Incidentally, if you read the Boston press, you will find that he has accumulated just as much bile there as he has stockpiled patience and faith here. A tale of two cities.
To give Boston its due, they are pretty banged up. That having been said, their hopeless incompetence in letting the Cubs tie the score in the sixth inning was an appalling display of ineptitude that was only equaled by the Cubs performance through the rest of the game. I mean, I don't remember ever having seen two guys cover second base on an easy double play chance for the pitcher and neither one catch the throw.
It's probably not worth cataloging the Cubs incompetence through the rest of the game except to note that it is has become the rule rather than the exception and it is not getting any better. Which, of course, is the real problem. Needless to say, we saw a continuation of the utter futility of this team against left-handed pitching.
Some choice quotes from Dale Sveum on the lefty issue:
"You can't even try to do what we do against left-handed pitching," Sveum said. "It's very difficult to have those kind of numbers and slugging percentage and everything like that against left-handed pitching on a consistent basis."
"It's the same story -- a left-handed pitcher, we were getting beat constantly on the fastball," Sveum said. "That's the bottom line. It wasn't like he was doing a whole lot else besides throwing a lot of fastballs."OK, Dale, we know it's a problem, but you still keep trotting out the same mopes against lefties with the same results. Try something different. And, if you are getting beat by fastballs, then maybe you should consider that the primary theory behind the lefty/righty platoon is the advantage that pitchers have in throwing breaking balls to same-sided hitters and the advantage hitters have in hitting breaking balls thrown by opposite-sided pitchers. Fastballs present no advantage either way.
Actually, the Cubs and Dale Sveum are now absolutely terrified at the prospect of facing left-handers. In the wild sixth inning during which Boston misplayed nearly every chance but escaped with allowing only one run, the Cubs stuck with the right-handed hitters simply because Boston had a lefty warming up in the bullpen.
Just as an aside, the Cubs had an opportunity, down three runs, to use Bryan LaHair as a pinch-hitter in the bottom of the ninth with men at the corners, but chose instead to allow the veteran Reed Johnson to strike out against a right-hander. Go figure.
A few years ago, under Lou Piniella, the Cubs were employing the same tactics with the same players and the same results. It was discovered then that the Cubs did not have a left-handed batting practice pitcher and never practiced against left-handers. If my memory served me correctly, they went out and got someone to throw batting practice left-handed, not that it eventually had any effect on their performance.
I listened to a bit of the national play-by-play both Saturday and Sunday. Both teams of announcers were wondering when Cubs fans would get sick of watching this painful excuse for a baseball team and when Theo and company would start to feel some heat.
I have got to say that the one thing that surprises me is that all the fans and media have bought into this long-term rebuilding process and have cut Epstein so much slack. I'm all for clearing out the deadwood and building the team, but you have to understand that fans have a legitimate expectation that a rich team like this that charges some of the highest ticket prices in MLB would field a team that would at least provide some modicum of entertainment.
I'll have more to say on the subject in subsequent posts.
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