With a new GM and head coach taking over after a 6-11 season, the Bears are trying to build a foundation while also looking to help Justin Fields.Read More

TAMPA, Fla. — Blackhawks interim coach Derek King laid out, in the simplest possible way, why the Blackhawks lost to the Lightning on Thursday.

“We try,” King said. “We just can’t compete with that type of team. We’re not there. We don’t have the players for it.”

He might as well have said the Lightning are good and the Hawks are bad. It’s not much more complicated than that.

That power imbalance was evident immediately as the Lightning whipped the puck around the offensive zone faster than the Hawks could even follow, much less defend. And it was evident on the scoreboard at the end of the night, too, as the Lightning pulled away for a 5-2 win.

The Hawks’ two road games in 24 hours in Florida went about as poorly as expected. They were outscored 9-2 cumulatively and left with two losses, stretching their overall losing streak to four straight.

“I thought Florida was a pretty good team,” King added. “This is a pretty good team. That’s a tough call between the two of them.

“These are the games we get to play on the road, the two top teams maybe in a battle for that conference [championship]. Obviously, I would have loved to see all the ex-Tampa Bay guys score some goals and our power play get a couple and [for us to] stay in this. … But we just didn’t have the juice.”

The Hawks did counter Brandon Hagel’s appearance in a blue sweater by starting a line composed of Tyler Johnson, Taylor Raddysh and Boris Katchouk, and Johnson later received a big ovation from the crowd after his tribute video.

But outside of that and Calvin de Haan’s second goal in three games –matching his total from his previous 117 games –the Hawks predictably didn’t have much to celebrate. They were buried in shots on goal (43-23), scoring chances (44-16) and, of course, sheer talent.

“[We’ve] gotto give our goalies a little bit of run support…[and] we’ve got to limit those grade-‘A’ chances,” de Haan said. “It’s kind of the same old song and dance.”

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MESA, Ariz. – The Cubs played the Brewers in one of a pair of split squad games on Friday, less than a week before they face Milwaukee at Wrigley Field for Opening Day.

In the other game, veteran Kyle Hendricks took the mound against the Diamondbacks. Though Cubs manager David Ross hasn’t yet named his opening day starter, Hendricks appears to be the favorite, especially after the Cubs scheduled right-hander Marcus Stroman’s next start for a minor-league game on Sunday. That lines up Stroman to start the Cubs’ second game on a regular five-day schedule.

With bits and pieces of an opening day preview playing out around Arizona, it’s a good time for a Sun-Times opening day roster projection.

“The 7th is an important day, I think from a player’s perspective, when you get to be a part of opening day,” Ross said. “I don’t take that for granted and understand all that, being on the team and breaking camp.

“But there’s also a sense of, we have six months of baseball to play and a unique spring training and unique offseason that we need to be aware of.”

This year, readiness will be a bigger factor than in seasons past. So, keeping in mind that injuries, performance, or a late trade in the last week of the spring could upend this prediction, here’s one way the Cubs could use their 28 active roster spots to open the season:

Starting pitchers (5)

RHP Kyle Hendricks

RHP Marcus Stroman

LHP Justin Steele

RHP Alec Mills

LHP Drew Smyly

Lefty Wade Miley is expected to begin the season on the injured list – the Cubs have shut him down from throwing for 10 days due to elbow inflammation. When he returns, the Cubs could move Mills, who has experience in a swingman role, or even Steele into the bullpen as a multi-inning reliever.

Relievers (10)

RHP Keegan Thompson

LHP Daniel Norris

RHP Jesse Chavez (non-roster invite)

RHP Michael Rucker

RHP Scott Effross

RHP Mychal Givens

RHP Manuel Rodriguez

RHP Rowan Wick

RHP Chris Martin

RHP David Robertson

The Cubs, along with every team in Major League Baseball, get two extra roster spots to begin the season. With the short spring, and starters not having as much time to build up to their normal workloads, those spots will likely go to pitchers. Thompson, Norris, Chavez and Rucker have all logged multi-inning outings this spring, which will come in especially handy early on.

Catchers (2)

Willson Contreras

Yan Gomes

After using eight backup catchers last season, the Cubs are poised to enter the season with a consistent backup for Contreras. Between Gomes’ signing just before the lockout, and the designated hitter coming to the National League, the Cubs have tools to keep Contreras’ legs fresh.

Infielders (5)

1B Frank Schwindel

2B Nick Madrigal

SS/2B/OF Nico Hoerner

3B Patrick Wisdom

3B/2B/SS Jonathan Villar

It’s looking less likely by the day that shortstop Andrelton Simmons (right shoulder soreness) will be ready for opening day. Not carrying six infielders would pose a risk, one that was crystal clear when the Cubs held Madrigal out of the lineup Friday, citing leg fatigue and a precautionary approach. So, it may not be the most likely situation. Versatile infielder Ildemaro Vargas would be a strong choice to add infield depth. But if the Cubs did put five infielders on their opening day roster, the move would free up a spot for another outfielder.

Outfielders (6)

LF Ian Happ

CF Jason Heyward

RF Seiya Suzuki

OF Clint Frazier

OF Michael Hermosillo

OF Rafael Ortega

Suzuki, Heyward and Happ are in position to claim spots on the opening day roster. Depending on how Happ’s recovery from an elbow procedure in February continues to go, the Cubs could also use the DH spot to lighten his load on the field. That leaves a tight competition for the remaining spots. The Cubs will have to decide whether to prioritize infield depth or keeping their full outfield group.

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White Sox left-hander Dallas Keuchel was hit hard in his last start of spring training Friday, allowing seven runs on 11 hits including a pair of long home runs by Kevin Smith and Sheldon Neuse of the Athletics in a six-run inning.

Lined up to be the Sox’ fifth starter, Keuchel walked one and struck out four.

Keuchel was pulled in favor of minor-league extra Edgar Navarro with two outs in the third, then went back out for the fourth and pitched a scoreless fourth and scoreless fifth innings.

Keuchel pitched 4 1/3 scoreless innings against the Dodgers in his previous start. In a team high 11 1/3 Cactus League innings, Keuchel gave up 10 earned runs on 19 hits (7.94 ERA), walking five and striking out nine.

Collins, Foster among roster cuts

Catcher Zack Collins, right-hander Matt Foster, infielder Jake Burger and outfielder Adam Haseley were optioned to Triple-A Charlotte, and infielders Zach Remillard and outfielders Dwight Smith Jr. and Luis Basabe were reassigned to minor league camp. Outfielder Blake Rutherford cleared waivers and was outrighted to Charlotte.

Seby Zavala and Nick Ciuffo are getting the most starts behind Yasmani Grandal but “we still view Zack as having upside and a guy who could potentially help us over the course of the summer,” general manager Rick Hahn said.

Left-handed hitting catcher Nick Ciuffo threw out a runner stealing and had an RBI single.

On deck

Sox at Diamondbacks, Scottsdale, 8:10 p.m., Lance Lynn (0-0, 10.13) vs. Merrill Kelly (0-0, 0.00).

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Two people have been charged after police exchanged gunfire with a suspect who then barricaded himself inside a Pullman home Thursday, according to Chicago police.

Earl Jackson, 20, faces counts of reckless discharge of a firearm, aggravated assault to an officer, and aggravated unauthorized use of a weapon, police said.

A 16-year-old boy, who wasn’t named because of his age, was charged with aggravated assault to an officer, unauthorized use of a weapon/machine gun, police said.

Officers had responded to a call of shots fired and tried to curb a car about 1:20 a.m. Thursday in the 900 block of East 104th Street, police said. Two people ran from the car and one was immediately placed into custody.

Officers were chasing the second suspect on foot when he shot toward officers, officials said. He then barricaded himself inside a home as a SWAT team was called to the scene, police said.

Police arrested the suspect without incident, officials said.

No one was hit by gunfire but an officer suffered a minor cut to the right hand, police said.

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Hope is a Chicago sports fan’s best friend. Some would say it’s their only friend, but why be cruel?

The hope Bulls fans are clinging to is that their team will be able to flip a switch when it matters most, which is to say, come playoff time in a few weeks. It’s a wonderful hope, a noble hope, but it’s not a hope based on anything tangible. The Bulls have had very little success against teams with winning records this season. Put a team in front of them with a losing record, however, and they turn into the 1995-96 Bulls.

Few people want to hear that sort of thing, especially after DeMar DeRozan’s 50-point performance in an overtime victory against the Clippers on Thursday night. They say: 50 points! I say: the 37-40 Clippers!

You might recall my Jan. 6 column, which rhapsodized that the Bulls didn’t have to apologize for who was on their schedule. They were rolling, remember? They were 25-10, had the best record in the Eastern Conference and had won eight games in a row. Sure, only two of the teams in that streak had winning records, and fine, if you wanted to be a stickler, the eight victims were a combined 47 games under .500. But the age-old wisdom that you can only beat the teams the schedule has given you seemed appropriate. Let’s see how they do against the league’s better teams, I wrote. With the way they were playing, there was reason enough to hope.

Since then, the Bulls have gone 20-22. In those 42 games, they were 7-15 against teams with winning records. They were 0-9 against opponents with better records than them.

Yikes! would be the appropriate response here.

DeRozan might not be the MVP candidate I thought he was a month or two ago, but he’s still the reason for most of the good things that have happened to the Bulls. He has turned more than a few losses into victories this season, including Thursday, when he scored a combined 27 points in the fourth quarter and overtime to beat those, yes, mediocre Clippers.

You say the Bulls had won three of their last four heading into Saturday’s game against Miami.

I say the Bulls’ next three games are against the Heat (49-28), the Bucks (48-28) and the Celtics (47-30), the top three seeds in the East. I say, uh-oh.

But even if they have success with that small sample, would it change anything in the postseason? I guess that’s where eternal hope elbows its way into the picture.

There’s no escaping that the Bulls have missed Lonzo Ball and Alex Caruso for long stretches of the season due to injury, but it doesn’t explain their difficulties against good teams. When your Big Three is DeRozan, Zach LaVine and Nikola Vucevic, it’s not supposed to matter who your Little Two is. That’s not a shot at the abilities of Ball and Caruso. It’s a recognition that the trio of DeRozan, LaVine and Vucevic isn’t as big as we might have thought earlier.

The Bulls are a nice team, a fine team. But they’re not a great team, and we probably mistook their early light for heat. They’re not a good rebounding team, though that might have something to do with their league-low three-point attempts. Their defense, especially in the paint, has been subpar. Those kinds of deficiencies tend to show themselves against good opponents.

The unfortunate part is that the Bulls are a fetching 45-32 yet it’s impossible to stop looking at the mole on the tip of their nose. If the season ended today, they’d be the fifth seed in the East. In October, that would have sounded great. And if you didn’t know any better at the moment, you’d still say it was great. But there’s another story in that record, and it’s too meaningful to ignore. The Bulls haven’t been able to beat anybody who’s anybody.

Back to the concept of hope. If you believe that they’ll finally flip a switch after months of feeling blindly along the wall for it, what gives you that belief? It can’t be their performance against quality opponents this season. DeRozan’s ability to carry a team when it matters? OK. At least that’s more concrete than hoping against hope. But the idea that the Bulls will overcome a season’s worth of evidence against the NBA’s best seems more like wishful thinking right now.

You want hope? Here goes: I hope I’m wrong.

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GLENDALE, Ariz. — White Sox left-hander Garrett Crochet, who exited a Cactus League game Thursday night after facing one batter, will likely have Tommy John surgery, general manager Rick Hahn said Friday morning.

Shortly after announcing a trade that sends reliever Craig Kimbrel to the Dodgers in exchange for outfielder AJ Pollock, Hahn said an MRI showed ligament damage on Crochet’s elbow “that very likely will require Tommy John surgery.”

Crochet will get a second opinion but “the prognosis at this time is not great,” Hahn said.

Crochet, who struck out the Reds’ Sebastian Almonte as the first batter he faced Thursday night in Goodyear, appeared to make a sweeping motion with his left arm after making a pitch to the next hitter. He then headed to the clubhouse with training staff.

“In talking to him it sounds like the pitch before he felt a little something and it sort of went away and then he threw the next pitch and felt a sharp pain again and wisely shut it down again,” Hahn said.

Crochet gave up five runs in his previous outing after recording three scoreless appearances to start the spring. Crochet, the Sox’ first-round draft choice in 2020, was coming off his first full season in which he appeared in 54 games, posting a 2.82 ERA with 65 strikeouts and a 1.270 WHIP over 54 1/3 innings.

The loss of Crochet, who will miss the entire season, is a significant blow to the bullpen that featured a strong left-handed tandem with Aaron Bummer.

“It’s more about the ability to get righties and lefties out than just matchup left on left,” Hahn said. “We’ve seen teams successful with one or even zero lefties because of the effectiveness of their righties against opposite handed hitters. We’re still putting the final touches on the roster, I suspect we’ll break with at least two lefties, Aaron and at least one of the kids to start [the season].”

“[Bennett] Sousa and [Anderson] Severino have shown the potential ability to help a big league club.”

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