The Rundown Lite: Counsell Has Players’ Trust, Injury Updates, Brown’s Changeup Getting Better

I recently wrote about my time working for the Pacers, but I neglected to add that I also worked games for the Fever and the defunct Indiana Firebirds of the Arena Football League. That former team was new at the time and not really worth watching until Tamika Catchings came along. I found myself enjoying games just because she was on the court, but that was nothing compared to what Caitlin Clark has done for the Fever and the WNBA overall.

She is the single biggest star the league has ever had, forcing opposing teams to move their home games to larger local arenas when she comes to town. Despite that obvious fact, a good number of players have sought to knock her down a peg. To wit, six of the 34 flagrant fouls called last season were players fouling Clark. Four of those fouls were by Chicago Sky players, which stems from rivalries with both geography and Angel Reese.

The queen of “mebounds” isn’t alone, of course, nor was the rough play confined to trying to teach a hyped-up rookie a lesson or three. Clark took several shots from the Connecticut Sun en route to the Commissioner’s Cup final, and multiple scuffles broke out as a result. It’s amazing to me that the league isn’t stepping up to keep Clark — and others — from dealing with this type of behavior.

this league treats her like a punching bag pic.twitter.com/c76w3qAjLY

— chris (@chrisclxrk) June 18, 2025

I get the sense that the WNBA prides itself on being a tough league, which is perhaps a function of players having a collective chip on their shoulders. That’s all well and good, but things need to evolve. This isn’t about coddling one player; it’s about fostering a style of play that is more conducive to continued mainstream growth. The NBA has always been on the bleeding edge of adapting to its audience, something MLB has continually failed to understand.

Not only has baseball gone after online influencers for using highlights on social media, but it has splintered its national coverage across a number of different subscription services with limited reach. Rules changes have largely gone fine following initial outcry, and I’d argue that shortening game times is one of the best things they’ve done. Now they just need to implement the safety bag at first base. Vince Vitrano of 620 WTMJ — which sounds painful — thinks MLB should allow balls that bounce off the wall to remain in play, but that probably isn’t happening.

My biggest gripe with the league right now is its abject lack of quality assurance when it comes to baseballs that are constantly being tweaked to create either more or less pop. Don’t let their feigned ignorance fool you, there’s no way entire batches of balls suddenly have different characteristics by accident. Not that it hurt Pete Crow-Armstrong, who blasted a 452-foot homer against the Brewers last night.

He’s not quite as transcendent as Clark, not yet anyway, but PCA has come into his own as one of the best players on the planet. It helps that he’s got a strong roster around him with a skipper who understands how to get the best from his players.

Counsell’s team

Craig Counsell‘s shocking hire last year was met with incredulity and mixed emotions as many fans lamented the dismissal of World Series hero David Ross. Then Counsell led his team to the same 83-79 record as his predecessor, leading to questions about his fitness to carry the Cubs back to postseason glory. While he still has plenty of detractors, mainly because there is a not-insignificant portion of the fandom that is only comfortable being angry, it’s clear Counsell has firmly established himself as the leader on the North Side.

“He understands what it takes from a group standpoint, how important it is for the group to jell and for guys to care about each other,” Ian Happ explained. “That’s not talked about a lot in this era of baseball, how important it is for the group to know each other and pull for each other and be able to talk through situations.

“The group cares about each other. They care about beating out the double-play ball to get the next guy up in an RBI situation. You care about those little things, and that’s what kind of keeps the game rolling through 162.”

Look, I know a lot of you still won’t buy it, but Happ’s saying basically the same thing I’ve been writing about Justin Turner. When you think about everything that has to happen in a season for a team to be successful, there’s a lot that has to happen outside of what we can quantify. It helps when you have a skipper who, like Phil Jackson many years ago, can balance egos and personalities.

“Couns has every one of our best interests in mind,” Crow-Armstrong said. “I trust all the decisions he makes.”

Pitching injury updates

Shōta Imanaga, Porter Hodge, and Eli Morgan all appear to be on track to return according to schedule. The former threw a bullpen in Arizona, while the latter two should pitch in one of two Iowa Cubs doubleheader games after Tuesday’s contest was rained out.

Brown’s kick improving

We have been tracking the development of Ben Brown‘s changeup for a while, and finally got public confirmation last week after weeks of highly-informed “speculation” that he was throwing a kick. His changeup remains his best pitch according to Statcast’s run value metric, and he threw it six times last night. That included three balls, a foul, a batted out, and a swinging strike. My unofficial tally has four of those pitches getting the lowest induced vertical break he’s ever gotten on a change.

Brown was better at consistently killing spin as well, a trend that should continue as he throws it more, though he did cut some of them. Pretty cool that he first threw a kick-change to Sal Frelick when he last pitched against the Brewers, then threw a couple more to him last night. Brown also threw three changeups to Christian Yelich in one at-bat on Tuesday.

That’s it for today, hope everyone has a good one.