After three straight wins against the lowly Diamondbacks, the Cubs returned to old form against a tough lefty and the competitive LA Dodgers. I know I have said this many times in this blog, but this stupid platoon lineup against left-handed pitching doesn't score runs and doesn't play good baseball. Stupid base-running in the 3rd inning when Theriot was picked off and Byrd wandered off first after a bloop hit, but that wasn't the real issue. Kershaw has walked 50 batters in a little more than 100 innings, which means an average of four or more per game, but he sailed through eight innings this evening on less than 100 pitches and struck out 12. The human rally killer Xavier Nady struck out twice and hit into a double play to help things along. Wells pitched well, made one big mistake to Furcal, and took a tough loss. For some reason, Lou believes in this awful lineup. Another reason he needs to go.
Some interesting interviews. Maddox is quoted as saying the Zambrano deal is not a big thing, blown out of proportion, that he can square things with his teammates. This rather tells me that Z is going nowhere for now. The real question is whether he can square things with Piniellla, who seems to have decided to spend most of his time humiliating the testy fellow all season long.
On the Piniella front, Lou gave an interview basically saying his days as a manager are through and he is looking forward to retirement, can't motivate modern players, doesn't understand what is going on, etc., etc. Time for someone in ownership or upper management to tell him that now is the time to quit and just pay him off. Maybe this will happen. There seem to be signs the Cubs are going to start selling and that Ricketts is going to talk about the future of the team.
Of all the rumors, I still say the only serious ones are Lee, Lilly, Nady, and maybe Theriot, the first three because they are free agents next year anyway and Theriot because some contenders need an infielder because of injuries and he might help someone with a change of scene and being dropped to a more realistic place in the order. If you are going to try to move an albatross, Soriano might be worth a shot. To the uninformed, it looks as if he is having a decent year. An AL team could carry him.
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