Rahimi, Harris & Grote Show - Cubs break out of offensive slump to avoid getting swept by Pirates

Episode Date: April 13, 2026

Leila Rahimi and Marshall Harris broke down down the Cubs' come-from-behind 7-6 win against the Pirates on Sunday.

This is Rahimi Harrison Grotie on 104-3, The Score. We are back from Vegas and with you on this Monday. Thank you for joining us. And I think we have to begin where we ended. Kind of like the hangover, but in reverse. Except maybe I was a little hungover when I embarked on my flight yesterday. Oh, you stayed out later than me on Saturday, right? Evergreen. I stayed out later than you.

Well, everybody stays out later than me to be fair. You don't even need the words in Vegas. you don't even need Saturday. That's just how it goes. We had a great time. We had a lot of fun. Went to see Mantis. Grotie got to see the Mantis.

Like I said, Ray nearly got captured by a woman with a feather boa and not much else on. That happened. We saved Ray. It was like a lifetime movie. But in the meantime, we were all trying to figure out how to consume the Cubs game on the score, of course. And pregame on a Sunday game when you're trying to salvage this series against the Pirates. When you lost the first two games. the discussion surrounding Michael Bush,

because as we know, the Cubs team wasn't hitting, but it was in the ways that we saw them not hit successfully. Runners in scoring position numbers for the entire city, both the White Sox and the Cubs were atrocious over the weekend. And that's just another indication. You talked about it a lot, Marshall, in the two days that we had on air Friday and Saturday, and it was proving us correct in that heartbreaker of a game in extras,

on Saturday afternoon. So as I'm leaving Vegas, absorbing the atmosphere, and a woman who is listening to a woman in a bathroom having a much worse morning that I could ever have. There's a lot of coughing, violent coughing. You could hear her in the airport, in the concourse. I thought you made at the hotel, but you're at the airport. No, no, no.

But that's the point is you could hear it. Like I was sitting at a gate and this guy was sitting next to me. We were cackling. That's unfortunate. It was really, like, we were to the point where we were just cackling. And people kept looking over at me, and I was like, oh, don't look at me. That's not me doing this. I'm trying to listen to the Cubs pregame.

And that's when I heard this exchange between intrepid reporter Elise Minnaker and Craig counsel, who had decided to give Michael Bush initially a day off because he was over 30. We talked to Michael Bush before the game. Obviously, he's been struggling at the play, just your decision to give him a day off. and what you're looking for, you know, for him to get out of it? Yeah, I mean, this is just trying to give a reset to a player that's a really good hitter that's probably just a mental break a little bit. You know, there's, he's just got stuck a little bit and, you know, is not having any success

and not getting any results. And I think sometimes just a day where you're not in the lineup and you can go in the cage and work and not know that, not prepare for a game that day, but prepare to kind of like make things better here is helpful and put you at ease. He's available to play and there's a good chance that you're going to see him, you know, later in a game. How do you decide the timing of those usually pretty good about his good? Well, he's old for 30.

That's also early. That's, that's, that's, that's, he's old for 30. I don't know, I'm just asking like how. And I'm telling you, he's old for 30. Simple as that. I mean, that's a, it's just a, it's, you can, you can see there's a lot of line drives in there, but it's, that's, that's, that's, you get to a place of playing every day for a week and not, not producing, um, and not, not having any results and it wears on you.

Just, it wears on you mentally as much as anything. This swing has been kind of low maintenance. He's been so consistent, but I mean, is there anything you're seen within, is it's a bat's or anything that stands out? I mean, nothing stands out. I mean, I think you get into like some, I think what I've seen is that when you go into their bats and they feel mechanical, that's when you need a break. You know what I mean? And that's what everybody's got their own mechanics, but when you get into the box, you kind of get rid of them. And when they become the central thought of your at bats, then that's when that's when that's when the kind of the trouble happens.

April 1st, Lela, April 1st, today is the 13th. Yesterday was the 12th, by the way. April 1st was the last time that Michael Bush had gotten a base hit. It was a two-hit day. This is not an April Fool. And it was not April Fool's. But I understand everything Craig Counsel was saying there because you could say what you want about how he's quote-unquote looked at the plate,

everything else. But at the end of the day, when you go hitless for 30 straight at bats, sometimes you just need a blow. And I love the foreshadowing there before the game. You'll probably see him later in the game. Right. And he had a plan and that's hard to go from everyday hitting to then trying to see if you mix it up with having him as a pinch hitter. Now, Michael Bush is no stranger to not being an everyday player this time last year.

We were talking about how he was being platoon, even as the cleanup hitter, he was being platoon. But then I thought that we had moved past it based on his playoffs. That was enough for me to say, this guy needs to be in your everyday lineup. but when you're over 30, something had to change. And unfortunately, it wasn't quite as much as he goes, they go, the Cubs. But it was an indication of how this team offensively has struggled. So he ends up coming in in a pinch hit situation. Matt Shaw was at first base.

And Bush comes through singles in the bottom of the eighth inning. And also thanks to an error, you know, put your opposing team in a position to not succeed. And that brings around, say, Suzuki. and it helps the Cubs get to that bottom of the ninth to walk it off and at least get one game from this series with the pirates. It's not two out of three, but their job is on that day is to try to win that one, and at least that's what happened.

And not just one game to stop the sweep, which would have been the first sweep at the hands of the pirates since 2019, and the first sweep at Wrigley since 2017 for the Buccos. But understand this. First place team against the first place pirates. Even after you beat them, they are in first place. Now, the great news. You're in first place.

The words of two chains. The philosopher of our time. Even though the Cubs are in last place, and I know it was a rough weekend for Cubs fans to have to watch that happen at Wrigley, you're just two games back to the division lead. Everything is fine in terms of you've been good enough to just kind of hang around amid some really bad news with your starting pitching. And also one of your best players, arguably your best player in last year's playoffs, having the most horrible start to the season you can imagine,

and it's not just him. It's a lot of guys right now who are off to bad starts from a hitting perspective for the Cubs. Credit to Scott Merkin, another great philosopher of our time, the White Sox writer for MLB.com, who at 240 yesterday pointed out that the Cubs and White Sox were a combined one for 40

with runners in scoring position over their respective weekend series. So that means the Cubs had the one hit between the two teams at that point because the Cubs were one for 23 with runners in scoring position through the first two games of their series. That's rough.

It was bad. But you know what this reminds me, Leila? And I want to make sure, because Craig Counsel knows. You could hear from his answers and also by the displayed results of getting the walk-off win. But 162 is a freaking grind.

It is a grind that most sports don't understand. because it's one thing to even play 82 game season like the NBA and the NHL. It's one thing to play the 17 games with the violence that the NFL brings. But to go 162 and to get very few days off over the course of six months for Major League Baseball teams, you're going to have stretches like this. It just becomes painfully obvious that things aren't going your way when it happens at the beginning of a season, although they're just a game under 500.

They're hanging around and they have not played great baseball, but they're hanging around. Well, yeah, because good teams do that. In baseball, there is a linear relationship a lot of times, too, you're getting what you're paying for to some extent. Now, we've said this before. Here are the pirates who are, you know, a lot of people's hipster, sexy pick to try to win the Central. And I see why, given the improvement and given the maturation of Paul Skeens.

And O'Neill Cruz decided to pick this series to play like a baller in center field, had a great sliding catch on Friday, if you guys recall. but all of that said, this is a Cubs team that is supposed to produce more, we know that. And when it gets to 0 for 30, what I thought was really interesting about the retort from Craig Counsel

was that we talk a lot about hard hit ball rate and how that affects this team. And I think it is a good measurement. Jordan Bastion did a lot of good work on it too. He said entering Saturday, the Cubs had a 44.2% hard hit rate as a team. That was good enough for fourth in the majors. Is their offense fourth in the majors?

No, it is not. And the team's 8.7% barrel rate per stat cast was tied for the seventh highest in baseball. Well, we know that they weren't the seventh best offense. So we understand, you may be making good contact, but you're hitting them where they are instead of hitting them where they ain't. Craig, counsel in that conversation did not use that as an excuse. I'm not saying bash and did. He's just doing his job providing good stats for us. But a lot of times we say that.

We're like, oh, they're hitting the ball well. This is a hard hit ball rate. He's like, no. He's O for 30. We're going to mix it up. And then he helped him be one of the heroes. No, for sure, you look at what Michael Bush was able to do. And let me tell you something.

Craig Counsel sounds a little bit, not tired, but certainly grindy. He sounds grindy at a time where you'd hope you're settling into your offense and you're getting, you know, say Suzuki back. Don't forget about that this weekend. You're hoping now that you've got your pieces in your lineup, you're going to put some stuff together. And immediately now the lineup gets shaken up. I don't expect to see Michael Bush play today.

You know why? Because Christopher Sanchez is on the freaking mound for the Phillies today. I don't know if you heard. He's left-handed and throws nasty stuff. Well, and you know who else needs to do better against lefties? The team. So this isn't just a Michael Bush issue. Sounds like a 2025 callback to the first half of last season to me.

Well, and when you say Craig Counsel sounds grindy, that's the kind of discussion you typically hear in like an August. Right. You know, like dog days of. summer. And that's not where this is. The adage that 574 brings up on our text line at 312, 644, 67, is the truth. You cannot win the division in April. You just don't want to lose it. And you and I have seen a lot of teams lose a division in April. But they're not doing that

right now. The other part of this is, do you feel any better knowing that the nationals weren't just a bugaboo to the Cubs? Did you see them sweep the bruce? Brewers? The nationals swept the brewers. So one of the things that I love about this baseball season already is we're two weeks in, and we've seen a little bit of a sample size now where we can say, hey, this is about what, you know, because some people will tell you, oh, it's not the NFL. You can't be looking at every game like it's life or death.

It's only April. Then why are you watching the games at all if it's only April? Just put your sleep mask on. But my point is if it's a 162 game schedule and we're, you know, 15, 16 games in, I think that's a large enough sample size to get some indications and some indicators

of where baseball is headed. One of the things I love, Leila, is that there are three teams right now that have double-digit wins. Three teams. Yeah. The three teams, that's all. Out of 30 teams,

everybody else has between six and nine wins. I love a degree of parity that baseball is showing us this season that we have not necessarily seen. Like, the Rockies and the White The Fox don't have two and three wins. Guess who one of the three teams is? Well, it's the Dodgers.

And then. Padres. And the other one, okay, a little different in the Braves. Well, but the Braves are finally healthier. Correct. Compared to what they start off last. They also already have a plus 46 run differential. They have been smoking fools.

Yes. A bit of a buzz saw to start the year for the Braves. But my point is, even if you're a last place team like the Cubs or the White Sox, the Cubs are two games out of first place. The White Sox are three games out of first place. You just got it, as the texture point, it out, just hang around if you're going through some things with, you know, Kate Horton, Matthew Boyd not being around, just hang around for a while. I'm not even there. I'm not a

standings person yet. I'm not a standings person for a while. For me, it's more of how are you taking series? How are you getting your outs? Are you taking two or three against teams you should be? And you were supposed to do that over the weekend and it didn't happen. So that gives you an indication. But then do I feel better knowing that the Nats at least aren't just frustrating to the Cubs? That was the first sweep of the Brewers since 2011 for the Nationals and their first sweep in Milwaukee since 2006. That's a note for me. So you're saying thank you, Washington. That's what you're saying. Well, or at least you know it's not as dire as you may have thought when it came to the Joey Weamer show. If you told me, hey, by the way, we'll be more than two weeks in the season and the

Brewers and Cuzz will be, you know, the bottom of the National League Central. My first question would be like, well, how far back are they? And that's what gives me pause to not get too caught up in the fact that the standings exist, but it's not something that you should be terribly concerned about. Everybody has their units of measurement. Right. You know, for you, that's your unit of measurement. For me, it's how are you doing in respective series, at least early.

7-3 is correct. The Brewers did start bad last year. And then they had the greatest month ever. So that was August for them. But I don't necessarily know that you're going to see a swing like that happen. Again, to replicate that would be a baseball wild oddity, not just even an oddity. But this is very much a work in progress, as we're seeing. The fact that I talk about Matt Shaw at first base, you know, even Saturday, we were on

ahead of the game on Saturday from Stadium Swim at Circom Marshall. But I was even surprised to see some of the decisions are still very interesting and I feel like working it out. You know, Caleb Thielbar struggled on Friday. and then unfortunately what was part of a fielding issue that cost the game for the Cubs on Saturday. I don't know that I would have brought him in two days in a row after that.

He was laboring in that outing that he had on Friday. And he is older. I'm sorry, it's just how this goes. But, you know, maybe that was time for him to get a day off Craig Counsel. Said, no,

you're coming in. Maybe it's a mojo thing. But this is still very much a tinkering and trying to figure out who this team is going to be this year. We've made a lot out of the injuries to the starting rotation and Kate Horton out for the year. Matthew Boyd's going to have some time with his bicep. But the bullpen has had its own list of injuries to start a season that you would rather

not see. And so the Thielbar thing made sense to me because who else does Craig Counsel trust down there if you really want to go through it and who's healthy enough to actually pitch? And for Thielbar, I think because of just how atrocious his Friday appearance was, getting him back on the horse seemed like the right idea. And he had a chance to get out of that, any. There are a couple positives for me from yesterday's game in particular. Okay.

And I say that knowing that there was a grand slam early and things look pretty bad when you're down five to nothing. But if the wind is going to help the pirates, then you also want the wind to help the Cubs. And yesterday it actually did. We saw homers from Danesby Swanson and Mosei Spacesteros. And enough productive outs like with the Bregman's Sacrifice Fly and then the hits that I mentioned late in the game from. not just Michael Bush, but then also, of course, Carson Kelly to help as the hero. You know, that's what you want to see.

If the weather's going to help one team, better sure help the home team. If you told me that the Cubs were going to be down 5-0, and you don't have to say if, the Cubs were down 5-0, and I asked the question to Ray and Mark as we're getting ready to go to the airport. I was like, do you really think the Cubs can score six runs?

I was like, that's not even the question, actually. Do you think with seven innings left, the Cubs can score more runs than they're brewing? or excuse me, not Brewer's team, then a Pirates team that has already put up six and like, can you stop them from scoring more runs? And with that bullpen, the way you described it, the way James and Tyone was pitching, giving up multiple home runs to Brandon Lowe, I was like, I can't see it. But you know what?

Craig showed me the vision. He showed me. Craig's vision? Yeah. Is it like Ben's vision? Does it get a sponsorship? Like, how does this work? You know what?

The man used every position. player on his roster to get the win. Well, and on the other side of things, the White Sox used nine pitchers yesterday. Well, we'll talk about that later. We will talk about that at 10.45. Coming up next, you mentioned it, Marshall, this isn't just an issue when it comes to

your starting pitching. You're trying to figure out who's in your circle of trust. You're also trying to figure out where you need to put other people who have multiple skill sets. Ben Brown is one of them. So he was on hit and run yesterday, and we asked the question next. We'll listen to Ben Brown.

how much can the Cubs rely on him in this time of need? We'll examine next.