylor, USC, the quote-unquote big schools of baseball,” Granderson said. “And these kids are telling me, You should transfer, you should play with us, how come you’re at UIC? I built the confidence, like, Wow, I can hang with these guys.”

Major-league scouts began coming to see Granderson during his junior year, and the Tigers drafted him in the third round in 2002. He still graduated in 2003 from the College of Business Administration. He has given back to UIC, donating $5 million in 2013 to help fund the construction of Curtis Granderson Stadium on campus.

For all of his community work, Granderson — who lives in University Village — will be recognized before the Mets-Cubs game July 15 at Wrigley Field as part of MLB’s City Connect program. Granderson played for the Mets from 2014 to ’17 and helped them sweep the Cubs in the 2015 National League Championship Series.

“A lot of my friends that were in the stands were cheering for me but wearing Cubs gear,” Granderson said. “And then they ended up winning the World Series the next year. So I didn’t continue the curse. They can’t hold that against me.”

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