Has Sveum Lost the Team Already?

Listening to some post-game analysis and browsing through some blogs and on-line sites, it is apparent some people are wondering whether the Cubs manager has just lost the team this early in his career.  He has certainly lost the fans, and I have to say it is just possible he has lost the team as well.  If so, it is something of an achievement.  It took Lou Piniella two and one-half years, and Quade three months or so if you count his audition in 2010.  Two months might be some kind of record.

The Cubs lost their twelfth in a row today at Pittsburgh and there were precious signs of life on the bench, in the field, and in Sveum's head.  Once again, the anemic right-handed lineup that cannot hit left-handed pitching.  With predicable results.  Another great throw by Matt Garza on the second play of the game.  OK, I could go on and on.

Here's the thing, though, this team was approaching respectability when the wheels came off in St. Louis on May 17.  Paul Maholm pitched badly in this start, but the Cubs came back to tie the game at 6 going to the bottom of the ninth.  The Cubs put Rafael Dolis, who had then for some unaccountable reason been designated the closer, in to pitch.

Matt Holliday singled.  After Dolis struck out Craig, Freese grounded out to Stewart, but Holliday advanced to second base.  Sveum could have and should have walked Molina intentionally.  Instead he decided to pitch to him.  He moved the second baseman Barney over toward the middle of the infield.  Molina hit a sharp grounder directly to the spot that Barney had vacated.  Barney got a glove on it but it got by him and the game was over.

They haven't won since, nor have they shown much interest in winning.  Sveum has avowed that he would have made the same move again, that he wasn't going to think about the what-ifs, and so on.  He didn't linger on about thinking and analyzing decisions.  What happened, happened.

OK, I can see the positioning move being unlucky.  What I can't see is pitching to Molina, which even Brenly avowed at the time was dumb.  I don't have any evidence of this, but the players can see this stuff too and it is not too far-fetched for them to make the logical conclusion that their leader is more or less brainless.  That and the fact that this team is built to lose and you get a twelve game losing streak.