The Cardinals Series

First off, the good news.  The Cubs played intelligent and fundamentally sound baseball for 26 innings against the Cards, falling one inning short of a sweep.  They showed a much more patient approach at the plate, working up the pitch count against three really good St. Louis starters, viz., Wainwright, Wacha, and Lynn.  Rizzo, in particular, had an excellent series and is emerging as a really professional hitter against both left-handed and right-handed pitching.  Castillo is also starting to live up to his promise.  The Cubs also got good starts from Wood, Arietta, and Hammel, even though the first and last did not have their best stuff and had to scuffle a little to keep the team in the game.

Now the bad news, which is mainly Renteria.  OK, I won't dwell on the constant lineup changes and the bizarre attachment to playing Sweeney and other mopes nearly every day.  What really lost the chance for a sweep was using Rondon for the third consecutive day with the game on the line.  I know he threw hardly any pitches the first two days, but unless you have a guy like Rivera or Eckersley, you don't want to give an opponent three straight days of looking at the same stuff.  Good teams are likely to figure you out.

When Rondon got in trouble, how come only a lefty was warming up?  Once Renteria decided to stick with Rondon against Carpenter, you knew he would not bring in Wright to face Molina as had Molina won the game, which he did, everyone would have asked him why he put Wright in an unfavorable matchup.

There is a deeper issue here that I have with the way the Cubs are managed.  They are being handled like a AAA team.  Everybody is getting tested and evaluated  and moved around and so on, but not in a way that is designed to win games, but to figure out if they are capable of certain things, etc.

Contrary to the hope that this sort of style will build confidence or enable management to make sound decisions, this sort of thing can have just the opposite effect.  Furthermore, players are not getting a consistent look.  They just play every now and then so they can never get in a groove.  Or, if they get in a groove, they sit for a few days, come back, and start pressing to get more playing time.

The Cubs certainly know who potentially fits into their plans and they ought to play these guys all the time to at least find out what the score is.  That means the placeholders and benchwarmers do not play regularly.

The other thing I have against this style is really that it dishonors the game.  In the majors, you field your best lineup on a day to day basis and you manage to win games, not to teach lessons or test situations.  That's why they call it a championship season.