The Cubs lost back to back one-run games this weekend to the Houston Astros, one of the worst teams in the NL. This is pretty much inexcusable, and they should have won at least one of the games, that being the Sunday game in which a terrific start by Dempster was wasted. It's easy to second-guess Piniella on letting Dempster in one batter too long, etc., but really when you don't score runs, it puts pressure on everyone. It just becomes a craps shoot sometimes and in these two games the Cubs lost.
One observation you can make is that this team doesn't score runs against decent pitching when the wind is blowing in, which, as everyone knows, is at least as often as when it blows out. The Saturday game you can chalk up to running into Oswalt when he was on his game. They got back in it that day when the Astros put in mediocre pitching to get to their closer, but once they did, it was over.
The Cubs were hooked up in a pitcher's duel on Sunday, but Rodriguez was nowhere near as dominant as Oswalt, thought the Cubs failed to add on. Hard to say why, but the all right-handed lineup they are in love with against lefties hardly ever scores runs, and the same thing has been true last year and often the year before. I think the reason is that it is not really a lineup in any sense. It is a jumble of right-handed hitters in no particular order who lack patience and just swing for the fences even when the likelihood of hitting it out is minimal.
Piniella has announced he is going to shake up the lineup against lefties this week in New York, but if the reports are true, it could be a long week. Maybe they will get lucky, since the only really dominant lefty on the Mets is Santana, but moving Byrd to the top and Baker second doesn't really provide an immense advantage. That lineup in any case loses a lot defensively, and really would it kill you to just mix in a couple of left-handed hitters just to change the opposing pitchers style a bit? It's not like the Baker and Nady are knocking the cover off the ball, is it?
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