What can you say about this season?
Well, it is-one third over give or take a few games, the Cubs are 12 games under .500 in the midst of a seven game losing streak and their hopes are sinking fast.
How come?
Lets start with the pitching.
First off, they counted their starting pitching as a strong suit after they traded for Garza, so much so they felt confident in releasing Carlos Silva and trading Tom Gorzelanny. Not great losses to be sure, but injuries to Wells and Cashner eliminated 40% of the starting five, forcing them to dip into the bullpen to press James Russell into the rotation and to bring up Casey Coleman, the only minor league arm who could conceivably be given a shot then. Neither worked out.
I said at the time that the only chance they had was to stay close to .500 and wait things out. They haven’t. Russell, good in relief, was a bad starter. Coleman pitched a little better than his record indicates, but he too was a flop. The Cubs have found it necessary to dig into the scrap heap to resurrect the careers of Doug Davis and Rodrigo Lopez, two certified has-beens. Lopez has been a disaster, though he may yet fill the mop-up role previously designated for Samardzija. Davis is likely to continue as the fifth starter until Cashner returns. That seems a way off.
You cannot expect much from Davis. He pitched well against the Astros. Maybe one half-decent start every third outing? Were the Cubs by some miracle able to attain some level of respectability before the trade deadline, they’d have to get some help if Cashner’s return was at all delayed.
So far Garza has been inconsistent, as has Dempster. Zambrano has been the only ray of light among the starters. He would probably have 8 or 9 wins on even a mediocre team. Of course, everyone hates him now because he has had the temerity to state the obvious fact that the Cubs are playing dumb, crappy baseball. What a nut!
The woes afflicting the starting rotation have forced Mike Quade to manage his bullpen in unorthodox ways. This is starting to take its toll among the arms the Cubs have counted on to preserve wins. Lets face it, you have to count on getting six innings from all your starters most of the time, and seven or eight from your big guns. The only pitcher delivering on this promise consistently now is Carlos Zambrano. Given that the emergency starters are going less than five, you have a real problem.
So far Quade has done a reasonable job in reserving his three solid relievers – Marshall, Wood, and Marmol – for games in which the team has a lead to protect or a shot at winning. Lately Marmol has shown signs of a slump when he comes back two or three days in a row, but it is hard to argue that these stressful appearances were unnecessary. The real problems are in middle relief.
The Cubs chose to use James Russell, the only other reliable arm in the bullpen, as a starter. That has forced some of the remaining arms into unaccustomed roles. They started the season with four solid relievers, two worthless or inconsistent pitchers – Grabow and Samardzija – and an unknown quantity in Mateo. Mateo just fell apart and the various AAA replacements have been pretty bad. Grabow is hardly ever used. It appears that Quade has almost no confidence in him, with good reason. Samardzija was actually a pleasant surprise for a while until the Cubs began to use him in relatively meaningful situations, whereupon he has started to revert to his old, ineffective and inconsistent ways. Maybe with the return of Wells and Garza to the rotation, the bullpen can achieve some stability with Grabow and Lopez taking the mop-up roles.
Notwithstanding all the horrors the above analysis implies, it has not been the pitching by and large that has led to the Cubs really disgraceful performance to date. Until the latest skid, I was rather of the opinion the team might just survive near the .500 mark to right the ship. After all, you can count 8 or 10 games they really should have won, several on the current streak.
No, the real problem lies with the rest of team. As Bob Brenly has characterized them, they are a “dead-ass team.”
More on this in the next installment.
A suggestion for Part 2 of your assessment should involve the total lack of patience at the plate, except for Fukko and Pena, and the inability to hit with men in scoring position. Seems as tho the team has regresssed under Jaramillo's tutelage. Further they do not play sound fundamental baseball in the field: missing the cut off man, blowing double plays, etc. They lack power, have no team speed, can't bunt, can't score a man from 3rd. I could go on and on.
ReplyDeleteSomething is obviously wrong with their conditioning programs for pitchers, with Wells and Cashner going on the DL with arm injuries. Hendry has stuck this team with a lot of dead wood, namely Gasoline Can Smardzija, and Gasoline Can Grabow. Plus the Sorryass Left Fielder who couldn't catch a fly ball if it landed in his glove. The Hendry puppet, Quadde looks like he couldn't msnsge his way out of a phone booth, saying inane things like..they're trying hard, they'll do better, they'll handle internal team problems themselves.
The McCaskey like Ricketts doesn't appear to know how to rid this team of the General Managerial deadwood. I'm thru venting for now.
Mr B. Gullman