Bruce Levine talks Ian Happ's hot hitting and future with Cubs

Bruce good morning. How are you buddy? Good morning guys and good starting pitching. That's all

teams need. That's all you need an occasional home run. Good hitting here and there, but

white socks and cups both got good starting pitching. That's the key to winning.

Edward Cabrera as good as advertised Bruce talking to him after the game, getting the impression

of Craig Council. What was working for him and how impressive was it?

Well, contrary to his style of using the change up as a dominant pitch early in the game,

he came out and he started using his four seamer. Now, the unique thing about Cabrera is he

has a four seamer that's 98 and he has a change up that's 94. There's nobody in baseball that throws

a change up at 94. 95 like Cabrera and they had been sitting on that quite a bit

as far as anticipation, preparing for him. They came out with a different plan. The good

thing is the plan worked exceedingly well because Cabrera mixed in some great pitches including

a mind numbing curve ball to Mike Trout that froze him early on with the situation early

that they could have changed things. From all of that, Cabrera is good as advertised right now.

Yeah, they said on the broadcast that he had spent some time both in the pitch lab and working

with the great pitching coach and felt very confident in his stuff and man, he looked sharp.

I mean, he just looked like he'd done a lot of good work. Here's the other thing, guys.

This guy, during his career, he used to pitching at home in front of eight to 10,000 people. A

full, wriggly field crew of 40,000 people at 36 last night. In attendance, he certainly was

impacted by that. And he mentioned it more than a couple of times after the game. So coming

to wriggly and being a part of the great tradition here and the fan base certainly not lost in

Eddie Cabrera or any of the people that come here for the first time to play.

Bruce, how badly did Moises by Astero's need that to run single early on that I think helped

certainly the Cubs get ahead, but also the confidence of somebody who hasn't started the season

really as a hot hitter. No, it's a good question, David. I think the confidence is in

the manager. So counsel and the coaching staff have tremendous confidence in voice by Astero's

ability to hit. And as you said, he hasn't hit yet, you know, only the sample of four games,

but he's going to hit. They believe it. That's why he's going to DH. I would be more concerned with

bridging the gap to getting to say a Suzuki who is very close to coming back. He's going to go on a

rehab stint here and when the Cubs go on the road and their hope is full throttle and I'm back

to being able to play not only DH, but right field when he returns. Hopefully when the Cubs come back

for that next home stand. So everything is going well there. Conforto is having his struggles as

well with the last couple of games trying to hit the ball a little bit harder. I wonder if the

slew of contract signings could be motivating in half. He's got a home run in three straight games.

He really should have one in every game this year. That one that died and fell to earth was

headhard enough to go out of the park, but in a windy day, it just happened sometimes.

Well, you know, Ian is motivated all the time to do his best, but this year especially,

I think the motivation also comes from the fact that 10 years as a Cubs is monumental.

He has, you know, as we talked about in spring training and he mentioned to me, you know,

during one of the one-on-ones I had with him there that he feels fortunate to have been here

this long and he knows careers move on. He has not been identified as somebody that they want to

bring back to on a long-term deal. He's had good contracts. He's made a lot of money here.

As he pointed out to me, it's not about money. It's about where people want me. In the future,

he said, I've already made $85 million. You know, I'm good. I'm lucky to have been a cub

this long, but as much as he'd like to stay, I think the realistic part is that not everybody's

going to get $100 million extension and Ian has to work toward the rest of his career is only 32.

Probably has four or five good years left, so it might be in Cincinnati, it might be in Pittsburgh,

it might be as an LA Angel. Who knows, but this could be the last year you're watching in this cub.

Wow. Bruce, I know you were in sconce that rigly field doing your job, but I'm sure that you

paid a little attention to the white socks because they got their first victory of the season

nine to four over the Marlins down in Miami. It was Miguel Vargas night. Six runs batted in.

The first time a sock's hit has done that since. Sebbi Zavala in 2021. What did you make of the white

socks and how important is Vargas to this lineup wherever he plays? Well, they're going to hit more,

okay? So they're going to be a more exciting team to watch. I can't predict what the starting

pitching is going to do. Again, I can't emphasize too much on Davis Martin starting. He's been a

consistent guy on a team that hasn't been very good. So you very rarely notice somebody as consistent

as he's been, but you know, that was, that was as important to start as a beginning of a season

candy for a team. And yeah, Vargas brought a lot of offense. Mercami continues to hit, you know,

Montgomery is going to be there. I think it's going to be a fun year on the south side watching the

team score runs. Question is, are you going to be able to hold the other team to less?

Yeah, I think that Davis Martin's pitching was excellent. I think he had a really good

outing. And I guess I'm a little disappointed that we haven't seen more of that from some of

their starting pitching. What do you anticipate from Eric Fettie? Well, you know, you hope that

professional start that he was known for as a white sock's pitcher. He had a bad year last year.

And certainly he was a big surprise when he came over three years ago from Korea and pitched

as well as he did for the white sacks ended up trading him after a couple of years. So

they're they're hoping for good earnings. You know, look, what do you expect from Fettie?

If he can give you five and give you three runs or less, that's going to be really good. That

that's what you hope for. You don't want that bullpen going out there as much as they've had to

over these first four games. That should be a strength of the white sacks, not a weakness. So

you want to keep them as strong as you can as well. But when they're coming in in the third,

fourth inning of games, there's no way to do that. So when you when you look at the white sacks,

look for the starting pitching to get better. Get those five innings in tonight from Fettie.

And let's see if the office can continue to ramble. I think the Marlins are a tremendously underrated

team going into this year. Very good team. Good pitching. The better offense, the guy by the name of

Owen Casey, I don't know if you ever heard of him. He's for the Marlins. He looks pretty

he looks pretty natural to no doubt about it. I Bruce, help us all out, especially me. Prepare

everyone for what how to react tonight when James and Tion is on the mound. If it's the first

inning or the second inning and you see a ball fly out of the ballpark, what's the appropriate

reaction and what are the Cubs expecting? The appropriate reaction is oh, pregnant in half,

we're going to hit one in the bottom of the unit. Okay. So with the wind blowing out the way

it was yesterday and you know, I give the Cubs an awful lot of credit. You know, in batting practice,

the ball was flying 20, 25 mile an hour winds straight out. They were hitting balls, you know,

Suzuki hit one off of the video board. I haven't seen that since Bryant, even though it was

batting practice. So they came out prepared to take pitches and they were very patient with

Johnson last night walking and setting up their early scoring. So I would say that the offense

is going to cover up some of those things like that. If Tion gives up a home or two, you'll

hope it's a solo shot and they move on from there. But the Cubs offense, you know, when you have

guys like Swanson by Starrows, even the Cubs catchers hitting at the bottom of the order,

that's a very good lineup. I expect a lot of runs going from a team that scored a lot of runs

last year, but can be more consistent throughout the year. And you kick it ridden me without talking

about rating the seventh and stretch and the and the pitcher in the pregame. How do we go about that?

Why don't you just take a full leeway? You're dying your dance. Tell us what you want to say about it.

I mean, Craig Council had it all, right? I mean, he said he gave him a 500 batting average.

He said the pitch was horrible and you know, he bounced it and you know, it wasn't good.

He said that the singing was off the chart. Great. He said it was fantastic. So if you hit 500,

it really, you're doing well. So nice going speaks. Thanks Bruce. Oh, you're the best.

Talk to you later.