Another Tough Loss

This was a tough loss. And doubly so, as just when they were getting some productive outings from Mateo, he seems to have gone down with what sounds like a serious injury.

I have to chalk up at least part if not most of the blame for this one again to Quade, who is managing in the sort of desperate overwrought style of a guy whose job is on the line. Coleman gave the Cubs a nice solid outing. When he got in a little jam in the sixth inning, Quade immediately pulled him in favor of Samardzija who worked out of the trouble with relatively minimal damage.

Here's the problem, when he inserted Samardzija, he made a double switch, putting Johnson in LF replacing Soriano. I've got no real problem with this except that to start the next inning, Quade inserted Marshall into the game. If he intended to replace Samardzija to start the seventh, what was the point of the double switch?

So Marshall gives up a single to the leadoff man, followed by a sacrifice, strikes out the next batter and get pulled in favor of Wood. Now I know Zimmerman is a right-handed hitter, but the Nationals seem to have a boatload of left-handed hitters coming up next, so you might have intentionally walked Zimmerman or pitched around him or just gone straight at him. After all, Marshall is a pretty good pitcher. But Wood simply cannot throw a strike. He walks Zimmerman, hits the next guy, and then walks Nix to tie the score.

The next inning, Wood seems to have settled down, but he walks a guy, so Quade goes to Russell in another double switch, removing Fukudome in favor of Tony Campana. So in the ninth inning, Campana is unable to sacrifice a runner to second and hits into a double play when the Cubs take off the bunt sign on 3-2. Byrd, who was going with the pitch, somehow fails to disrupt the play even though he is nearly on top of the Nationals shortstop when he gets the throw.

Russell sails through the bottom of the ninth, but he has to be taken out in favor of a pinch hitter to lead off the tenth. The rest is history, Mateo walks the leadoff man, surrenders a sacrifice and hurts his arm. Marmol is summoned in, forgets there is a runner on second, allowing him to steal third, then throws a wild pitch to lose the game.

Bad luck, sure, but some pretty strange decisions as well.