Which to discuss first. I guess Piniella. It does say a lot about how this organization stays the same the more it seems to change. First off, retaining Hendry is probably not the thing to do. Sure he has brought in a pretty decent minor league and scouting operation, but he is also responsible for a lot of dumb free agent signings and a lot of bad contracts. Now he will get a chance to find a new Lou Piniella. That has got to give one pause.
As for Lou, again what an odd thing to do, a kind of delayed resignation. Now I know Bobby Cox did the same thing in Atlanta, but he did it at the start of the year and he has been their manager for like a quarter of a century. Perhaps I am being a cynic, but, especially after watching old Lou's highly self-serving news conference, I just get the feeling all this is giving him a face-saving way out that doesn't much help the team. Either they are going to all get together and try to bring him out a winner or they are going to heave a great sigh of relief that they will not have this glowering old codger muttering to himself around much longer or they will start making off-season plans and continue to play the same mediocre in-and-out baseball they have played all year long. Odds favor the latter course.
In the Houston series, the observation that the Cubs needed to win every series ran into the usual obstacles reality tends to place before indifferent teams. They lost the first game largely because Carlos Silva had his second wretched start in a row. Lets hope he gets himself straightened out soon because now he is looking more like the guy we expected to see when we picked him up from Seattle.
In the second game, the Cubs walloped the Astros, largely behind the hitting of Aramis Ramirez and some great relief pitching by the the only three guys Piniella ever uses in a winnable game. Not so lucky on Wednesday though when we saw the return the team that habitually leaves runners on base in droves and goes into full panic mode at the plate whenever a runner reaches third base with less than two outs.
16 left on base. Not one but four chances to put the game away in the later innings. The base-running play by Castro might have been a season-changing effort, but, alas, even the guys who have been productive lately couldn't bring him home. Plenty of goats here, including Colvin, Fukudome, Soto, Ramirez, Soriano, etc. The Cubs seem to be democratic in the distribution of clutch-hitting failure. Still waiting for the hot streak.
People are going to blame Stevens, who does not appear to have consistent major league stuff, but it was really the insertion of "Home Run" Howry that made the difference. He put two men on with no one out. If Arizona releases a relief pitcher outright, this has got to say something. And, incidentally, Piniella managed the significant feat of running out of pitchers before he ran out of position players by using three pitchers to lose the game in the 12th and facing the embarrassment of warming up Friday's starter in the event Colvin's final out had fallen in to tie the game.
No comments:
Post a Comment