Feast or Famine

Since I last posted after the Zambrano game on Tuesday, the Cubs have managed to win two blowouts behind Garza and Dempster and lose two other games when they couldn't score in a blowout loss to the Cardinals and a sloppy loss to the Giants Saturday night.

Davis pitched surprisingly well in the Giants game that really should not have been played given the appalling weather conditions. In both the losses, the Cubs were unable to deliver on the occasions when they had a genuine scoring opportunity.

On Saturday, the tone was set in the first inning when Barney and Castro got hits and Pena walked to load the bases. Byrd and Soriano were retired after awful at-bats and that was the story.

Quade seems to have some idea of what is wrong with the Cubs approach with runners on base, but he has some blind spots as well. The biggest one to my mind is his insistence on playing Byrd every day and always batting him in an RBI spot, namely third or fifth. Come on, this guy has 8 RBI all season. When he hits with men on base, he is guaranteed to strike out, ground out, or hit into a double play.

If you look at Byrd's numbers, you might think he is having a good year. He's batting .312 and has had two streaks where he has hit for average sandwiched around a prolonged slump in late April. Here's the deal though, only a .390 slugging percentage, virtually no walks because he swings at the first pitch each and every time he bats even if the opposing pitcher has thrown four or six or eight straight balls.

Byrd has 8 RBI in more than 150 ABs. Colvin and Johnson have 8 RBI each in roughly 100 ABs between them. That should tell the Cubs manager and coaches something. It should tell them to watch the games, not read the box score.

Now I'm not suggesting that Tyler Colvin is a great hitter right now. He seems like a mirror image of Alfonso Soriano. But maybe some of his troubles stem from not having a defined role on the team, something I think young players need.

He began the season "platooning" with Kosuke Fukudome even though they both bat left-handed and even though they hit left-handers about as well. Then he subbed for Pena for a week or so when Pena was hurt. Now he has no role whatsoever because Quade thinks his outfielders are having good years, even though Byrd really isn't and Soriano has cooled off and cannot actually catch anything in the outfield.

I made the suggestion before the season began that the Cubs offense would produce runs consistently in direct proportion to the productivity they got from their left-handed hitters and in inverse proportion to the amount of at-bats Byrd and Soriano took against right-handed pitching. I don't see any reason to modify that stance now.

Looking ahead, the Cubs play seven straight night games with the Reds, Marlins, and Red Sox. They can use Davis to replace Russell in the rotation, but they are unlikely to get Wells back in the next two weeks. They need to keep their heads above water during this stretch to give themselves any chance at the division.