Two Strikes on Quade

Well, actually more like two hundred. I am trying to get away from commenting on every game or series. This is a lost season in any case, so why bother to repeat the same criticisms and observations over and over again.

In this case, though, the last two games, the Sunday night loss to the Cardinals and last night's shutout loss to the Braves capture the failings of this organization and this manager in a nutshell.

First off, the whole Castro business where he was moping around at SS after he made an error, eating sunflower seeds, and not paying attention. Not what you want your players to do, obviously. Lost in the shuffle, at least for a while, was the fact that neither Quade or his coaches or any of the other players on the field seemed to notice. It was left to perennial snot-nose ESPN color-man and manger-want-to-be-again Bobby Valentine to launch into a long diatribe about the incident for the Cubs to notice.

Quade's reaction was predictable. He called out his young shortstop in typical humiliating fashion and "benched" him for a day so that he might regain his mental equilibrium or some such stuff. Now I am not condoning Castro's on-field demeanor or lack of concentration or the careless errors. What gets me is that under Quade it is the young players who are consistently subjected to public criticism and that such criticism is only doled out after management has experienced a quasi-public humiliation. They are not reacting to the indifference and lack of attention and discipline their players routinely exhibit, they are reacting to the fact that outsiders have noticed it. And have noticed their own lack of attention and indiscipline. Which, of course, is why Quade and his friends should be replaced ASAP.

Last night's game illustrates a similar lesson not learned by Cubs management. They lost 3-0. They left 15 runners on base. Nine hits and, staggeringly, six walks, which, given the famous lack of patience shown by this team, is roughly a week's allotment.

How is this possible, you might ask, and how is it possible similar results have been the rule rather than the exception all year long? A better question would be how is it possible our manager has not noticed this all season long and how is it possible he has not identified the problem, which, in two words, is Byrd and Soriano back-to-back?

Last night, each of these stalwarts left six runners on base. They do this every night. Usually, an astute or casual observer can call the shot. Less than two outs, double play ball or popup on the first pitch, two outs, strikeout. Byrd has 23 RBI batting third or fifth. Soriano is batting .233 with RISP and .225 against RH pitchers. Byrd is batting .204 with RISP. Byrd has hit 98 times with RISP, Soriano 103 times. That's about 30% of their at-bats in each case.

So the question you have to ask yourself is how long is it going to take for even a baseball lifer to figure out that your apparent stubbornness in playing these guys every day and batting them fifth and sixth is a major reason why you rarely score more than three runs in a game and why you rarely win close games?

I don't want to blow my own horn here, but I figured this out before the season began. Actually, it sort of dawned on me early in 2010 in a big way when Piniella was doing the same thing. Quade claims to be a big believer in match-ups. It hasn't worked.