SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — Shortstop Tim Anderson welcomed the latest addition to the White Sox, knowing veteran outfielder AJ Pollock will add depth to the lineup and specifically the outfield.

Anderson, Liam Hendriks, Dallas Keuchel and Giolito stress the value of a good clubhouse, where players have to coexist for six months a year. From everything they’ve heard, they are confident Pollock will fit in.

Not that it’s so hard.

“Anybody can come in and get along with us,” Anderson said. “New guy, old guy, young guy. No matter where you come from. We have that good chemistry.”

Whether the clubhouse has to make room for one more remains to be seen.

“The front office is doing the best they can to put us in the best position to win,” Anderson said.

The Sox can use more starting pitching, and left-hander Sean Manaea is still out there for the taking in the right trade with the Athletics, although the Sox might not match up with enough prospect and young controllable players they’re willing to part with to reel in Manaea, who is in the last year of his contract.

“There’s always one more move to make,” general manager Rick Hahn said once again Friday after the Craig Kimbrel for Pollock trade.

“The offseason ends Opening Day and then obviously there’s probably going to be fewer transactions over the early part of the season. And then before you know it, the opportunity to improve ourselves in June and July will probably present itself.”

Crochet set for surgery

A second opinion confirmed what Garrett Crochet suspected, that he will need Tommy John surgery. Dr. James Andrews will perform the procedure Tuesday.

Crochet said he felt a pop on his second to last pitch against the Reds Thursday.

“Threw another one just to kind of make sure and I felt some sharp pain in the same spot,” he said.

Crochet said he hadn’t dealt with much soreness before Thursday.

“I felt like I took care of my body pretty well this offseason and had put myself in a good position to move on to the regular season,” he said. “But obviously freak things happen.”

Crochet, who will miss the entire season, and manager Tony La Russa both looked at the positive.

“It’s not good for him or for us this year,” La Russa said. “But as young as he is, he has potential promise and that potential promise will take care of him. So next year, clear sailing and he’ll have a great career.”

“I’m very confident going into the surgery that [after] the recovery I can be even better,” Crochet said.

This and that

La Russa said he promised left fielder Eloy Jimenez, who does not like to DH, that “he can play left field a lot if he hits .300.”

“If he hits under .300, he may be DHing and if he hits near .200 he’ll be sitting next to me,” La Russa said. “He’s smiling like I was kidding.”

*La Russa said the Sox might carry up to 15 pitchers on the expanded 28-man Opening Day roster.

Read More

The revelation didn’t surprise many.

After the Bulls’ overtime victory Thursday against the Clippers, forward Patrick Williams admitted he still was dealing with a sore ankle at the start of the regular season and didn’t tell anyone.

Williams didn’t look right in the five games he played in early, but it wasn’t the ankle that sidelined him for months. In a game against the Knicks in late October, Williams suffered a bad injury to his left wrist and required surgery that kept him out until a few weeks ago.

”Playing one year in college and being 19 years old, there’s so much he doesn’t know,” coach Billy Donovan said after being informed Saturday about what Williams admitted a couple of days before.

”[I’ll] give you an example from last year. The first week, he said: ‘Why do I have to go in the training room and get on the table?’ I said: ‘Well, they’re basically taking care of your body. You need to do that every day.’ ‘But I feel OK.’ ‘Well, there’s a maintenance process that you have to go through.’ There’s absolutely zero foundation in terms of being a professional in every athlete. I’m not trying to embarrass him, it’s just where it was at.

”He didn’t understand the importance of eating breakfast. I mean, I saw him last year before one game, [and] he had, like, two huge pieces of chicken parmigiana pasta. We’re playing in, like, an hour and 15 minutes. I was like, ‘Patrick, you cannot eat that.’ ”

Williams’ wrist and ankle are obviously close to 100% now, with Donovan saying his minutes restriction had been lifted in the wake of him playing 37 minutes against the Clippers. But that doesn’t mean Donovan was ready to start playing Williams heavy minutes down the stretch.

”When [people] are sitting here, ‘Well, play him 30 minutes,’ sometimes he’s not ready for that,” Donovan said. ”I get a chance to be around him every single day and talk to him, and there’s things he’s trying to figure out along the way, too.

”You want to put him in a position where he can be successful. I have to keep on trusting him. . . . Like, I had to get on him at halftime [Thursday] about, ‘You have to do more.’ It’s got to get to a point where for him it’s more instinctive, where he’s doing it a little more on his own.”

On the Ball

There was very little to update about guard Lonzo Ball (left knee), but the Bulls hope that will change by Tuesday or Wednesday.

Donovan said Ball still hasn’t resumed any sprinting or cutting after taking a 10-day pause in his rehab process, but the team’s medical staff said a more definitive timetable would be coming by midweek.

Ball, who is averaging 13 points, 5.4 rebounds and 5.1 assists, last played Jan. 14 before being sidelined by a bone bruise in his left knee. He had surgery to repair the meniscus in the knee, but it’s the bone bruise that still is giving him discomfort.

If Ball is only running by Wednesday, a return for the playoffs would seem to be unlikely, considering the Bulls end the regular season next Sunday.

Read More

Two people were hospitalized, one in serious condition, following an apartment fire Saturday evening in Bronzeville on the South Side.

The fire broke out in an apartment near 36th Street and Indiana Avenue, according to Chicago fire officials.

A man jumped from a window on the third floor and was taken to the University of Chicago Medical Center in serious to critical condition, fire officials said.

A woman was taken to Mercy Hospital in fair condition.

Fire officials have not released any additional information.

Read More

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. – A.J. Pollock has played just six of his six career games in the outfield in right field. That number figures to grow considerably with the White Sox, who acquired the 34-year-old veteran in a trade with the Dodgers for Craig Kimbrel Friday.

On Saturday, Pollock wore a Sox uniform for the first time, six days before Opening Day, and was about to wear it playing right field in the Sox’ Cactus League game against the Diamondbacks.

“No big deal,” Pollock said.

“You just get a couple BPs, take a couple fly balls out there and I’ll be good,” Pollock said. ”Similar concepts, just going the other way. I’m not too worried.”

The 2015 Gold Glove center fielder as a Diamanback, Pollock will also play left when manager Tony La Russa gives what he calls a “half day” off to Eloy Jimenez, a markedly lesser option defensively than Pollock, or if Jimenez needs a full day or days – in the event of an injury. Pollock can serve the same purpose in center field for Luis Robert.

The Sox were one of the worst defensive teams in baseball last season, which is no way for a team with World Series aspirations to operate. With 2020 Gold Glove winner Robert, 2018 Gold Glove finalist Adam Engel and Pollock and his added flexibility to the mix, the Sox outfield brings credentials to a group that includes Jimenez and two first basemen, Andrew Vaughn and Gavin Sheets, who are still learning on the job.

Pollock, meanwhile, is getting acquainted with a different corner and a different clubhouse, which includes former Dodgers teammate Joe Kelly, who was telling Pollock Thursday night he was about to be trading.

“He said, ‘yeah guys are talking,’ Pollock said. “I was like, ‘it’s Joe, it’s not going to happen.’ ”

On Friday morning, he saw Dodgers president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman’s name pop up on his phone, showed his wife, Kate, and said, “I’m gone. Please be somewhere cool.’ And he said White Sox and I was like, ‘Chicago, that’s a good squad, I’m ready to go.’ ”

Kate is expecting the couple’s second child in 10 days, which is the only “stressful” thing about the trade — their first child was born at 24 weeks — so he’ll likely take paternity leave.

“I talked to Tony, he is super supportive, I know he’s a big family guy,” Pollock said. “So early on in the season we’ll enjoy that and get back at it.”

By that time, Pollock will probably be feeling comfortable in right field already.

“Wherever Tony wants to put me, all three spots I’ll feel good and do a good job for for him out there,” Pollock said. “Whatever Tony wants, I’m game.”

“He’s a really good athlete and has a good arm,” La Russa said. “So that’s easy to do. If anything, he protects us wherever we have to protect out there.”

About the same time Pollock was talking outside the Sox clubhouse at Camelback Ranch, Kimbrel was giving up two homers to the Giants about 100 yards away at the stadium the Sox and Dodgers share during spring training. It was much too soon to declare the deal a victory for the Sox, of course, but the Sox do feel good about getting a proven player coming off one his best seasons for a proven pitcher who struggled in his role with the Sox during the second half of 2021.

“Trades are a part of the business,” Pollock said. “I look at where I could have been. These guys just kicked our butt a couple days ago [in a Cactus League game] and I saw that lineup. It’s a cool team to be a part of, and we’re excited.”

Read More

Already missing captain Rafael Czichos due to health and safety protocols, the Fire were forced to go without Xherdan Shaqiri for the last 71 minutes of Saturday’s 0-0 tie against FC Dallas.

Shaqiri, who played 155 minutes over two friendlies with Switzerland during the international break, pulled up shortly before being subbed out in the 19th minute and was replaced by Brian Gutierrez on a cold and rainy day at Soldier Field. Over his first four games with the Fire, Shaqiri had played every second of every match, despite a history of injuries that plagued him during his European career.

As of the final whistle, there was no update on Shaqiri’s status.

Even before Shaqiri left, the Fire were adjusting to their most significant lineup change of the year.

Coach Ezra Hendrickson had used the same starting 11 for each game, but had to change due to Czichos’ absence. In place of Czichos, Federico Navarro got his first start in the midfield while Mauricio Pineda moved from the midfield to the back line.

Already a defensive-minded team, that ethos was valuable for the Fire with Shaqiri unavailable. Facing an FC Dallas group that didn’t dress United States winger Paul Arriola and subbed on fellow USMNT forward Jesus Ferreira in the 63rdminute, the Fire pitched their fourth shutout of the season and remained unbeaten through five matches.

Read More

MESA, Ariz. – The day after being held out of the lineup for what the Cubs called leg fatigue, second baseman Nick Madrigal said he feels “great.”

Madrigal, who underwent season-ending surgery on a torn right hamstring last June, said as he warmed up Friday he felt tightness in his right glute, possibly stemming in part from a tight lower back.

“I thought that as I got warm, it would kind of go away,” Madrigal said Saturday, “And then yesterday it was just lingering around. I started to run some bases, and they saw me not 100 percent, and they immediately pulled me out.”

Madrigal said he told the medical staff he could play, but they wanted to take a cautious approach. He went through workouts Saturday and is scheduled to play in a minor-league game Sunday.

“My ultimate goal is to be out there every day, but I know it was a big surgery, there’s a smarter approach to it,” Madrigal said, looking ahead to the regular season. “… I think it’s just something we have to be in communication with the training staff, the coaches [about] throughout the year and see where it goes.”

Givens debuts

Cubs reliever Mychal Givens threw a hitless inning with a walk and three strikeouts in his Cubs spring training debut.

Givens was on the schedule to throw in a game earlier in the week but opted for a bullpen session instead. Cubs manager David Ross said Givens was experiencing soreness, but Givens downplayed that, saying he didn’t want to jump right into a game after only throwing a bullpen and one session of live batting practice.

Givens, who the Cubs signed a week and a half ago, didn’t commit to being ready in time for Opening Day, saying, “my body will tell me, and we’ll see.”

He added: “If I’m not ready Opening Day, that’s nothing to do with being injured or anything. I just need to make sure I’m healthy for the team and continue to stay healthy for the team.”

Simmons still slowed

Cubs shortstop Andrelton Simmons didn’t completely rule out returning in time for Opening Day.

“But I also want to be game-ready,” he said. “I don’t want to come in and have to catch up. So hopefully I’ll work with the staff and they’ll tell me the plan on when a good time to start is.”

He is still progressing in his throwing program, making it unlikely that he’ll reach that goal by Thursday.

Miley optimistic

Cubs pitcher Wade Miley, who the Cubs shut down from throwing for 10 days when an MRI this week showed elbow inflammation, said he won’t have to completely start over the ramp-up process when he’s cleared to throw again.

“I just want to get to it now instead of fighting it all year long,” he said, adding that he’ll continue with his shoulder program in the meantime. “I feel like we can get ahead of it now and be fine. The MRI looked pretty good for a 35-year-old with a lot of innings. I was pretty pleased.”

Miley is expected to begin the season on the injured list.

Read More

Kyle Davidson traveled with the Blackhawks on their Florida trip, taking advantage of a few sunny days now that his “phone has settled down” post-trade deadline.

But upon returning to Chicago –with a stretch of five straight home games over a two-week span, starting Sunday against the Coyotes — the general manager planned to begin working on rebuilding the Hawks’ front office.

“[We’ll] really start road-mapping, white-boarding it out,” he said Friday in Tampa. “[We’ll start] just bouncingideas around and maybe talking about structures and different departments and builds we want to look at.”

So far, Davidson’s only front-office changes have been high-level personnel switches. He parted ways with longtime amateur scouting director Mark Kelley and longtime assistant GM Ryan Stewart but brought back former longtime executive Norm Maciver (as associate GM overseeing scouting) and elevated former player Brian Campbell into a yet-to-be-titled large role.

On the Campbell front, Davidson said officially designating his role has not been a “hot-button topic” because Campbell “knows he’ll be involved.”

And on the Maciver front, Davidson said he recognized the criticism about bringing in a man with extensive history with the Hawks. Objectively, Maciver is the opposite of an outsider. But Davidson yet again distanced himself and Maciver from previous GM Stan Bowman’s approach.

“While we’ve been here a long time, have very different opinions on how we would like to do things and how things have been done in the past,” he said.

Maciver was brought in first partly because of he and Davidson’s preexisting trust in and familiarity with each other; during the chaos leading up to the trade deadline, there wasn’t time for a thorough search. And Maciver’s personality is such that he’ll “say basically whatever the heck he wants” and tell Davidson if he’s “barking up the wrong tree.”

Now that Davidson finally has some time on his hands, though, he needs to make quite a few new hires to flesh out all areas of the front office, even if most of those newcomers will slot into less prominent roles than Maciver and Campbell.

Indeed, the front office not only needs significantly more people — from a sheer manpower standpoint — but also a significantly wider range of voices. That latter aspect will be a priority.

“Norm is just going to be one person in this much larger build that’s going to involve many different perspectives, many of which will be completely new to the Blackhawks and maybe hockey as well,” he added.

The analytics department Davidson created last summer is one area especially likely to receive an influx of hires.

Prospect plans

The Hawks have not yet used any of their four allotted non-emergency post-deadline AHL call-ups, but Davidson said one will definitely be used on top prospect Lukas Reichel at some point this month.

That brings up the issue of Reichel’s entry-level contract slide, since five more NHL appearances this season will burn the first of his three years. Davidson once again insisted he isn’t bothered by that.

“You can’t really game-plan it that much,” he said. “If he gets 10 games, that’s fine. I’m not too concerned with it, to be honest. Once we’re looking at really spending to that [salary] cap and utilizing every dollar, he’s probably going to be in a different contract anyway, out of his entry level. If we burn it, we burn it.”

Meanwhile, prospect defenseman Alex Vlasic –who played just seven minutes Friday after being healthy-scratched five consecutive games — may be sent down fairly soon.

“The plan is to get him a couple more games, get him some more experience,” Davidson said. “That’s going to give him great insight into what he needs to work on.”

“And then at some point…we’ll get him playing some games with the IceHogs, too.”

Read More

MESA, Ariz. – The Cubs pitching staff has seen plenty of turnover in recent years. Just ask lefty Drew Smyly, who last was around the team in 2018.

“Kyle’s still holding it down,” he said.

That phrase sums up Kyle Hendricks’ value to the Cubs in plenty of different contexts. And on Saturday, it rang true as manager David Ross named Hendricks the Opening Day starter for the third year in a row.

“It’s a tremendous honor,” Hendricks said, reflecting on the past two seasons, “just number one for Rossy to make that decision and have the trust in me to give me the ball. It was amazing the last two years.”

Hendricks is one of just three 2016 World Series holdovers on the Cubs roster, and the only pitcher still on the roster from that championship team. His career has been marked by consistency.

He landed with the Cubs as a prospect in 2012, traded by the Rangers as part of the package for right-hander Ryan Dempster. Since then, Hendricks has built his whole major-league career in Chicago.

The year the Cubs won the World Series, Hendricks posted the best ERA in the National League (2.13), but the finesse pitcher came in third for Cy Young voting, behind Max Scherzer and Hendricks’ own teammate Jon Lester.

Despite that early success, Hendricks didn’t get his first opening day start until 2020, when he threw a complete-game shutout against the Brewers. Ross has handed him the ball each opening day since.

Long before Ross announced his choice Saturday, Hendricks’ new rotation mate Marcus Stroman was lobbying for Hendricks to be the Opening day Starter, on Twitter and when asked about him this spring.

“Just because of his career, how unbelievable he’s been in the playoffs, his resume speaks for itself,” said Stroman, who is lined up to pitch the second game of the opening series against the Brewers next week. “So, he’s the guy who should be handed the ball each and every Opening Day as long as he’s here.”

Hendricks’ trademark consistency was shaken last season, when he posted a 4.77 ERA, by far the worst of his career. Over the offseason and into the spring, Hendricks has been focussed on the angle of his pitches, establishing the fastball down in the strike zone.

The results have been uneven this spring – Hendricks gave up four home runs to the Diamondbacks on Friday, in his last start of spring training – but he’s more interested in executing his plan and honing the shape of his pitches. Hendricks said he’s been pleased with what he’s done in those areas, setting himself up for the regular season.

“This year, I just want to definitely come in and be aggressive, attack, get after it, see what happens,” Hendricks said of Opening Day.

That’s the tone he wants to set for the Cubs rotation from Game 1. The staff may have gone through plenty of change in recent years, but at the top of the rotation, Hendricks is still holding it down.

Read More

Few fans could’ve reasonably expected the Fire’s first four games to go any better. They’re 2-0-2 (8 points) and have established an identity and posture the club hasn’t shown in years.

That doesn’t mean coach Ezra Hendrickson thinks the Fire are a finished product.

“Well, it’s going to take a while,” Hendrickson said. “One of the things I mentioned when I took the job is that there will be growing pains. Fortunately for us, we haven’t really run into any of those growing pains as yet.”

Whether or not those growing pains come and how the Fire respond to adversity remains to be seen, but Hendrickson and his team have plenty to build on entering Saturday’s match against FC Dallas (2-1-1, 7 points). However, as Hendrickson said, there are also areas where they must get better.

So far, the Fire’s defensive mindset has carried them. They were the last team in Major League Soccer to concede a goal and have shown themselves to be difficult to play against. However, they’ve only scored five goals, and their attack must show more punch.

“We are definitely not satisfied with the way things are going,” Hendrickson said. “We are happy but we know that there’s some weaknesses that we have to improve on because we know what it takes to be playing come October, November, and right now, we still have a lotmore to do to get to that point. So yes, we are happy but not satisfied.”

It would be surprising if the Fire viewed themselves as a finished product, especially just four games into what was expected to be a transitional year. Hendrickson is in his first season, and the Fire added two new attackers in Xherdan Shaqiri and Kacper Przybylko (with a third, Jairo Torres, arriving May 1), along with new captain and starting left centerback Rafael Czichos.

Even with the strong start, the Fire are still in the process of getting to know each other after another offseason of change, even if they are meshing quickly both on and off the field.

“I think the guys that we brought in jelled straightaway,” said defender Wyatt Omsberg, a surprise standout who has seized the right centerback job in place of the previously injured Carlos Teran. “They were all willing to buy into what Ezra said and to the culture that we were trying to create. They have adjusted really, really well.”

That culture — not to mention tactical discipline defensively and strong individual performances — has the Fire off to their best start through four games since 2009. Yet like his coach, Omsberg sees more development ahead.

“I think we probably still have some more to grow because there are a lot of new guys who haven’t been here for too long, and maybe we’ll add a couple more,” Omsberg said. “Everyone has done a good job, the returning guys, and especially guys who have come in have jelled really well. We just have to keep moving forward with that mentality.”

Read More