A Golden opportunity

I mean, the Cubs passed on a golden opportunity yesterday to fire Lou Piniella. The start of a West Coast trip leading to the All-Star break, another wretched and embarrassing loss. What more could you ask for?

As to the loss, it was, as Lou is fond of remarking, a close game until the 7th inning, actually until two outs in the 7th, and it was a winnable game for most teams playing at home, down two runs with the wind blowing out. Then the roof caved in. Apparently, no one awakened Piniella and alerted him to the fact that even though Lilly, who had incidentally pitched badly even to that point, was due to lead off the bottom of the inning, he was imploding and had to be pulled before the game got out of hand.

Four runs and several mammoth blasts later, with the score now 9-3, Lou summoned the energy to trudge to the mound and insert Stevens, who had pitched the equivalent of probably four or five innings whilst warming up all day long in the bullpen at various times. Stevens proceeded to face six Reds without retiring a single man and to allow four more runs before Lou inserted Howry to get the final out.

Now I understand that, having wrongly decided to leave Lilly in the game based on the fact he had only thrown 70 pitches or so to that point, Lou wanted to get him through the inning, but in the post-game, all he had to say was nonsense about saving the bullpen and blah, blah, blah, it is always about someone else being to blame for dumb, consistently dumb, decisions. At least be forthright and admit you screwed up. That's what really bugs people about this guy, me anyway, and one of the principal reasons he has got to go, the sooner the better. Just admit you blundered. You thought you could get through the inning with minimal use of the bullpen and as a result you screwed up and permitted the opponent to score eight runs, just as you did the same thing two days earlier and allowed them to score nine runs. To do this, however, you have to admit you are managing on auto-pilot, that you are looking at the pitch count and not actually watching the game.

Refreshingly, Brian Kush, in the Daily Herald, is calling for the firing of Lou and Jim right now and a breakup of the team. This is one of the first of the major media outlets to say this in a forthright manner. I congratulate him, even though I do not agree with all his other recommendations.