CHICAGO -- Theres something about Wrigley Field that continues to bring out the best in Chicago Cubs pitcher Jason Hammel.Hammel (15-9, 3.56 ERA) brings the second-best home ERA in baseball (1.84) into Saturdays middle game against the St. Louis Cardinals. Hes also 10-1 in 14 home starts.But whether Hammel is one of the Cubs starters in the post-season has yet to be determined.The way I look at it is theres no wrong choice, said Hammel earlier week after tossing a four-hit ffort over seven innings in the Cubs 5-2 victory over the Cincinnati Reds. We got 25 guys who are going to put up wins for us, whether its hitting, pitching, defense. ... So were going to continue to what we do, do our work and show up and play, and theyll put up the best team out there.The Cubs got some critical bullpen reinforcement on Friday with the return of right-hander Pedro Strop off the disabled list following a left meniscus tear suffered last month and subsequent arthroscopic surgery.Strop, 31, is 2-2 with 21 holds and a 2.892 ERA in 51 relief appearances with the Cubs this season.The Cubs enter Saturdays middle game with the Cardinals needing just two victories to hit 100 for the season and are currently on a pace to secure 103.Theyll wrap up the home season on Sunday as left hander Jon Lester (18-4) meets Cardinals righty Carlos Martinez (15-8, 3.16 ERA). Lester has the second-lowest ERA in the league behind teammate Kyle Hendricks (2.06).Chicago will hit the road next week for four games at Cincinnati and three at Pittsburgh before opening the NL playoffs next month.The Cardinals, on the outside looking in for one of two final wild card berths, will try to break out of a two-game losing streak as Alex Reyes (3-1, 1.03 ERA) makes his 11th appearance and fourth start of the season in Saturdays middle game of the Cubs-Cardinals series.Reyes has won his last two starts, including a Sept. 18 outing against the Giants where he allowed no runs on four hits while striking out six and walking two over seven innings in the Cardinals 3-0 victory.Its not known whether shortstop Aledmys Diaz returns to the lineup on Saturday. Hes was sidelined for the second game in the last three on Friday due to continued arm soreness. Diaz is batting .303 in 104 games with 26 doubles and 61 RBI.Mike Holliday wont return to action on Saturday either but theres hope the veteran Cardinals outfielder could play before the season wraps up.He took live batting practice on Friday and could have one more before the Cardinals decide whether to active him from the disable list or shut him down.Holliday has been on the disabled list since Aug. 12 with a right thumb fracture and has missed 38 games. Stars Jerseys China . Galatasaray said in a statement on its website Monday that Mancini signed a three-year contract and will be paid 3.5 million euros for the upcoming season, with his salary upped to 4. Fake Stars Jerseys . Barcelonas entertaining victory ensured the defending Spanish champions retained their share of the league lead with Atletico Madrid two rounds ahead of their meeting in the capital. Real Madrid needed a late goal by substitute Jese Rodriguez to earn a 3-2 victory at Valencia to stay in third place and three points behind its title rivals. https://www.cheapstarsonline.com/ . A statement from the worlds top-ranked player says all checks "were satisfactory and showed positive evolution" regarding the injury, which contributed to his loss to Stanislas Wawrinka in the final in Melbourne. Wholesale Stars Jerseys . 31, the CFL club announced Monday. The team also has yet to decide on the future of Doug Berry, who began the season as a consultant to the head coach but took over the offensive co-ordinators duties in July. Dallas Stars Shirts . Dusautoir, the former World Player of the Year, sustained a torn bicep playing for Toulouse in the Heineken Cup on Saturday. The flanker, who has played 65 times for France, is expected to be out for up to four months. South Africa promised to throw the first punch as part of the new approach to Test cricket and they did. But they didnt land nearly as many as would they have wanted as they staggered through the first day of their first Test in seven months sans a major contribution from anyone in the line-up.It may have been a little easier for South Africa to stomach where they sit now had New Zealands attack been a little more aggressive. Although Trent Boults bowled two threatening spells, Tim Southee found movement and Neil Wagner got his short ball going, New Zealand were not a constant threat. In their attempts to assert themselves, South Africa brought on their own demise to some extent and will have to find other ways of being forceful upfront.With an overhead cloud, warm air and two of the best swing bowlers on the circuit, Southee and Boult, to face, Faf du Plessis made his first statement of intent when he chose to bat. Conventional wisdom still favours putting runs on the board before allowing the opposition to, but with South Africa, by their own admission scarred from last summer and specifically their tour of India in which only AB de Villiers - not playing this series because of injury - crossed the fifty mark, it was a brave decision.The first ball drew the immediate gasps of the few hundred people in the ground when it seemed to swing violently. Stephen Cook looked to play to square leg but his outside edge ended up bobbling through gully. But the ball had not danced around a corner, Cook was just early on the shot. Thats not to say there was no movement. Southee found enough to keep the openers watchful but it was Trent Boult who properly challenged them, with deliveries that moved late.Picture a puppy whose owner teases him by pretending to throw a ball. The puppy cranes his neck, even begins to run after the imaginary object, only to find that the ball is still in the mans hand. Dean Elgar was that puppy. Sometimes he played too late, others times he was beaten and he never looked entirely comfortable.Much like Graeme Smith used to, Elgar survived through will rather than technique, which only made the way he got out look worse. He allowed Doug Bracewell to tempt him into the drive twice in the over. When Bracewell did it a third time, Elgar bit again and nicked a catch to second slip.Hashim Amlas response to the loss of the two openers was to send the ball to the boundary seven times in the next five overs but its not as though New Zealand werent asking for it. Southee had offered several spank-me deliveries, often after he had strung together some better ones, and Amla spanked. Overpitched? Four. Short and wide? Four. Bracewell? Four. Four. Four.Who was this man and what had he done with the Amla who averaged less than 19 at the ground that was his home for more than a decade before he chose the Cape Town-based Cobras as his domestic team? He was a man making a statement. So was the person who decided to send in JP Duminy at No. 4, perhaps to keep the left-right hand combination going, but also to allow a man who is experienced enough to be taking more respoonsibility.dddddddddddd Duminy squandered the chance. Although he looked better than he did through all of last summer, especially on the front foot, his first sign of uncertainty came when he swept in the penultimate over before lunch. A short leg was in place for that exact shot and Duminy almost played the ball into his hands. It was hardly surprising then, that Duminy fell into another trap after the break when a fine leg was waiting for a mistimed pull and, on cue, Duminy top-edged Wagner straight to the man. His shot selection would come into discussion about his future in the Test side.Duminy has now failed to pass fifty in 10 completed innings dating back to August 2014 in Zimbabwe but whether South Africa have the depth to replace him still needs to be examined. For now, Temba Bavuma has shown he can hold his own. He began in the same aggressive vein as Amla but then followed du Plessis lead and shut shop mid-way through the second session.In 14 overs before tea, South Africa eked out just 15 runs but not because New Zealand forced that on them. The bowling was not particularly miserly, Kane Williamson had spread the field and the scoreboard needed runs. Du Plessis and Bavuma showed they had perfected the leave and the block, which may come in handy on another day, but only served to stall a decent start on this one.When du Plessis innings was ended by a headline-grabber of a catch from his opposite number, he had spent an hour and 53 minutes at the crease and faced 84 balls and all he had to show for it was a demonstration of why an overly defensive approach does not always work. In this situation, the reality was that if the watchfulness did not turn into something worthwhile, it would be in danger of being a wasted effort. So it was.Quinton de Kock was never in danger of doing that. He top-edged the first ball he faced and not even the realisation that he only got away because the fielder was too square to take the catch could force him into a more conservative style of play. De Kock took advantage of a New Zealand attack that went searching with width, and played some of the shots of the day. A full-blooded drive to long-on, a carve through the covers and then two charges to drill the ball over mid-off and through midwicket off Mitchell Santner. Like Elgar, de Kock went one strike too many. The third time he ran down the pitch to Santner, he did not get the contact he wanted and skied the ball to mid-off to end an innings that could have gone on to better Amlas.So, South Africa find themselves on the ropes again, a position they are used to fighting back from. In pre-match build-up, du Plessis even went as far as to say there was a stage when South Africa were the only team around who were willing to take the time to dig themselves out of holes. They did not want to have to call on that skill but they have left themselves no choice. If things are to go their way in the rest of this Test match, they will have to counterpunch. ' ' '