Before Cubs side-armer Scott Effross transferred the experience of his debut season into a strong April, proved his comfort in a range of relief situations or made his first career start Tuesday against the White Sox, he offered his help to team rep Ian Happ during collective-bargaining negotiations.

”I’ve always been kind of interested in the business of baseball and like the front-office work,” Effross told the Sun-Times. ”It’s something that’s always intrigued me, as far as what that kind of life is like.”

Effross wasn’t sure what his official Major League Baseball Players Association title was — ”I was kind of just thrown into it and didn’t really get knighted or anything into the reps” — but ”alternate team rep” sounded about right. When Happ mentioned he could use some help, given that the veteran group who had taken care of union business no longer was on the team, Effross embraced the opportunity.

The pairing made sense from a communication standpoint. With Effross having played with many of the Cubs’ homegrown players and the younger guys on the roster and Happ more familiar with the more established players, they had the 40-man roster covered.

As the owners imposed a lockout and the work stoppage neared 100 days, communication became all the more important.

”Part of it is who he is as a person, just being a really good human, and he’s intelligent,” Happ said of why Effross was ready to take on that kind of leadership role early in his career. ”So I think both of those things were first and foremost. I think he’s really easy to talk to and communicate with, to make guys comfortable to come to him with any issues they might have had. And his path through the system.”

Effross hasn’t had a traditional path to the big leagues. He was drafted in 2015, the same year as Happ. In 2019, he was part of the way through his fifth season in the minors and dropped his arm slot down from 35 degrees to zero.

”In hindsight, I’m incredibly thankful for almost a second chance to continue to pitch,” Effross said. ”So once I decided that we’re going to do it, [I] kind of went both feet in and tried not to look back.”

It worked. The Cubs called up Effross after the trade deadline last season, and he posted a 3.68 ERA in 14 outings.

”Last year, I got thrown into a lot of different scenarios at the end of the season, which I was really happy about,” Effross said this spring. ”So not only was I able to get my feet wet, but also get my feet wet in close ballgames, back-to-backs, everything. So just having that learning experience I feel like set me up pretty well for at least my mindset this year.”

He has allowed only two earned runs in 11 appearances so far in 2022. In the Cubs’ 3-1 loss to the White Sox, he started in place of Drew Smyly (bereavement list) and allowed two unearned runs and two hits in 1 1/3 innings.

”Until you prove that you feel like you belong — and you have to prove it to yourself — it doesn’t matter what a coach may say, what front-office personnel may say,” manager David Ross said. ”To go out there and have results is a powerful thing. And I think that’s where he’s at right now.”

Effross already had established some of that ease and comfort in the offseason, sitting in on union calls with Happ and helping to poll his teammates on collective-bargaining issues. A lot of his introduction to the union’s inner workings was a thrown-into-the-deep-end kind of learning experience.

”I wanted to learn enough to where if guys had questions, I was able to help answer them,” Effross said. ”Especially guys who maybe didn’t feel comfortable speaking up too loud.”

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In response to back-to-back hit batters on a rain-swept night at Wrigley Field, White Sox manager Tony La Russa and leadoff hitter Tim Anderson made their feelings know. Cubs pitcher Keegan Thompson patted his chest in apology and called for a new rosin bag.

That about summed up the state of a cold and sloppy game between the Chicago rivals on Tuesday, as the White Sox beat the Cubs 3-1.

The Sox embraced the elements to score their first two runs in the second inning. Jose Abreu reached first base on an error when Cubs third baseman Patrick Wisdom sailed a throw across the diamond. Then, Adam Engle moved Abreu to third base on a double. Jake Burger brought him home on a swinging-bunt single.

Reese McGuire followed that up with a sacrifice bunt — his on purpose — to give the South Siders a two-run lead.

The next inning, Anderson bested the wind and rain with a solo homer to add insurance.

The Cubs’ only run came on Nico Hoerner’s RBI double in the sixth inning.

White Sox starting pitcher Michael Kopech threw four shutout innings. For the Cubs, it was a bullpen day, after they placed lefty Drew Smyly on the bereavement list Tuesday. Side-armer Scott Effross serves as the opener and allowed two runs, both unearned, in 1 1/3 innings. Thompson replaced him and allowed one run, on Anderson’s homer, in 3 2/3 innings.

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All around Wrigley Field on Tuesday, the White Sox and Cubs sharing a ballpark for the opener of a two-game interleague series, it was cold, dreary, foreboding and miserable.

And then there was the weather.

They say misery loves company, and a pair of teams sitting at four games below .500 less than a month into the season went hand-in-glove with the gray, gloomy skies and the frigid dampness that pressed down like a half-defrosted hotdog bun.

We want to be excited about the Sox and/or Cubs, but so far neither team is good enough. We want it to feel like baseball season, but so far, well, you don’t need anybody to tell you about the alleged springtime in Chicago.

And many of us surely would love for the Sox-Cubs rivalry (or do you prefer to call it the Cubs-Sox rivalry?) to be all it could be again, or at least more than it is now. All is pretty quiet on the rivalry front these days, which tends to be the case when only one team is in win-now mode. Factor in a dearth of star players on the Cubs side, a long list of prominent Sox injuries and an absence of live-wire personalities (Michael Barrett, A.J. Pierzynski, Carlos Zambrano, Ozzie Guillen), and what you have here is a failure to exhilarate.

It was different, wasn’t it — almost a perfect storm — when Guillen was the skipper in one dugout and Dusty Baker or Lou Piniella in the other, when there were serious playoff hopes both South and North and the sense of rivalry (with games counting in the standings starting in 1997) was fresher and more vivid. Guillen still says it felt like the World Series when he managed against the Cubs, a sentiment that undoubtedly goes beyond where most Sox-Cubs combatants of any mini-era or decade would go.

The rivalry has probably never been that big a deal to players, and why would it be? The games aren’t even division games. It’s not like the Sox and Cubs are forced to look at one another’s mugs 19 times a year.

“I really don’t think so,” said Cubs second baseman Nick Madrigal, who has experienced these series from both sides. “I know it’s a crosstown rivalry … [but] I really don’t think this game means anything more than any other game.”

Sox pitcher Lucas Giolito enjoys seeing the Cubs, not so much because of what games are like inside the lines as what sometimes happens beyond the walls and in the stands. Incessant banter between fans. Loud arguments. Of course, fights. The players get a kick out of all that, sure, but does it breathe fire into their play?

“I wouldn’t necessarily say so,” Giolito said. “I think that the atmosphere adds just enough. For us, we play in different divisions so we get to just kind of enjoy everything about this series.”

It’s no wonder that Cubs manager David Ross referred to it as a “semi-rivalry,” or that Sox skipper Tony La Russa described the Cubs as a “natural rival and competition, but no different than any other of the 162 we’re going to play.”

Then again, a night such as Tuesday’s could cloud a person’s judgment. Baseball fans enjoy baseball weather, not swordfishing, ice-fishing or Iditarod weather. When Sox shortstop Tim Anderson homered in the third inning, just to pick a moment, the Sox fans in the house rose to their feet before immediately appearing to ask themselves, “What the hell were we thinking?” and disappearing back inside their rain ponchos. There’s no such thing as stealing Mother Nature’s thunder.

But into each life, some rain must fall. Into each rivalry, too. The Crosstown Throwdown, or whatever we’re calling it these days, will do a better job of living up to its billing when the skies are blue, the sun is out and — especially — when the teams are both built to be dangerous. That’s when it gets good. World Series good? Of course not. Maybe someday we’ll get to learn what that’s actually like, a rivalry redefined forever.

But Tuesday? This game, these teams, this meteorological mess? It was a good night to take a rain check.

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Andrew Vaughn’s lingering soreness in his right hand continues to be a problem and it’s not out of the question it lands him on the injured list, after all. The White Sox outfielder who has been a beam of light in a struggling lineup with a .283/.367/.566 hitting line, team high four homers and 12 RBI and .933 OPS, hasn’t played since getting hit by a pitch Friday night.

X-rays were negative and a sigh of relief was heard, but Vaughn hasn’t come close to playing since.

He’s tentatively penciled into manager Tony La Russa’s lineup for Wednesday when the Sox play the second scheduled game of a two-game series against the Cubs but if he can’t go, La Russa suggested he won’t go with the team for a three-game series in Boston.

“That’s a really good question,” La Russa said of a potential Vaughn appearance at Fenway Park. “A lot depends on how he looks [Wednesday] because if he’s not good tomorrow, it’s a day I plan to play him, then you count the number of days he hasn’t played.”

The maximum a 10-day IL stint can be backdated is three days.

“He’s sore, he’s getting better, but it’s the kind of thing where he tries to swing sore, might do something unnatural and make it sore,” La Russa said. “But I wouldn’t even pinch-hit him [Tuesday].

“But you get whacked in that part, anywhere in that wrist and hand and you know the ABCs of that … we’re just lucky nothing is broken.”

Robert sits one out

After playing four straight days after returning from a tweaked right groin, Luis Robert was held from the lineup. Playing him six days in a row to the off day Thursday was considered, but on a cold, damp night, it seemed to make sense. La Russa said Robert would be available late in the game.

“We debated it a lot, he’s starting to swing good,” La Russa said.

“The track is going to be a little thick out there and no regrets this way.”

La Russa joked that both of his arms were broken from being twisted by Robert, who wanted to play.

“Try to be sensible,” La Russa said. “He’s one of the guys that keys everything we do defensively and offensively. But it’s a long season.”

Baby, it’s cold outside

The Sox, who played in Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland and Minneapolis during a frosty month of April, noticed a forecast in the 70s and mid 60s for their home stand against the Guardians and Yankees next week.

“It will be very welcome,” Gavin Sheets said. “We’re excited for some good weather. A little sunshine will go a long way for us soon, hopefully.”

The Sox have scored four runs or more only four times and hit multiple homers four times.

“In some sunshine the ball will be flying a little better,” Sheets said.

They can only hope.

“We’ve seen it a lot,” Sheets said. “We hit some balls we thought we got that weren’t going anywhere. And when this weather warms up the ball will start carrying for us, too.”

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Last season at the trade deadline, the Chicago Cubs acquired second baseman Nick Madrigal from the Chicago White Sox. The Cubs also acquired RP Codi Heuer in this deal that sent CP Craig Kimbrel to the Sox. Madrigal has had a reputation as a great contact hitter with little to no power at the plate. His low strikeout numbers have also been a notable statistic throughout his career. This contact-hitting ability had fans rather excited heading into this season.

The Cubs are 22 games into the season and have yet to see Nick Madrigal as advertised. Is it time for fans to panic? I don’t think so.

Although Madrigal is in his third season, he has only played 100 games in his career dating back to the shortened 2020 season. Fans may need to be patient to see the great contact hitter they expected.

Madrigal’s strikeout rate this season has been abnormally high to this point. In Madrigal’s first two seasons, he recorded 303 at-bats. In those at-bats, he only struck out an astonishing 24 times. In 62 at-bats with the Cubs this season, he is close to matching that mark with 11 strikeouts. When pairing this with a meager .210 batting average, Madrigal is far from looking like his normal self.

Madrigal has somewhat made up for his struggles at the plate with a much improved defensive ability. Madrigal has yet to record an error this season and his fielding percentage remains at 1.000 through 16 starts.

Coming off an injury and joining a new team can be a big adjustment for some players. It’s definitely too early for fans to panic when it comes to Nick Madrigal’s struggles. Players struggling with a new team isn’t necessarily uncommon. In his first month with the New York Mets last season, the generational talent of Francisco Lindor only recorded a .189 batting average. Lindor eventually returned to his old self. Now, Mets fans couldn’t be more pleased with their star shortstop.

I’m not going to pretend like Lindor and Madrigal are even close to being comparable players. My point is that patience is crucial in situations like these and some players can take a little while to adjust.

Nick Madrigal and the Cubs take on his former team, the Chicago White Sox, tonight at Wrigley Field.

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

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Hours before first pitch was scheduled to open in the Crosstown Classic on Tuesday, the Cubs announced a change in starting pitchers.

They were placing lefty Drew Smyly on the bereavement list and starting side-armer Scott Effross.

Effross, who debuted last season, enters Tuesday with a 1.80 ERA through 10 innings.

“His profile helps, just the ability to get the ground ball, the ability to strike guys out and the ability to throw strikes,” Cubs manager David Ross said of his confidence putting Effross into a number of situations. “He seemed to handle each moment I’ve thrown at him really well. And he did that last year and continues to grow into that.”

It will be the first start of Effross’ career.

“I think that’s a good choice,” Cubs catcher Willson Contreras said of Effross starting. “He’s been throwing the ball well and will adapt to a starting role. I know it’s only one game, but still the mindset has to be different, and I think he’s going to have the ability to adapt to it.”

The Cubs also made a pair of roster moves to fill out their active roster and reinforce their pitching staff. The Cubs called up right-hander Robert Gsellman, who they signed to minor-league deal this spring, from Triple-A. To make room for him on the 40-man roster, the Cubs designated lefty Locke St. John for assignment.

Contreras day-to-day

Contreras was out of the lineup Tuesday for what Ross called “a little something” but “nothing serious.” He declined to get into specific, citing competitive advantage reasons, but when he was asked whether it was an upper or lower body injury, he said “mid.” Contreras is available off the bench against the White Sox Tuesday.

Contreras hasn’t caught in a game since Friday, in an 11-1loss at Milwaukee. Contreras served as the designated hitter on Saturday.

Frazier back with team

Cubs outfielder Clint Frazier was back in the clubhouse with his teammates Tuesday for the first time since undergoing an appendectomy a week and a half ago. In the food room, Frazier told Ross he was ready to return.

“I told him I was more than he was,” Ross said. “We had big debate. I think he was right probably.”

That Ross wasn’t ready to pick up a bat. But the Cubs don’t want to rush Frazier back either. He said he can still feel the incision site in his belly button stretching when he bends backward.

“I definitely think I could swing right now,” Frazier said. “But I don’t think the path moving forward will be that quick. But I feel a lot better.”

On Tuesday he was cleared to ride the stationary bike and do light exercises

“Following the timelines other guys, it seems like the window is three to five weeks,” Frazier said. “So, I think I’m definitely on time for depending on what they let me do.”

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