Bad to the Bone

The Cubs have dropped six straight since their brief reach for respectability leading up to the Pirates series.  Sure they miss Rizzo and Castro in the lineup, but that's not an excuse.  They played pretty well when Castro was on bereavement leave or whatever that was and also through the early days of Rizzo's injury.  I have to think there is something deeper in this than meets the eye, although just what it is beats me.

A couple of things you can conclude.  One is the Cubs have no idea how to play on synthetic turf.  Thankfully there are very few of these obscene stadia remaining, but you would think one of the coaches would take some of the players aside and explain that the ball bounces higher and you can play further back in the infield and so on.  Maybe they could take a couple of grounders in infield practice.  Apparently not.

Another thing you can conclude is that right now Javier Baez is hopelessly over-matched.  His plate appearances are a joke.  Not only that but his entire approach to the game is clueless.  Witness his base-running in the first inning  when he might have scored from first base on Valbuena's double if he had not been looking around to see where the ball was instead of running full out and then running past the stop sign Jones gave him at third and getting picked off.  What strikes me most about Baez thus far is his lack of baseball intelligence.  You can have all the ability in the world but if you just do not understand the game, you are likely to stink.  Jay Cutler is an example of this theorem, by the way.

You can argue that the Baez play set the tenor of the game going forward.  The Cubs would have scored at least one run and might have got out to a decent lead.  Instead they played from behind the whole way after the Blue Jays manufactured a run when Olt messed up a grounder to first by not holding the runner sufficiently at second.  (A minor conclusion here is that Olt is not a first baseman).

The sixth inning, when Hendricks ran into a wall, was the highlight of the night.  Soler misplays a bloop single that bounces off the turf, but what is Kalish thinking?  He has the batter caught between first and second, but instead airmails the ball in the direction of home plate.  A more serious question might be why Kalish is playing center field in the first place. I guess I had nothing better to do the last few nights but watch this sorry excuse for baseball.

The thing is that nothing seems to change with this franchise.  Long ago even before the Epstein regime took over, I once likened the Cubs play to that of a 16-inch softball team.  Everybody has had the experience.  Guys try to hit a home run on every swing.  They run like crazy until someone throws them out.  The fielders all misplay nearly every chance, then throw the ball as far as they can in the direction of home plate.  Watch the Cubs play and tell me if there is a discernible difference in style.  No wonder Renteria is embarrassed.  He should be.