Right-hander Marcus Stroman loves Chicago.
Do the Cubs love him enough to keep him here? Stay tuned.
Stroman, 32, turned in another strong effort Saturday, allowing one run and three hits in six innings to earn his 10th victory as the Cubs beat the Red Sox 10-4 before a crowd of 40,224 at Wrigley Field.
With every start, Stroman raises his stock as one of the premier targets ahead of the trade deadline Aug. 1. He’s 10-6 with a 2.88 ERA and has allowed three or fewer earned runs in 15 of his 19 starts.
If he keeps pitching like that and Cody Bellinger — another subject of multiple trade rumors, coincidentally — stays on the tear he has been on since coming off the injured list, the Cubs might go on a roll and be buyers at the deadline.
At 43-48, however, they still have some heavy lifting to do before then.
As big a piece Stroman is, he’s only a piece and can’t save the season single-handedly. So he deals with the deadline talk as he does other challenges: by tuning out the noise.
‘‘I’m a 5-7 African American Puerto Rican,’’ he said. ‘‘There’s been a lot of noise in my life. So I have a small, small circle around me. Nothing changes. I’m very process-oriented; I’m not results-based.’’
That process is extensive.
‘‘I put so much work into this . . . whether it be sleeping in a hyperbaric [chamber], waking up [and] doing dry needles [therapy], taking time to meditate in the morning,” Stroman said.
By sticking to that process, Stroman thinks he’s best positioned to excel after the All-Star break, when the 162-game grind might wear down other players. And he said it has him in better shape now than he was 10 years ago.
‘‘By the time I wake up [Sunday] morning, I’ve already forgotten about [the game Saturday] and I’m already working on how to prepare my body, my mind for my next one. . . .
‘‘People don’t understand this is my life.’’
Whether all that is enough to keep him in Chicago remains to be seen. There are a lot of possible scenarios, but working out a contract extension with the Cubs before the deadline is one Stroman isn’t banking on.
‘‘I’m open to it, I just don’t think it’s going to happen,’’ Stroman said. ‘‘There’s zero hard feelings. I have a great relationship with [president of baseball operations] Jed [Hoyer] and [general manager] Carter [Hawkins], the Rickettses.
‘‘I love everything here. I just don’t think they’re in a position to sign me before the deadline.’’
So the trade watch continues.
‘‘I know Belli wants to stay,’’ Stroman said of Bellinger. ‘‘I would love to stay here, but a lot of that’s out of our control. At the end of the day, it’s a business, so we have to treat it as such — even though we have this love for the fan base and this organization. It’s kind of hard to separate at times.’’
In the end, Stroman knows there’s only so much he can control.
‘‘I’m very grateful to be a Cub,’’ he said. ‘‘And to be honest with you, however it plays out, I’m good with it. I’m truly happy outside of here. So I think God’s got me, no matter what.’’
