Learning to Lose

I was actually out at the game last night.  It was a tense and close game up until the 7th inning when the Cubs made three errors, two on one play, to blow the game.

Rather a shame. Samardzija pitched pretty well except he needs to understand that he doesn't have to try to strike out everyone and run up the pitch count in the process.  Deep down, I knew that sooner or later the Brewers would scratch out a run and that there was almost no chance the Cubs would even threaten to do so.

This happened in the 7th when Samardzija misplayed a bunt by Nyger Morgan and then threw the ball away.  After Jose Segura singled him in the game was as good as lost, but the Cubs managed to put the seal on things by botching up a stolen base with two egregious errors. First there was a wild throw by Castillo that Castro played off to the side.  Then there was a really dumb attempt by Segura to advance that should have resulted in an out but instead led to a misplay by Valbuena to let a pretty good Barney throw go by.  Naturally, Samardzija was watching the play instead of backing up third, allowing an insurance run to score.

When you are actually out at the park, you see a lot more of just how badly this team is playing, both in the field and at the plate.  This season there have mercifully fewer defensive breakdowns such as last night's, but that doesn't mean they have played well at a fundamental level.  Now granted there are a lot of young kids here and the team is rebuilding and all that, but really you would suppose that by the time you make it to the big leagues after playing organized baseball for nearly a decade you might at least have some notion of where you are supposed to throw the ball and who should be positioned as the cutoff man and a whole host of other little things.

Just as an aside, Soriano actually appeared to reintroduce the infamous hop on one flyball he caught last night, and, of course, to my recollection, never threw the ball accurately in the direction of the appropriate base or cutoff man once.

What's disappointing here is that there is virtually no discernible progress through the season.  This is especially the case with the hitting and the strikeouts, which are just plain inexcusable for a major league team.  Last week, the Cubs struck out 38 times in the Brewers series in Milwaukee.  In this week's series, the number is 41.  That's better than a ten plus average per game.

Not to be entirely negative, the Cubs did manage to pull off a nice come-from-behind windblown win in the bottom of the ninth today, stringing together several lengthy at-bats.  Soriano's flyball over a drawn-in outfield was a rare example of successful situational hitting for this team.

Incidentally, the photo above shows Starlin Castro getting ready to strike out with a man at first in the 9th inning last night on a pitch that was probably at leat a foot outside the strike zone.  To his credit, though, he had a really nice battling at-bat in today's ninth inning that ultimately resulted in a single that drove in a run and kept the rally going.

September Comes Early

September call-ups have arrived early for the Cubs, not that they had much choice.  They are 5-17 since the trade deadline.  We've already noted that the Cubs collapse since that fated day really has not had that much to do with the overhaul of the pitching rotation.  That overhaul was dramatic, but, by and large, the youngsters they have brought up have not pitched all that badly.  Rusin and Raley, in particular, have shown some promise, and Germano has done a creditable job.  Volstad is Volstad, but then no one would have expected any better.

This team still won't work the count or play baseball.  So they just do not score runs consistently.  I haven't seen a lot to be confident about so far among the new Cubs who seem determined to hit a home run or strike out no matter the circumstances.  Brett Jackson might become a good hitter if he could control the strikeouts, which, right now, make Tyler Colvin look like Pete Rose.  Welington Castillo, to my mind, looks like the only one of these youngsters who is ready to play at a major league level now.  Vitters might make an interesting platoon in left field with someone like Bryan LaHair, but he is not a good third baseman and looks to be the farthest away from the majors.

The Cubs probably did the right thing in signing Castro long term, especially as they seem to have gotten a favorable deal and they can still trade him.  I'm not sure what it is about young players who come up now, but they seem to have one or two physical skills, but no real baseball sense.  They are just unfinished and it takes a lot of coaching, quality coaching, to get them where they need to be for a team to contend in the long run.  So far I haven't seen real evidence of this coaching taking effect since the regime change.  This has to be the most disappointing aspect of the new era of the Cubs under Epstein and Hoyer and Sveum.  This team is still worse than the sum total of its individual components.

Just watched Starlin botch up two double-plays in the same inning, giving the Rockies the lead.  So it goes.

Speaking of the Epstein legacy, it looks like the Dodgers are out to spend as much money as they can and to reconstruct the infamous 2011 Red Sox, acquiring most of the Epstein "mistakes" in the process.  I put mistakes in quotes mainly because of Adrian Gonzalez, whom I still regard as a premier first baseman and pure hitter.  Gonzalez is probably worth the haul of over-rated minor league talent the Red Sox are likely to acquire in the mega-deal.  Of course, the rest of the baggage the Dodgers are taking on kind of means you are really paying Gonzalez upwards of $50 or $60MM a year.

Just as an aside, we finally have found out the secret of Melky Cabrera's remarkable improvement, as well as Bartolo Colon's comeback season.  Not exactly edifying, and the case of Cabrera, some monumental evidence of terminal stupidity as well.

Back to the Cubs.  Just so we all know, Dale Sveum is frustrated as well.  Good news.  However, right now the Cubs are following the Astros/Pirates/Royals model and you kind of wonder how long they can get away with it, considering they have the most expensive tickets in baseball in terms of the likelihood of seeing a win, and really, I think, the second most expensive tickets in baseball straight up.

Cubs Winless since Trade Deadline

The Cubs lost their sixth straight last night to the lowly Padres whom they swept at Wrigley Field a while back to stop another woeful losing streak.  I guess we can expect this sort of performance from here on out, though, to be honest, none of the losses would seem to stem from the trades they made which largely shed veteran pitching.

Two of the losses were to lefties, so you might argue that the departure of the the right-handed platoon players Johnson and Baker could have affected the outcome, but, really, the Cubs always lose to lefties anyway and the presence of either of these guys in the lineup does not seem to matter much one way or the other.

As far as the pitching goes, the starting rotation is a mess, but actually Samardzija probably pitched the worst game of the six.  Volstad pitched unexpectedly well, as did Germano.  Coleman pitched badly, but no one expected him to do well.  Wood pitched two decent games without any support.  With Garza out probably for the season, Cubs fans cannot expect much in the way of pitching from here on out.  Perhaps the rookie Raley will provide some hope tonight.

Which makes things especially depressing because the real reason they have lost six straight is they don't score runs.  They have scored twelve runs in this stretch, an average of two per game, and six of those were Sunday in a tough walk-off loss to the Dodgers.

In this respect also, things are not likely to get much better.  Jackson and Vitters were promoted to the team, though only Jackson seems poised to play every day.  Jackson had a nice debut game Sunday, but struck out four times yesterday.  Vitters hasn't shown much so far and it seems likely that Sveum will platoon him with one of his favorites, Luis Valbuena, who, last time I checked, was hovering around or below the Mendoza line.

Another reason for lack of hope seems to be the odd decisions Sveum makes with his lineup.  It took him the better part of three months to settle on a steady set of platoons and a consistent batting order and bullpen rotation.  So the Cubs had, at long last, a pretty good July.  This whole process was wrecked by the trades and call-ups, so it is going to take him a while to get his head screwed back on.

Last night we had the strikeout machine Jackson batting leadoff and Castro in the five hole, both, in my opinion, not the best spots for their respective talents.  If you are stuck with players who are impatient and do not get on base and, in general, have very little or no idea of situational hitting, the lineup is very, very important to maximize the slim chances of scoring runs.  Again, in my opinion, though stats will back me up on this, Sveum is not very good at this and this is likely to lead to a lot more losses than even this flawed team merits.

Speaking of disconnects between upper management and management at the field level, I read where Bryan LaHair, who was finally showing signs of snapping out of a two month slump, will find it hard to get any playing time after Jackson's promotion.  Am I missing something here?  I mean, granted that LaHair has slumped since his promising start, but he is 29 years old.  He belongs in left field, at least on a platoon basis.  Right now he or any other outfielder is blocked by two players who do not figure to be part of a winner.

DeJesus is 32 years old and strictly a journeyman platoon player with a .261 average.  It is hard to envisage this guy as anything other than a placeholder and even harder to see him as a major contributor to a winning team.  Soriano has been showcased throughout the season in a desperate attempt to get someone to take him off their hands even if they continue to pay his salary.  Every day Soriano shows why, despite his decent stats, he has no idea how to play baseball and is a menace in the field even when he catches the ball.  But these players will play every day in preference to a player who might have the ability to contribute as a left-handed power hitter for several years to come and costs you virtually nothing.  Shouldn't you at least try to find out if he can be straightened out, or are we dealing with an advanced case of Quade-itis?

Further Notes on Ryan Dempster

I don't always agree with Steve Rosenbloom.  As a matter of fact, I almost never agree with the feisty Tribune pundit.  This time, though, I have to say he has written a pretty accurate column.

One additional reason he might have cited for Dempster's rather gentlemanly treatment by Epstein and Hoyer is this.  I think they felt they had to let the fellow listen in on the conversations with LA management to finally convince him there was no interest in him by the Dodgers, there was no deal there, and there never was any.  Just as a further note, one wonders where on Earth Dempster's agent was during this whole fiasco and whether the guy ought not to let him handle matters of this sort in the future.

One game does not a season make, but I note that old Demp got lit up big time in Texas Thursday night, 8 runs, 9 hits, 2 homers in 4.2 innings.  He wasn't throwing strikes either, only 59 of 103 pitches.  Left trailing the Angels 8-7, but the Rangers came back to win a wild one 15-9.  Welcome to Arlington and the American League.