Rahimi, Harris & Grote Show - 5 On It: Are the Cubs back?

Episode Date: April 13, 2026

Leila Rahimi and Marshall Harris discussed a variety of sports topics in the 5 On It segment.

This hour is sponsored by WinTrust. It's time for five on it. Rahini Harrison Rooney. Bring you five topics on their minds today. On 104-3 to score. I got five on it. Number one. Are the Cubs back?

I had to do. I had to do it. Because what are you doing, Cubs? W-Y-D. How are you not taking two or three against the pirates? And Ray, why is it every time I call them the Pirates? At least they're only one. one game below 500.

That's really what this is about. It's like I said, I measure this part of the year, not in your record necessarily, and not in a pattern, but in series. Just take series against teams. You're supposed to take the series against. I wouldn't even be that critical of you

against this stretch with the Phillies and the Dodgers of the Padres. I wouldn't even be that critical, but at the same time, because you didn't do things like take the Pirate series. I'm a little like, hey, Dude, do something. Do something different. Hit more. I don't know that they're back, but I feel a lot better after Michael Bush breaks out of the over-30 slump. They get the win in the walk-off as opposed to the day before and extras.

So they're back enough for me, for now. But I'm watching you, Cubs. I know what you're up to. I know where you guys play. I'm watching you. I don't want you put the word out there that we back up. See, I don't even know that that is, I don't know that we can be that declarative yet. Is that too much? I think so.

Maybe a little bit. I think we got to wait. I think we got to wait to do the way back up thing. They've won three of their last five games. That's a winning record over the last five, right? Oh, wait, but you're saying they lost a series to the Pirates, a team that they should probably take care of at home? Yeah, I don't know that I can say they're back.

In fact, I'm not going to say they're back. I'm going to say they're right where they were before the series started, which is hanging around. That's the goal here. A lot of men make a good living by just hanging around. Explain that one. You know how it is. Dudes will just be hanging around.

Oh, you mean people's lives. In the status of a relationship that maybe isn't even a relationship, but they're just hanging around. Exactly. Okay, yeah, the Cubs are not in a relationship yet. I can tell you that. They are very much just hanging around. Maybe doing some parking lot pimping as we used to call it back in the day.

Explain that one for our audience. AKA, also known as The Let Out. So you've been out all night with you and your boys. Y'all out here trying to see if y'all can find some nice young ladies to talk to, maybe romance at a future date, maybe romance that evening. And you know what? You just, you haven't cleared anything. No numbers, no nothing.

But then got a saving period of time, a period of grace known as the let out. And that's when the club shuts down. and everybody goes outside and all of a sudden you can actually see everybody's faces and what they actually look like. And if you want to make an approach, you got a little more liquid courage than you. She's probably lowered her standards a little bit

because of her liquid courage. Now you make a move. They call that parking lot pippin. Nothing was more insulting than somebody trying to holler at two in the morning. You say that. I'm like, oh, oh, now, now why don't you talk to the tree? It'll be more productive.

Tree doesn't talk back. No, see, I disagree. Here's why. Here's why. Nothing more insulting. In the club, the music is loud and the conversations are not happening. What? But when you get outside, you could actually have a conversation.

You could actually, she might be feeling what you're saying now because she's getting a fuller version of you, as opposed to the version of you trying to two-step with her, or if you're more aggressive, pull up on it. You know? So this is what I'm saying. The Cubs right now, they are parking lot pimping. they're hoping that when the club lets out,

they're within striking distance and they have enough courage to go ahead and win the National League Central. But we're a long ways away from the actual letout of a 162. It is a grind. So no, the Cubs are not back. They're just hanging around.

There is an alternate universe where I face all of these teams in person face to face. And the Bulls are like, what do you mean? I'm the assistant to the regional manager. And then the Cubs are like, what do you mean?

I'm heading on girls at 2 a. I mean, A. I'm just here for processes that work. I heard you said I was Dwight Shrewd. Well, not really. At some point. I'm going to have to start paying a toll for all these examples and analogies and illustrations. And by the way, it's dark outside sometimes.

And I'm still six foot. What's good? Nothing more insulting than the 2 a.m. holler. Number two. To you. Go talk to that girl over there. She looks interested. To you.

The Cubs needed a Carson. and Kelly walkoff single to avoid a sweep in their 7-6 win. Over the Pirates, they face the Phillies today. And in seven of their next 10 games, with those two series wrapped on three games set with the Mets, what do you think of the Cubs position as a last place team that's only two games out of first place? I'm going to quote Dustin William William Rhodes.

Oh, okay. Who pointed out this morning that if the Cubs finish the month 500, that's a good month. given the schedule, given what they were dealing with on their own as their own main character. I feel like for the Cubs and the respective record, when you're playing in Philadelphia, as I mentioned, you're playing in, you're at Dodder Stadium, you're at Petco on the West Coast. You do have that series at home against the Mets. Who gave the Cubs some challenges?

But Edwin Diaz ain't walking through that door. Juan Soto is still trying to get back. Same time, though, you know these are very talented teams. They spend a lot of money putting these groups. together and their quality opponents. This might be one of the hardest parts of their schedule, given the back-to-back-to-back nature of it all. So one of the, not the hardest, I don't think that's the case.

But the point is, I'm good with 500 for the month of April. I agree with Dustin. I think that would be a success. And I know that it doesn't sound like a high bar, but given the opponents, I think that would be a step in the right direction. So knowing that the Cubs have all these games, which you have so aptly pointed out against higher level competition.

At least expensive competition, right? Is that fair? Yes. That is fair. Like, it gets a little easier in May, you know? They can't be exactly 500 because they have played 15 games in our 7 and 8, and they have 16 games to go. So that puts them at 31.

If they're winning a couple of games, three games under, three games under I'm comfortable with. Like, just get, just be hanging around. around again. At the end of April, if you're hanging around, you're in good shape. Unless you know the Brewers win, I don't know, 21 games in a row or something, then you're probably not in good shape at that point. But with the way the National League Central has played out with everybody being where they are and understanding that if you could have just found a way to win two out of three of the Pirates, you would be a half game back of the division lead. I think it's just

important to mount up wins, find ways to win by any means, possible. It's a very grindy part of the schedule and Craig Counsel has shown that he can be a grinding manager who's not afraid to take someone out of a lineup. He's not afraid to use all of his position players in any given game. This is the lineup that he's going to have. The players that he has available to him right now are the players unless somebody gets hurt. That was me knocking on wood. He's got to figure out. This is why Craig Counsel gets paid the very, very big dollars. So I'm looking at this and feel pretty good about them being a last place team right now that's just a couple of games out of first place.

Number three. It's five on it. I'm 104 through the score with Layla Rahimi and Marshall Harris. Here's question number three. What do you make of Grant Taylor throwing a season high 27 pitches and two innings as the opener in the White Sox six five win over the royals? So I did say I wanted to see Grant Taylor throw two innings and at some point I wanted to see him stretch down. And until

we found out about Noah Schultz coming up, I thought that Grant Taylor is probably the most intriguing pitcher that the White Sox had to try to build on. But I've also seen how he's been deployed recently, and A.J. Piersinski brought it up too. It's been too many times in too short of stretches

where he's been opening and not being used as a bullpen guy. And I think it, I just wonder at what price does it begin to become detrimental? And how many uses per week and how many uses consistently. And no matter how you look at it, using nine pitchers in the game yesterday is going to set you back as far as availability.

Jonathan Cannon has to leave the game. We're waiting to get an update on his health. But this could not have been the plan originally. I think it's something that they've come to see. But I don't know what, if there is an actual plan as far as his long-term progress, tailors and all of this. This feels like what you have to do right now. But at what point do you try to tailor the plan to growing him as a pitcher?

Well, Lila, to your point, even when he was first shown to us as an opener, that second turn through the rotation, the rotation had been so bad overall that I could completely understand where the organization was coming from and saying, okay, Grant Taylor needs to be an opener right now for this. But again, as I pointed out earlier in the show, with the way the White Sox pitching has been the last turn through the rotation, and I'll tell you, you've had three Eric Fetty appearances in which he's given up a total of three earned runs over three appearances. You've had a couple of Sean Burke appearances where he's given up a total of three runs in 11 innings. You've had a couple of Anthony Kay appearances in which he's thrown a total of 10 innings and given up just two earn runs. Now seems like the time where you wouldn't need Grant Taylor to be the opener anymore

because the starting rotation has become a little more stable than what it was a couple of weeks ago. And Davis Martin, he's been good. He's giving you 13 innings over his last two starts and only giving up two total earn runs. Now, we know Shane Smith got sent down. We know that Noah Schultz is up. I don't know how deep Noah Schultz is going to go in that game. Tomorrow, you heard A.J. Prisinski talking about it. he can only go as far as his control will allow him because he goes deep into counts

and he loses batters sometimes. But I like to think that Grant Taylor has made the last of his opener starts or opener appearances for a while. Maybe this is when they are now going to put him back in the bullpen and be a guy who can pitch multiple innings. Man, I don't know. I guess we'll get an update ahead of the next series, but I just, it's a big question mark as far as the whole picture of it all.

Yeah. Number four. Did you think Rory McElroy was going to choke on the mastered stage on Sunday? You know what I kept thinking when I was watching Sunday was, well, if Galt didn't just golf, here we are on Saturday at Circa asking after Rory's incredible Friday round, is it possible that he can even be caught? You know, here he is just in the zone, had the biggest lead after 36, I think at Augusta, that it happened one of the biggest in any major.

if golf didn't just show me that golf is what it is. And it sounds cliche, but if you know, you know. He was almost caught. How about Scotty Schaeffler just being incredible per usual? Third and fourth rounds of the Masters, and he didn't have a single bogey. And that hadn't been done since the 1940s. So I definitely thought that there were times where Roy was starting to break down.

And we even saw that a little bit on Saturday, guys. If you remember we were watching over at Stadium Swim, and I'm like, did he just bogey? And some short putts being missed. We saw that too. At one point, CBS didn't know where the ball was yesterday. Did you notice that on one of the final holes? So I definitely didn't think it was safe.

Even with like three to play, I wasn't, I didn't think that it was going to happen. And we saw the short putt from Scotty Sheffler. Was he an inch from the hole? That could have forced it to a playoff. So the fact that he bogey. get the 18th hole to make it as dramatic as possible, right? You're thinking, okay, he's got it. It's good, but it wasn't good until it was absolutely over.

I thought this quote from Roy McElroy kind of summed up the emotions that he took us all through when he was blowing out the field after Friday and then to go one over part and then one underpar the next two days. Like he was no longer blowing out anyone. He was just trying to hang on for dear life. Here's the quote. I thought it was so difficult to win last year because of, trying to win the Masters in the Grand Slam.

And then this year, I realized it's just difficult to win the Masters. I tried to convince myself it was both. Like, think about how golf just messes with people's heads. And you're on the biggest stage in your sport, an individual sport. So, like, never is the focus off of you and what you're doing, because it is an individual sport. You don't have a teammate that you can rely on to, okay, you take this shot. Or maybe my teammate will hit a home run, and that's how we'll win this game.

Your teammate will usually sink you when your teammate is you. That's the thing. Yeah. So to understand that this guy became just a fourth golfer in the last 40 years to have a piece of the lead at least in each round of the Masters, it looked easy after two days. It looked really difficult after days three and four. Number five. The Bulls season is over.

What's your most positive takeaway from the 2025-26 campaign, which saw. the Bulls finish 31 and 51 on the season? I think it's the regime change that you know one is coming in the next year and that the Bulls finally decided after six years that having some direction to start with under the Cardas Chavez Eversley regime did not sustain because we didn't really know what the direction was for the last four. So because of that, I think it's the positive is change because we don't get that very often and that's the biggest one.

Other than that, it's modest Buzellis, racking up the reps, getting significant minutes, just learning who he is in the league. But those would be my two, but number one is by far change at the top because change needed to happen. So I'm tempted to jump on that bandwagon with you

about the regime change. Here's why I can't, because I don't know what's coming next. If I knew it was coming next, I'd be like, yes, but I worry about what's coming next and I can't say that I'm here thinking everything is good because I'm not sure.

I don't know. I won't know until they make a decision about who's going to be the next head basketball executive in charge and then who that person's coach is going to be. And the ensuing really the moves. I mean, we got a game we got to watch is the Portland Trailblazers. who have a chance to...

Oh, the play in. Win. And if they win their game... And they get two chances to win, by the way. If they win either of their next two games, because they're playing in that 7-8 game. If they win the first game, they're in the playoffs.

The Bulls get their pick. Yeah, they're playing the Suns. Yes. I'm not trying to say this to Wishcast. I actually just... I think the Suns are a better team. But it's pretty even. It should be an interesting game.

Depending on which Sun... Not if the Suns... team that showed up when the Bulls came to town. Do you remember when the Bulls beat the Sons in Phoenix? Well, that's the thing. With a bunch of just nobody, not nobody's, but like not their top players. I just can't use the Bulls as a gauge in this. I can't use the Bulls as a gauge in opponent games, especially in the Western Conference.

Okay. That's fair. But I will say this. For the Bulls, it's modest. And it's Modis's continued development as a guy who is able to make threes, who can help defend both as a help defender and gotten a lot better as an on-ball defender. That needed to happen. If you're going to do anything of consequence anytime soon, and when I say anytime soon,

really the next three or four years, modest has got to be a dude. He's got to be a guy who's in All-Star consideration, if not an actual All-Star. And that defense is going to be key. He's got a lot of work to do on offense with his handle specifically, but I like the development

that I saw from Modis. That is Five on It here on Rahimi Harris and Grotie. We're going to expand a little bit more on that incredible round we saw yesterday on Sunday at the Masters with Andy Johnson. He is the founder of Friday Egg Golf, co-host of the Shotgun Star podcast. So we'll wrap up the Masters next.