Way to Go, Skipper!

By which I mean, how could a 6-0 laugher go to a nail-biter extra-inning contest in two short (actually agonizingly long) innings?  I'll tell you how in two words.  Dale Sveum.

Some managers have a seemingly innate ability to handle their pitchers and the bullpen.  Some don't.  Dale falls into the latter category.

Last night the Cubs took a 6-0 lead into the bottom of the fifth inning.  With a six run lead, generally all you have to do is throw strikes and hang on, but this is something Jeff Samardzija seems to be incapable of doing.  Maybe it is the principal difference between him and Matt Garza.  I don't know, but Samardzija had struggled all night long and, staked to a big lead, proved once again that he has a long ways to go toward becoming the dominant pitcher people seem to think he can one day become.

Sveum stuck with Samardzija through the fifth, whether it was to give him the chance to notch a win or to give him a learning experience trying to get out of trouble with a big lead, who knows.  Samardzija was both lucky and unlucky to escape with a 6-2 lead, lucky because he pitched so poorly he deserved to get smacked, unlucky because the double-play ball he induced clipped second base causing Barney to muff it with two runs scoring as a result.

What is simply unconscionable was letting Samardzija hit in the top of the sixth and then go back out there.  Needless to say, the result was a disaster.  Samardzija struggled once again and left with runners at second and third and Paul Goldschmidt due up.

I've mentioned before that Sveum is really a rigid and timid sort of manager for all his swagger.  He wants six innings from his starter no matter what.  He also has bullpen guys with assigned roles.  So his sixth inning guy now is Blake Parker, formerly the eighth inning guy until he started getting cuffed around the second time through the league.

Now Samardzija had struck out Goldschmidt, probably the best hitter in the NL West on all five previous encounters.  However, magic Dale pulled Parker out of the hat with predictable results, namely a three-run homer.

For my money, the Cubs cannot trade Gregg soon enough as he is starting to revert to his previous levels which are not at all good.  Gregg blew the save for the umpteenth time in July.  Still, the Cubs pulled it out in the twelfth inning, thanks to a solid AB from Rizzo to draw a key walk and another heroic double from Schierholtz to cap off a career night.

A final bit of news: Alfonso Soriano has asked for a couple of days to think over his options respecting a trade to the Yankees, although he seemed in the pathetic locker room interview they showed on TV to say he had already agreed, sort of, I mean, the Yankees were on the list, right, and he had agreed to the list, or maybe to think about the list and, yes, he had approved the list, so you might say he had agreed to the list or to think about the list, whatever a list is and depending on how you define lists, agreements, and thought.