The Cubs put on a sort of clinic on how not to play baseball, including how not to run the bases in particular, on Sunday and well into Monday's makeup game before they finally settled down to score a three runs against a batting practice pitcher and coast home behind another surprisingly good outing from Carlos Silva.
There is just something terribly wrong with the mindset of this team, and I am not sure if it can be cured. Today, for example, Alfonso Soriano, watched patiently while his teammate Marlon Byrd ran around frantically for several minutes after being caught off second base. Byrd evidently believed (mistakenly) that his heroic efforts would at least result in Soriano being able to move into scoring position before he had to concede the out, but he did not reckon on Soriano's amazing lack of baseball instincts. The Cubs cost themselves a couple of runs on Sunday with the same lack of interest, and, of course, later in the same inning Soto managed to casually run up to the second baseman on Castro's slowly hit double play ball instead of stopping.
Anyway, this team is not a pleasure to watch in the field or at the plate, nor is it much fun watching Piniella consistently screw up his lineups and pitching changes. At least they managed to win a game in Pittsburgh, and also it was refreshing to see Theriot take a couple of pitches and actually walk twice today, scoring four runs in the process. Perhaps Piniella or Jaramillo has convinced this erstwhile leadoff man that it is not a sissy thing to take pitches several feet out of the strike zone or over your head, and that as the first batter, you are expected to reach first base safely a fair proportion of the time.
On to Milwaukee, whom the Cubs have owned this year, and maybe they can come home bruised but not battered to face the hopeless White Sox this weekend.
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