Former Cubs Fan Report Editor-in-Chief Joel Reese is even more impressed by the Theo Epstein hiring as we are. Here's his analysis. more ›

Brent Morel and Paul Konerko brought out the heavy lumber last night. more ›

The question asked when the White Sox and Twins meet is "How will the Sox lose?" It's a valid question, even with a 5-1 lead after one inning. more ›

"Close but no cigar" has been the theme for the Cubs in DC. more ›

Here's the Cubs contribution to the It Gets Better project. more ›

The Cubs aren't saying why they're one of nine teams in violation of Major League Baseball's debt service rules. But there's plenty of speculation. more ›

The White Sox win their first series in nearly a month, but needed extra innings to do it. more ›

Reds 5, Cubs 4 more ›

The scouting report on Mark Buehrle is that he tends to have one bad inning per game. Last night, that was the first inning as Buehrle gave up a three-run home run to Robinson Cano, which was all the Yankees needed in a 3-1 win over the White Sox. Buehrle settled down and pitched well the rest of the way, going seven innings, but Cano's home run proved to be a major hole for the struggling Sox' lineup to dig themselves out, which they couldn't against a resurgent Bartolo Colon. Ozzie Guillen provided more fireworks. The Sox skipper was ejected in the first inning and tweeted about it immediately afterward. The White Sox and Yankees close out their series tonight (6:05 p.m., WSCR-AM, CSN) more ›

After last night's 4-1 loss to Tampa Bay, The White Sox hitting slump is now so pronounced that people are calling for the firing of hitting coach Greg Walker. Demanding Walker's head may as well be a rite of spring at this point. Not trying to defend him here, but critics are quick to lay the blame on Walker when the bats go quiet and hesitant to give him propers when the team is hitting the cover off the baseball. Walker giving the press sound bites like, "our hitters aren't making adjustments" only add fuel to the fire. But Walker can't hit for them, and he isn't making fielding calls or getting picked off first base like Paul Konerko did the other night. This is a team wide slump. As Talking Chicago Baseball notes, this is some of the worst baseball the White Sox have played in Ozzie Guillen's time as manager. As bad as the White Sox played early last season, their longest losing streak before their June hot streak was four games. Last night's loss marked the Sox' seventh in a row. But at least they're keeping pace with Minnesota. At the bottom of the Al Central standings. more ›

Thanks to the Cubs' lineup scratching back after being put in a 4-1 first inning hole, Ryan Dempster officially earned a no-decision in yesterday's 9-5 loss to the Rockies at Coors Field. But Dempster knew after the game he didn't help matters with a 29-pitch first inning highlighted by Sean Smith's home run. more ›

There's no need in complaining about the White Sox bullpen for this weekend's sweep at the hands of the Los Angeles Angles of Anaheim. Mike Scioscia's crew was simply the better team. Dan Haren pitched into the seventh inning, Maicer Iztruis had three hits and scored twice, Mark Trumbo his a home run and Jordan Walden got Juan Pierre to pop up, ending a ninth inning rally as the Angels beat the White Sox 4-2. Mark Buerhle pitched seven innings to take the loss more ›

The purpose of a bullpen in baseball is to put out fires, not start them and then add gasoline. The White Sox bullpen are like a gang of arsonists so far this season and that held true in Oakland's 7-4, 10-inning win. John Danks was solid through eight innings, allowing one run on five hits while striking out seven. But Chris Sale blew a save opportunity in the top of the ninth, allowing the A's to tie the game while not getting an out. Matt Thornton was touched with the loss, allowing three runs in the 10th inning. Reader BlueFairlane commented yesterday that it's too early to declare the Thornton era as Sox closer a bust, but it's pretty close. Thornton's WHIP is now an abysmal 3.21, his ERA 7.71. more ›

With a little bit of help from bad fielding, Matt Thornton is now 0-for-3 in save situations for the White Sox. In Houston, Carlos Marmol continued to be an alpha closer. more ›

The Cubs did what they couldn't do against Pittsburgh - take a series against a lesser opponent. But today's 6-5 win over the Arizona Diamondbacks may have come at a cost as Andrew Cashner, making his first major league start, left the game in the sixth inning with stiffness in his right shoulder. Before being pulled, Cashner was dealing, giving up 1 run and 2 hits in 5.1 innings. Tyler Colvin, starting his first major league game at first base in place of the injured Carlos Pena, belted a 2-run home run to pace the Cubs. Starlin Castro went 2-for 5 at the plate with an RBI. more ›

Carlos Peña broke a 1-1 tie with a sacrifice fly as the Cubs evened their record with a 4-1 win over the Arizona Diamondbacks at Wrigley Field. Alfonso Soriano was 2-for-3 at the plate and drove in 2 runs, including his second round-tripper of the season. Randy Wells pitched six innings to get the win. Wells struck out six and walked four as manager Mike Quade went deep into his bullpen to get Wells the win. Carlos Marmol pitched a scoreless ninth inning to earn his second save of the season. more ›

Let's start in Cleveland, where the White Sox put up a lot of runs again and did so without the long ball in an 8-3 win over the Cleveland Indians at Progressive Field. Edwin Jackson gets his first win of the season, going 6 innings and settling down after a shaky second inning in which he let the Tribe back into the game after being spotted a 5-0 lead. Chris Sale and Sergio Santos were stellar in relief of Jackson. On the offensive side, both Gordon Beckham and Carlos Quentin are off to torrid starts. Beckham was 2 for 4 at the plate and drove in two runs with a bases loaded single in the Sox' four-run second inning, while Quentin had two more doubles, one of them driving in a pair of runs. It's the Sox' first 2-0 start on the road since their World Series championship in 2005, but way too early to start thinking of bigger prizes. more ›

The Cubs picked up where they left off last season against the Pittsburgh Pirates, by losing to the Bucs 6-3 in the season opener in Wrigley Field. Ryan Dempster was strong through the first four innings and had a 2-0 lead in the fifth inning, but things went south after Neil Walker tagged him for a two out grand slam, the second Opening Day grand slam in Pirates history and the first since Roberto Clemente did it 49 years years ago. Andrew McCutcheon added a two-run shot in the seventh, chasing Dempster out of the game. Starlin Castro was another bright spot for the Cubs, going 3 for 5 at the plate and scoring two runs. Carlos Pena and Kosuke Fukudome drove in the Cubs runs. more ›

For our Cubs preview, we asked former Cubs Fan Report Editor-in-Chief Joel Reese to handle the honors. Joel came through in spades. Read on. more ›

While the weather may deceive, spring is here and that means baseball! The White Sox open up their 2011 campaign in Cleveland tomorrow. Come October, will this Sox team find itself in the postseason? Perhaps. Last year's team finished 88-74, six games back of the Twins in the AL Central. While initial indications suggested that GM Kenny Williams would have to scale back the team's payroll in the offseason, he instead went on a spending spree in hopes of returning to the playoffs. more ›

Sun-Times Cubs beat writer Gordon Wittenmyer had a chance to speak with former Cubs skipper Lou Piniella at this week's winter meetings in Tampa, FL. Reflecting on his tenure as Cubs manager, Piniella felt the need to stress to Wittenmyer that he didn't quit on the team in the weeks leading up to his retirement in August. Piniella admits that his announcement to retire was another distraction for a team that struggled with distractions most of last season (among other things). more ›

The Ricketts family has asked the state of Illinois to borrow up to $300 million in a bond offering that will fund a major to Wrigley Field, the beloved but 96-year old ballpark of their recently purchased Chicago Cubs. more ›

Mesa, AZ voters yesterday voted to fund construction of a new spring training facility for the Cubs. more ›

Why is Mike Quade smiling? It's probably because he's been named the Cubs liked enough of what they saw from his 24-13 record after Lou Piniella retired in August to remove the "interim" title from his job. more ›

On Sunday, White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen caused a stir with his comments that Asian players in Major League Baseball received preferential treatment to Latino players. While reaction has spanned the spectrum, one group that's not having any of Ozzie's claim is his own team. The White Sox issued a statement saying, "This is an issue Ozzie Guillen obviously feels very passionately about. Ozzie certainly has his own experiences as a player, coach and manager, and is entitled to his own opinions, but the Chicago White Sox believe his views are incorrect." The team continued: more ›

The MLB Network's Prime 9 listed its top 9 baseball play-by-play men and Chicago legend Harry Caray made the list at No. 7. The list excluded national announcers who weren't connected to any team. Here's the overall list: more ›

Major League Baseball announced it's Hall of Fame class of 2010 and it - finally - includes Cubs great Andre Dawson. In fact, Dawson was the only player elected to the hall by the BBWA this year. Dawson received 77.9 percent of the vote, the only player to achieve the 75 percent of votes required to earn election to the Hall. Pitcher Bert Blyleven and infielder Roberto Alomar fell just short of the threshold. more ›

The New York Times is reporting this afternoon that, "according to lawyers with knowledge of the drug-testing results from that year," Sammy Sosa tested positive for steroids during the 2003 season in which he was playing for the Cubs. According to the story, it seems Sosa's positive test came from the same round that snared Yankees slugger/slapper Alex Rodriguez. more ›

As the Cubs close in on acquiring Padres ace Jake Peavy, the Tribune Company has informed bidders their next round of proposals are due by Thanksgiving Day. And this time, there's an added twist: prove that, in this current economic clusterfuck, you can actually pay for the team. It seems the Trib, like everyone, is in dire financial straits.

On Monday, Tribune reported a net loss of $121.6 million across its operations for the third quarter, compared with a profit of $152.8 million for the same period a year ago. Revenue declined 10.5 percent to $1.04 billion. more ›