Rahimi, Harris & Grote Show
Cubs break out of offensive slump to avoid getting swept by Pirates (Hour 1)
13 Apr 2026
Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
Chapter 1: What was the Cubs' performance against the Pirates?
This hour is brought to you by Vasectomy Clinics of Chicago.
Rahimi Harrison-Grody, 10-2 on 104.3 The Score.
Ironically, because this is the second straight year in which Tiger Woods has not participated in the Masters, it is Tiger Woods that is the only one that can still stop Rory McIlroy. How would he do that, Mark? Because of both... I read this story this morning and I was laughing in my hotel room. Even the headline.
Tiger Woods pissed off Rory McIlroy's wife Erica Stoll with frequent late night texts. Not to her. Let me be clear. To Tiger. Hey, what's going on, man? According to a new book on McElroy, McElroy's wife, Erica Stoll, reportedly took issue with the interruption as they tried to sleep. Who are you talking to? It's Jake from State Farm. Sounds like a really good deal.
Jake from State Farm at 3 in the morning? Who is this? It's Jake from State Farm. What are you wearing, Jake from State Farm? Uh... khakis she sounds hideous well she's a guy so i i will say the you up text this is a different you are this is a different umbrella that he's under well i want to hear all about how you two met oh it's just an online dating app not much to it Just text, text, send.
Next thing you know, she's right here next to me. What's too late? You guys tell me. What's too late to get a text from a friend? Because I don't think there is a limit.
Well, my D&D goes on at 11, but then I'll just reply later. But you can't. Do you do not disturb Tiger Woods? Don't you just D&D? You've got to answer his texts, Tiger Woods.
I'm sure let's text him back tomorrow. What? No, no, no. You got to text him back right now. If you call me and I answer, cool. If I don't, my phone is never on vibrate. It is never on ring. If I see it, I see it. If I don't, I'll hit you back.
So Tiger Woods calls you. He's not up. He's up and you're not. So if it's a you up, you're not up.
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Chapter 2: How did the Cubs manage to avoid a sweep?
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. Grody 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 than I could ever have. There's a lot of coughing, violent coughing.
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Chapter 3: What are the implications of Michael Bush's recent struggles?
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, you get to a place of playing every day for a week and not, not producing 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 with it i mean is there anything you're seeing within his at bats or anything that stands out or i mean nothing stands out i mean i think you got you get into like some i think what i've seen is that when you go into their bats and you 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 kind of the trouble happens. April 1st, Layla. 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's.
And it was not April Fool's. But I understand everything Craig Council 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 platooned. Even as the cleanup hitter, he was being platooned.
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, a 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 on that day is to try to win that one. And at least that's what happened.
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Chapter 4: How much can the Cubs rely on Ben Brown?
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 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'Neal 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 Council 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 stack 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...
Did not use that as an excuse. I'm not saying bashing 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 0 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 Council 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, a Seiya Suzuki bag. 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.
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Chapter 5: What news surrounds the White Sox's top pitching prospect Noah Schultz?
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 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. Well, 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 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, Layla, 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 parody that baseball is showing us this season that we have not necessarily seen. Like, the Rockies and the White Sox don't have two and three wins.
Guess who one of the three teams is.
Well, it's the Dodgers.
And then?
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Chapter 6: What challenges are the Cubs facing this season?
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 Circa 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 Theobar struggled on Friday and then unfortunately 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's he is older. I'm sorry. It's just how this goes. But you know, maybe maybe that was time for him to get a day off. Craig Council 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. 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 field bar thing made sense to me because... Who else does Craig Council trust down there?
If you really want to go through it, and who's healthy enough to actually pitch? And for Theobar, 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 inning.
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 Dansby Swanson and Moises Ballesteros.
And enough productive outs, like with the Bregman 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. 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 were 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 a Brewers team than aā the Pirates team that has already put up six, and can you stop them from scoring more runs? And with that bullpen, the way you described it, the way Jamison Tyone was pitching, giving up multiple home runs to Brandon Lau, I was like, I can't see it. But you know what? Craig showed me the vision.
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Chapter 7: How does the Cubs' offensive performance compare to other teams?
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.
Rahimi, Harrison, Grody. Midday's K-2. On Chicago Sports Radio. Brown fires. Swing and a miss. He got him on the breaking ball in the dirt. The throw goes to first. Completing the put out. Good job by Bren Brown. Pirates have two men on with nobody out and they walk away empty handed.
That is courtesy of the Cubs Radio Network. That is Pat Hughes on the call. You know him well. This is Rahimi Harrison-Grody on 104.3 The Score. And the Pirates and Cubs series not only had a bit of a wild twist and turn, as we saw yesterday, But it also featured a lot of people. And one of them who is getting his fair share of opportunities is Ben Brown. Ben Brown can be a reliever.
That is what his current role is. But we know that I think at some point the Cubs would still like him to be a potential starter for them. He's got that skill set. He just hasn't had a third pitch that has worked well for him. He's been working on a sinker most recently. He was on Hit and Run yesterday morning talking about what he's been working up on the most leading up to the season.
I think what we were able to see is the difference between this year and last year. I'm making big pitches when I have to. The bad innings are just a little bit less bad. I've faced a good hitter with runners in first and second. I'm trusting my new pitches. The sinker is just huge for me against right-handed hitters.
And at the same time, they're still running around, you know, third base with two outs. And I'm still making pitches to gathering the no runs. You know, it's like the little things. It's a little ā these aren't ā this isn't a big physical change. Obviously, there was some physical stuff that went on in the offseason. There was some pitch design stuff.
But I think you look at these little things that I'm doing just a little bit better at the margins. If I was able to maybe do these last year, is my year as ballooned as it was? Probably not. So ā No, it's been really encouraging. But yeah, I think a lot of it's just what's in between the years, you know, how you're able to kind of limit damage and control your intensity levels.
And it's been really fun.
And I think his most recent outing was his best of the year, two innings against the Pirates on Saturday. Gave up just two hits, had one walk and three strikeouts, no earned runs to his name.
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Chapter 8: What does the future hold for the Cubs and White Sox?
And Ben is a guy who will tell you how the sausage is made. I remember last year, especially, when he talked about how the first inning really would set him back. And if he struggled in that first inning, or he would explain that even if he got the ship right in innings two through whatever, that the first inning set him back in such a way that was a problem.
So to hear him speak like this when it comes to his new role... It's encouraging. I know he had the three and a third against the Angels as well to start the year. But to me, it's another thing to be able to replicate a similar performance later on. You know, you come out of the gate strong because that's typically how you want to see guys go.
But for me, this last outing on Saturday, whether it's more conducive to hitting, I just feel like we were in a better place to watch a more accurate version of him.
The thing you need to understand is Ben Brown is going to be so key to this team, however you want to chalk it up going forward. We know what the bullpen looks like on day one versus the final day, or day one in what you hope is day one of the playoffs, right? Regular season versus playoffs. And if Ben Brown's on that playoff roster, that means they're in a good spot.
That means he's had a very good year. If he's not... you have to wonder, well, what went wrong with Ben Brown? Like you said, they have higher hopes for him and his role on this team going forward than what he's in right this second.
And there are some pitchers who can use only two pitches and maybe they throw the fastball a bunch of different ways. They can give it some arm side run. They can pick and choose their spots depending on who's at the plate, a righty or a lefty. But in Ben Brown's case, the third pitch is crucial. And right now that is a sinker.
But it might be surprising as to where the idea for having a sinker came from. Listen to what he said on Hit and Run about who had been working with him.
Yeah, well, the first two months before I didn't golf him out, this guy is pushing me. I mean, the way that he trains, he's ridiculous. I haven't really met anyone bigger or stronger than him ever. I mean, just the way he gets after it. Similar story. He struggled his first couple years in the big leagues. And then you obviously saw what happened in New York just becoming closer.
And I was a three-year contract starter. It's a big deal. But, yeah, so, yeah, he challenged my thoughts. I think that was the biggest thing at the start of the offseason. He's pushing me just to think different about my career, about who I am. And then once we got into the pitch design process, it was ā I mean, it was special. It's just, it's me, him, a catcher and a track man.
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