Sunday to salvage at least one game from the White Sox. A surprisingly good start from Lopez and one in which Quade was able to use his bullpen judiciously coming off the complete game loss for Garza the day before. He'll need a rested bullpen with Dempster having to miss a start tomorrow and Coleman and Ortiz on the horizon to pick up the slack.
This game and most of the others on the homestand if you throw out the DH losses to the Giants on Tuesday were hard-fought, well-pitched, low-scoring games, the kind of games I expected more often than not for this club to play given how it is constructed. What I mean is that this lineup is not built to score runs in Wrigley Field. There are only two left-handed hitting regulars, Fukudome and Pena. These are the only guys who take pitches and work the count and take bases-on-balls.
When they are hot - and these guys are very streaky - Barney, Castro, and Ramirez are capable of quality at-bats. After that, you have three right-handed hitters who rarely take quality at-bats, seldom walk, and present the opposing pitcher with essentially the same profile. So against a quality right-hander, the Cubs have a minimal chance of scoring every other inning or every third inning if the opposing pitcher is very good.
Until that changes, either through trades or promoting players from the farm system, the Cubs need to rely upon quality starts from the rotation and the strength of their bullpen, as well as good defense. Unfortunately, the Cubs don't play good defense most of the time, and their starting pitching has been decimated by injuries. Which explains why they are 15 games under .500 right now.
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