Rahimi, Harris & Grote Show - 5 On It: On what date will the White Sox catch the Cubs in the standings?

Episode Date: May 26, 2026

Leila Rahimi and Mark Grote discussed a variety of topics in the 5 On It segment.

It's time for five on it. Rahini Harrison Rooney. Bring you five topics on their minds today. On 104-3, the score. I got five on it. Number one. This question was submitted to us by the vacationing Marshall Harris, who is a noted White Sox fan.

Shout out to Marshall. Noted White Sox fan. On what date will the White Sox catch the Cubs in the standings? And then I joked because I was frustrated about the Cubs nine-game losing streak. And I was like, oh, you mean Thursday? It is actually possible on Thursday. But it would take a lot of things to happen because I did the math. I started writing things down over here.

So right now, if they're 27 and 26, then theoretically, if they sweep the twins, which I would love. The weird-ass twins? Yeah, the weird-ass Minnesota twins. Shout out C.C. Zabathia. Then it could happen on Thursday. And that pretty much just involves the Cubs splitting the series with the pirates. Like Jordan Wicks is on the mound tonight. You asked for this, Mark Dirty.

I did. I talked it into existence. But I just don't know if because of that they end up winning the game. So the way I saw it was it could happen Thursday. Friday, everybody begins a new series. You've got Detroit for the Sox. You've got the Cardinals. At Cards for the Cubs.

Yeah. God. Please win the series against Pittsburgh so that way the Cards fans aren't insufferable. maybe they'll be too distracted by the tarps off thing. They just want to be a group and have fun. Maybe. Do we need to get Ranji on? No, we can't have him on because he's on the air at the same time.

He works at the same time as us. He's such a jerk. We would have had Ranji on nine million times. You're right. If he didn't work at the same time as us. He'd be another character on this show, probably. Yeah, there's not even a doubt in my mind. He'd be on the days that I'm not here.

Just just adding to the mix. Yeah. So then I started to look at the June schedule, and that's where it gets. for our socks, as Steve Stone likes to say. Because then you've got three more games against the twins. Those don't bother me. But then you've got the Phillies.

They're much better now. Then you play at home against the Braves and the Dodgers. Then you play at the Yankees. And then you play at the Tigers. Then you're home against the Guardians. Yada, yada, yada. I decided to just pick a day and said June 27th. Okay.

That Braves and Dodgers series is a bit hairy. for the socks. Let's throw the Phillies and Yankees in there too. That's not a very great. Yeah. Yeah, I am. So the 27th is probably not even possible based on the teams I just mentioned. Yeah.

But for the sake of this, either Thursday or the 20th. I think June 27th is when I predicted the Bears would confirm where their stadium is going to be built. Isn't that? Oh, I don't know. Look in your calendar. I have to look at it in your phone calendar. I did. I did.

I don't want to look at this second. I said August or 20th. Yeah, you, you, I feel like you're in poll position right now, I think. No, because the legislative session is up on May 31st. Exactly. And now I'm hearing things out in ether that it could be another month still. So. Slag heap. Slag heap.

Slag heap. Tommy Slag heap. I don't know that we should be chanting that. Green Bay sucks. Rake, rank the chance. Actually, Green Bay kind of is a slag heap, isn't it? No, stop that. First of all, people do build on

slag heaps. The goal is to rehabilitate land. Secondly, it just is a hilariously ridiculous phrase. Well, exactly. Again, versatile. It's like Green Bay sucks chance. It goes with anything. You could say slag heap and it's going to be a great conversation.

It's just one of those phrases that pays. It gets the people going. Our guy, or my guy, Jordan Wicks, as you said, goes as we look towards when would be, Could the White Sox overtake the Cubs and the Stannings? He talks football with you.

Wait! Cubs suck. Jordan Wixie, a 444 ERA and 7 starts at Iowa, although his last two appearances have been good. So I got a little bit of hope for Wixie.

I mean... You wanted this. You've been asking about him. I have. We all had. Confounded by this man. You'd been leading the charge. My charge is not been so much. Why isn't he pitching? Where is he? What is he doing? Why is he not on the team? Did they like him? Was he really? I don't know what anybody's doing up there.

Exactly. This was a first round pick. We don't like him anymore. What is he worth? What happened? Where's Wixie? Well, we had Jed Hoyer on the show last week and you asked Jed Hoyer. So I guess Jed Hoyer is just trying to prove to you, Mark Grody personally. No, we got him. Jed mentioned him by name. And then Mark and I went crazy and looked at each other like the world had just fallen apart. I don't know you were going to start him, Jed. Jesus, man. Well, what else was he going to do? No, but they, with all due respect, the Cubs are scraping the bottom of the barrel when it comes to like what they thought. Jordan Wicks was not mentioned as part of their depth this season. We still need a check on Jackson Wiggins.

We still, exactly. Yeah, where are you now? Where is Jackson Wiggins? He's been rehabbing. Yeah, he had, yes, I believe so. I don't know if he's got, I know the last time we talked, he was long tossing maybe. but everybody is in play this year. Here's what I think.

The Cubs have to snap out of this at some point in time, right? Like we're not really looking at a 16-game losing streak here. As you also mentioned, the road does get a little tougher for the White Sox. So I'm pushing it back as well, just for the sake of doing something different than you said, Lela, I'll say June 29th. There's just two. The Cubs are, I still think the Cubs are good, okay? It sucks now.

I mean, this is a bear of a schedule for the. Sox. I'm not going to lie. June is challenging. That's what I'm saying. And for the Cubs, as you said, three more games in Pittsburgh and then they are at St. Louis. And I get it. The division is good. But none of these teams are great. They're winnable series for the Chicago Cubs. So it's going to be a little while still. Sorry, Sox fans. For the love of everything holy, just make people's lives difficult in St. Louis for me. Where is Bradwick and Jordan Wicks? If we're going to do the whole Wick tree, I want to know where those guys are right now as well. Robbie Triano? Where's Robbie Trierno?

Where is he? I'm still laughing at the idea of Tyson Bejit and his dad coming in to coach up the Cubs and make them do calisthenics. I'm Mr. Bajent's. My son Tyson right here. 40 burpees. Let's go. 40 burpees.

That's a lot of burpees. Then it's followed by mountain climbers. You're going to work your absolute butt off, I believe. Griding his face off. He said grinding his face off. He said grinding his. Did he throw an absolute in there? grinding your absolute face off.

There's no way to know. We'll have to find that out. We know you, Tyson, Bajit. Find me that audio. Tell us about the party at the water park, for God's sake. Well, I'd have to ask Carmen. Mark Carmen is bestie. Yes.

That's my bestie into Tessie. Number two. I don't know what that means. Doja cat, yo. Well, if you could switch up the Cubs lineup, who would you? I just outdojaed you, didn't I? You did indeed.

I say that. That's with my niece, Madeline. So we're besties. I say, you're my bestie and a tessie right there. Just as too close to a part of the human body. I know, I know. You know. It is.

It is. And that's why they pay me the bucks. Some bucks is to make those jokes. And bears. All right, this is five on it with Reeves. Hey, buddy. Grotie, if you could switch up the Cubs lineup, who would you want to try at leadoff? All right.

So I said, say, I wanted batting. second behind Nico batting leadoff, right? That was what I said. And my theory was it's the most consistent hitting combined with the most consistent protection for SEA. So I still don't want say it to lead off. This is the weirdest thing I've said so far that in upside down world where nothing makes sense. Michael Conforno. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I guess it I guess it would be SAA theoretically if PCA is not the dude. I don't like him in the leadoff spot for reasons I can't explain. Like, feelings, basically.

So, yeah, why not Michael Conforto? For no reason other than I want Sanya to hit next to Nico Batting Lidoff. Nico Batting Lidoff is typical. So that's it. It's all doing something for the sake of change. None of it makes sense. I am still, I still like what they're doing. I like Pete Carr Armstrong leading off for the Cubs.

I like the possibilities because no matter what PCA has been this year, and it's been a rough go for PCA. Starting with an out. No, look, there's outs all over the lineup right now, Leila. Yeah. Nothing makes sense. So there, and he has had some nice ad bats has PCA at the top of the order. So maybe more so than anybody else had the lineup recently.

So I like, like, like, you can never take away from PCA what is there are myriad possibilities. possibilities every time PCA steps on a baseball field and one of them is jacking the ball out of the park on the first pitch of the game. PCA, anything can happen. It's true. I don't know if that's good or bad. Sometimes it is bad. Sometimes he dives when he doesn't need to dive. That's what my mom told me.

That's what you told me. Well, Gene and I are, he didn't dive per se. He like dove against the wall. That's what my mom said. Yes. I don't know why he needs to do that. I mean, it seemed like an easy play. I don't, it was a very long take.

had. I'm like, yeah. PCA would 100% be down for 40 burpees with Tyson agent. That's all I can glean out of this. Oh, yeah. PCA for sure. I'm trying, I was trying to think of any other players who would have that sort of enthusiasm. And I don't know that too many veterans, I can't see Dansby Swanson. But those guys are in shape. Like Dansby and Alex Brighman and Ian Happer in shape. Well, no, I didn't, yeah, I wasn't suggesting they weren't. I'm just saying like, who would actually play along with Carson Kelly? Carson Kelly probably.

Probably. Yeah, yeah, I could see him doing it. He's pleasantly intense at times. Yeah. Maybe Nico. Nico. Nico. Nico, how do you feel about burpees coached by Tyson Bayesian? Sick, bro. Let's do it. Grind your absolute ass off. I was too busy grinding my absolute face off. Five buttes for that.

Number three. Should be part of our rotation, frankly. Like, why not? Yeah, keep that handy, will you? We're at number what? We're at number three. What's happening? Lightning round. Coming up in number three.

who had a worst series over the Memorial Day weekend. The Cubs in their series lost to the Astros or the Cavs who were eliminated from the Eastern Conference finals at the hands of the Knicks. I mean, you can't argue with the Astros being on some sort of a heater now because they just notch the first no-hitter that baseball had seen in two years. So by that logic alone, I'm going to say it's the Cavs. Because, first of all, I have to come to grips with the fact that the Knicks may have done something right. They get to the Eastern Conference finals last year for the first time in 25 years.

And I'm thinking to myself, why on earth do you fire Tibbs? Because, well, you guys know I like Tibbs too. And then they interviewed everybody to the point where you and I are asking, did you get interviewed by the Knicks? Chances are you may have. Then they get Mike Brown, who was the Kings coach. And now we see them in their first finals since 1999. And it was the Cavs who got swept.

And there were times where I didn't think the cows were going to get swept, but they somehow have an inch to choke up massive leads in this series, too, in the individual games. So I think it's the Cavaliers. I'm going to go with the Cubs getting swept by the Astros. And yeah, teams are going to get on a heater. But Astros came in with one of the worst overall batting averages, one of the worst overall ERAs.

The Cubs were in desperate, are in desperate need to, get right and they failed to do it. And as I said earlier, everything was legitimate in those losses. Unfortunately, Shota didn't have it in the Sunday game, Saturday game. You didn't score a run. You didn't score a single run. Colin Ray looked decent. Yeah.

See, that's the point is I think pitching is you knew Tyone and Shota were going to give up home runs. Okay, this wasn't secret. Yeah. Everybody else has held serve and then some. I would like to see Tyone get out. out of the fifth inning, which he did not do Friday against the Astros, but your point is taken.

And in that game, that was the 0 for 9 with runners in the scoring position, the 0 for 4 with runners on third base. So all of these games just sucked. They were all bad games by the Cubs. Nothing flukish about it. They got stomped. And at the wrong time against the wrong team, so I'm going with the Cubs getting swept by the Astros as worse.

And the Cubs thing is just, it was just sad watching because I was. trying to watch last night. And I just couldn't because it just never got better. Did you hear? I don't think he heard, did he? What about I heard? Heard? Oh, the latest, Kenny Atkinson, weird statement about the, yeah, we'll have to play that for you later,

I think we should play it, but I also think the video would help hammer the point home here. Which isn't really a thing for us in the audio world, but I feel like it would help. Oh, yeah, the point that Kenny Atkinson is like. the NBA version of a Maddieber Fluse? Yes. Yeah, absolutely. We'll have to do a little dive into that a little later. We'll do that offline with Grady.

Okay. Five on it. Number four. Did you like what you saw from Rikunishita in his White Sox debut in a 3-1 win over the twins yesterday? Absolutely. I mentioned this before.

To have an outfield assist like that where you look as big league as anybody else out there charging to the ball and just throwing a dart at home plate, at home plate no less. That's what made this so sexy. So, yeah, seven putouts in his debut. The Major League record was eight in a debut, so that tells you how good he was in the outfield.

And he got his first major league hit. Can't say enough about just rising to the occasion, did Riku Nishita. So yes, I did. I loved it. Riku suave. I'm really pushing that. Why not?

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, like I said, like just bouncing around out there, he was like PCA when he first came up, diving for balls, throwing guys out, getting big hits in the game, hugging guys, showing emotion. It was like this disinjection of adrenaline at White Sox Park, whether they needed it or not,

because they've got their own good thing going on even without Nishita being there. But it's beautiful, like any move the White Sox seem to make this year seems to turn to goal. So just keep bringing guys up, keep bringing in guys that I've never heard of that I don't know about. I'd never heard of Nishita before this, 2020. 11th round pick for the White Sox. I had no idea that was coming to the south side,

but it was a pleasure to watch. Number five. Five on it out 104 through the score. Here's our final question. What was the best part of your Memorial Day weekend? The weather. The weather finally turned. I think we may be out of it.

I think we may be out of the whatever you want to call that spring pattern. So we've got like real consistent weather ahead of us? We do. I mean, there's a couple of. couple blips, you know, there's a couple highs in the 60s. But other than that, it appears to be mostly in the 70s for the highs. You know, I mean, that means there's temperatures underneath that that you're going to experience. But yeah, 80s? I'll take the 80s all day. That's my perfect weather. 85 and sunny.

Yep. I give you two quick best parts of my week. I really did enjoy inside the clubhouse just because of all the guests that we had and working with Bruce is just a blast. And you like all the people. I do. I love being a Gallagher. You guys were where the people are. I like being around the people. Yeah. Yes. Ray Diaz was out there

pressing pretend buttons at times. No, it was... For the fun of it? It was, uh, we'll explain that one during the break. It was an absolutely gorgeous day out there. And then on Sunday I hung out with my friends and Elmerst. To your point about the weather, just sitting outside with my sunglasses on, loading up on diet,

Cokes, eating snacks, and barbecuin. So I did get some classic Memorial Day barbecue and just good, good bonding with friends on Sunday. Yeah, I sat outside on a patio with some friends yesterday after I got my baseball watching. Nice. And it was great. There was a dog. Aw. Yep.

Yep. Just good outside sitting that was going on. Yes. There's nothing better, right? Just looking up at the sky, sipping on whatever you're sipping on. Yeah. Snacking on. on whatever you're snacking on and then just having great conversations.

Yeah. It's a life. Five on it. Works sucks. That is five on it here on Rehemi Harrison Brody. Coming up next, let's talk more White Sox, Jim Margulis, managing editor of Sox Machine. That's right. I said it.

Machine. Let's talk to him about the upcoming draft, the latest on that, because they do have reporters covering Ye Big Ten tournament. And also, of course, the White Soss and their success with pretty, bringing guys up right now. We'll do it all next.