The team has won five games in a row and will try to stretch it to six on Wednesday afternoon in a Fourth of July matinee.
“Everything is believable,” Cubs manager Joe Maddon told reporters when asked about his team’s recent hot streak. “We believe in everything right now. Santa Claus is absolutely true.
“When you get to that point and you get that kind of confidence, you don’t want to do anything to nick it.”
Chicago (48-35) has climbed 13 games above .500 to match its high-water mark. The Cubs have a chance to set a new high when they host the Detroit Tigers (38-49) in the finale of a two-game series at Wrigley Field.
All of the Cubs’ five wins during the streak have been in come-from-behind fashion.
“One of our concepts is to score first,” Maddon said. “One of our concepts is to win the inning. But I think this is maybe the residue of our starting pitching not being what it probably is. We’ve given up more runs early from our starters that we didn’t anticipate happening.
“But it’s a tightly knit group. They’re there to pick everybody else up. So, OK, they’ve scored a couple runs. There’s no quit. The chatter in the dugout is great, all that stuff is outstanding. I just think that the come-from-behind component right now is based on our starters not pitching to their capabilities yet.”
That said, the Cubs will look for a solid start from left-hander Jose Quintana (6-6, 4.31 ERA) in his 17th start of the season. The 29-year-old has allowed three earned runs or fewer in nine of his past 12 starts.
In 18 career starts against the Tigers, Quintana is 5-5 with a 4.37 ERA. The Colombia native has walked 26 and struck out 82 in 111 1/3 innings.
The Tigers will counter with veteran left-hander Francisco Liriano (3-4, 3.99 ERA), who is scheduled to make his 13th start of the season. The burly southpaw carries a career record of 105-103 with a 4.14 ERA in 335 career games.
More than a few teams could be scouting the 34-year-old Liriano as the trade deadline approaches. He is coming off a quality start against the Toronto Blue Jays but has not logged a victory since April 17 against the Baltimore Orioles.
In 14 career starts against the Cubs, Liriano is 5-4 with a 3.27 ERA. He most recently faced the club in 2016, when he posted an 0-2 record with a 7.63 ERA in three starts with the Pittsburgh Pirates and Toronto Blue Jays.
The Tigers could turn to a six-man rotation in the next couple weeks, which is fine with Liriano.
“I think that would work Jack Johnson Jersey ,” Liriano said recently to mlive.com. “It wouldn’t bother me at all. I don’t know about any other guys. (Blaine) Hardy has been doing a great job, so it’s hard to put him in the bullpen with the way he’s throwing the ball right now. I think that’s a great idea.”
Injured Cubs third baseman Kris Bryant (shoulder) is not expected to play Wednesday. He is hitting .280 with nine home runs and 36 RBIs in 66 games this season.
A man being held in a suspected drunken-driving crash that killed Indianapolis Colts linebacker Edwin Jackson and his Uber driver has been twice deported from the U.S. – a revelation an Indiana congressman said Monday should anger ”all Americans.”
Manuel Orrego-Savala, 37, remained jailed Monday but has not been charged in Sunday’s deadly crash along Interstate 70 in Indianapolis. State Police said Monday that he’s a citizen of Guatemala who gave officers a fake name when he was arrested following the pre-dawn crash.
Investigators said he was deported in 2007 and 2009, and was again living illegally in the U.S.
Police said Jackson, who grew up in Atlanta, and Uber driver Jeffrey Monroe, 54, were standing outside Monroe’s car along I-70 after Jackson became ill while Monroe was transporting him for the ride-hailing company.
Both men were struck and killed by a pickup truck driven by Orrego-Savala, police said. Investigators said they believe Orrego-Savala, who lives in Indianapolis, was intoxicated and driving without a license.
A breath test administered at the crash scene found that Orrego-Savala’s blood-alcohol content was 0.239 percent, or nearly three times Indiana’s legal limit of 0.08 percent, according to a probable cause affidavit.
That affidavit, which was filed Sunday under the fake name Manuel Orrego-Savala gave police Womens Josh Anderson Jersey , also states two vials of blood were drawn from Orrego-Savala by a nurse at a hospital about 90 minutes later and sent for analysis. It said Orrego-Savala has prior run-ins with law enforcement for driving without a valid license and that he was walking away from the crash scene when an Indiana state trooper arrived and detained him.
Republican U.S. Rep. Todd Rokita said Monday in a statement after police released details on Orrego-Savala that ”the loss of life at the hands of illegal immigrant criminals should make all Hoosiers sad and ultimately angry.”
He added that the fatal accident highlights the need for building a U.S.-Mexico border wall, ”ending sanctuary cities, and stopping illegal immigration once and for all.”
Rokita later tweeted that ”this news should make all Americans angry.”
The deaths of Jackson and Monroe come about two months after a California jury acquitted a Mexican man in the fatal July 2015 shooting of a woman on a San Francisco pier – a death that touched off a fierce national immigration debate.
Jose Ines Garcia Zarate, who was found not guilty of murder on Nov. 30 in Kate Steinle’s death, had been deported five times and was wanted for a sixth deportation when she was fatally shot. Garcia Zarate said the shooting was accidental and occurred when picked up a gun wrapped in a T-shirt under a seat on the pier.
During the presidential campaign, then-candidate Donald Trump pointed to Steinle’s death as a reason to build a wall along the Mexican border and tighten immigration policies. As president, he has threatened to withhold federal funding to cities with sanctuary city policies.
Orrego-Savala remained in the Marion County Jail on Monday as the investigation into Sunday’s crash continues. The Marion County Prosecutor’s Office was working with police on ”potential criminal charges” in the case, spokeswoman Peg McLeish said.
Jackson, 26, started eight games for the Colts during the 2016 season, finishing third on the team with 61 tackles. He was considered a possible starter at inside linebacker for the 2017 but missed the season after suffering an injury during training camp.
The 6-foot, 234-pound Jackson previously played for the Arizona Cardinals.
The Colts said in a statement Sunday that Jackson ”was well-respected among all with whom he crossed paths, and he will be greatly missed in our locker room and throughout our entire organization.”