Anthony Rizzo responds to Miguel Montero’s comments on Jake Arrieta

“Good season. a year ago was a great season”. The Nationals ran at will against Arrieta and Montero, and the Cubs’ catcher was not willing to take the blame after the game. The Cubs ship is treading water, and if they want to go back to the Fall Classic, they have to limit the runners stealing bases, or limit the runners period.

The Cubs now find themselves in second place in the NL Central, just one game behind the Milwaukee Brewers.

The manager said Wednesday that Turner and the Nationals contributed to Chicago’s woes. The same went on with the Golden State Warriors after the NBA Championship with a bunch of players including Stephen Curry stating they would skip out on the visit as well. If stars like Anthony Rizzo, Kris Bryant, or Jon Lester had incidents like these, the Cubs would obviously still find a way to make it work, because talent pretty much always wins out.

That it took half a season for something to boil over isn’t a miracle.

In addition to his comments Tuesday, Montero had made questionable comments about his playing time shortly after the Cubs won the World Series a year ago. Certainly, to point a finger at a teammate, I don’t know that I would recommend that to anybody.

You know what’s worse than publicly calling out a teammate? And that’s what the Cubs have done.

“It’s about the time to the plate more than anything”, Maddon said. It’ll happen, they say. They talk about veteran leadership. He would go onto add that it seemed like no one cares about the problem. However, the bigger issue may between one of the more serviceable catchers in the league and one of the most talented pitchers.

Montero said goodbye in a series of posts on Twitter: “To the city of Chicago, Dear fans, today I say goodbye to the greatest fans”.

There are favored sons on the Cubs, and Montero wasn’t one of them.

“We’ve got to worry about our own house right now”, Hoyer said. Montero asked rhetorically. “Of course he was exhausted”. A shot at the manager. It was the heat of the moment. He was frustrated with the Cubs’ performance Tuesday night, and he lashed out. “It’s just like: ‘Yeah, OK, Miggy can’t throw nobody out.’ Yeah, but my pitchers don’t hold anybody on”. “I disagree. I think we have another catcher that throws out anyone who steals”. While Arrieta was slow to the plate and allowed seven stolen bases, Scherzer (9-5) threw a strong six innings, striking out six with no walks and retiring 16 of the final 17 batters he faced. Now that Montero is gone, the Cubs may galvanize the team and go on a winning streak.

He’s blunt, sometimes to a fault. Their opponents know this, and aren’t afraid to take advantage-the way Turner was swiping bags at will last night felt nearly cruel. “You want a good baseball player to play basketball?”

Maybe Montero is wrong. Four of those swipes were from Trea Turner.

Wednesday morning the veteran has been designated for assignment (DFA’d) and will no longer be with the team.