Well, you can't get much worse than this. Or can you? The afternoon game on Thursday was one of the worst games I've ever experienced, and you can say that from both sides' point-of-view. And it was just endless. I must say the Cubs generally find a way to play to the level of their opposition, and I think that is why, historically, so much bad baseball has been played between them and the Brewers. I mean, don't these guys practice at all making basic plays that minor leaguers make every day? The botched up double play, double rundown that cost the Cubs a run in the 5th was something you'd expect to see in a highlight reel of the Amazing Mets or the Dodgers of the 1930s. And the topper of course was the ludicrous error by Nady to blow the game in the 10th inning. The only refreshing thing about the game was the absolute frankness of Koyie Hill in discussing the final play, in which he said basically the Brewers had nothing to lose in trying to go from first to third on the bunt as the Cubs had "one of the worst fundamental teams on the field, so it was a perfect situation for them."
As for the Wednesday night game, I thought Zambrano pitched rather well for the time he was in there. He seems to be coming around. The lineup Lou fielded was one so weird and illogical that you cannot imagine any reasonable person supposing there was any way they could possibly manufacture a run unless they hit five or six home runs, which, of course, they did. Putting Ramirez on the DL was the only recourse left to them. Lets hope he heals, and lets hope it is really just the thumb that has been bothering him.
There are all kinds of stories floating around about dissension in the clubhouse, backbiting by various cliques of players, and about Piniella, much as Baker had in his final season on the Norst Side, losing control. I'd be very surprised if some of it weren't true. Last year they managed to blame it all on Bradley, and in 2006 they blamed Sosa. I wonder who the scapegoat will be this time? This team has a lot of lazy, selfish, incompetent, and dumb players, more than enough to counter-balance the genuinely talented and intelligent ones, so there are plenty of candidates.
Thursday, June 10, 2010
Tuesday, June 8, 2010
A Tough Loss
Hard to quarrel with any of Lou's major decisions, but when you are in this sort of streak everything that can go wrong usually does. The Cubs did not figure to score a lot of runs against the Brewers' ace and they did not. They put out probably the best lineup they could, although why on earth Lou still thinks Theriot can lead off is a mystery to me. The one chance the Cubs had to break the game open relatively early died when the aforementioned Theriot stepped up with the bases loaded and promptly killed the rally on the first pitch.
Fukudome, who should of course be the leadoff man, had a good game, as did Colvin and Castro. Soriano, who was used as a pinch-hitter when the Cubs had far more experienced talent on the bench, did drive in the lead run in the ninth with a weak groundout. The Cubs seemed poised to take home a hard-earned win with Marmol closing it out, but Marmol hit a batter and then forgot he was on base, putting the Cubs in a hole from which they could not recover. The little things count in games like this. 99% of the time, Marmol pitches out of it, but this time he did not. I didn't see the play because the TV feed experienced technical difficulties, but Fielder must have had some kind of secondary lead to lumber in on McGehee's game-winning single.
Tomorrow night they face a tough lefty in Randy Wolf, which undoubtedly means the return of the all right-handed lineup of doom. This road trip, which should have brought them back up around .500 with six or seven wins, will be fortunate to provide three.
Fukudome, who should of course be the leadoff man, had a good game, as did Colvin and Castro. Soriano, who was used as a pinch-hitter when the Cubs had far more experienced talent on the bench, did drive in the lead run in the ninth with a weak groundout. The Cubs seemed poised to take home a hard-earned win with Marmol closing it out, but Marmol hit a batter and then forgot he was on base, putting the Cubs in a hole from which they could not recover. The little things count in games like this. 99% of the time, Marmol pitches out of it, but this time he did not. I didn't see the play because the TV feed experienced technical difficulties, but Fielder must have had some kind of secondary lead to lumber in on McGehee's game-winning single.
Tomorrow night they face a tough lefty in Randy Wolf, which undoubtedly means the return of the all right-handed lineup of doom. This road trip, which should have brought them back up around .500 with six or seven wins, will be fortunate to provide three.
Monday, June 7, 2010
Back to Basics?
The Cubs put on a sort of clinic on how not to play baseball, including how not to run the bases in particular, on Sunday and well into Monday's makeup game before they finally settled down to score a three runs against a batting practice pitcher and coast home behind another surprisingly good outing from Carlos Silva.
There is just something terribly wrong with the mindset of this team, and I am not sure if it can be cured. Today, for example, Alfonso Soriano, watched patiently while his teammate Marlon Byrd ran around frantically for several minutes after being caught off second base. Byrd evidently believed (mistakenly) that his heroic efforts would at least result in Soriano being able to move into scoring position before he had to concede the out, but he did not reckon on Soriano's amazing lack of baseball instincts. The Cubs cost themselves a couple of runs on Sunday with the same lack of interest, and, of course, later in the same inning Soto managed to casually run up to the second baseman on Castro's slowly hit double play ball instead of stopping.
Anyway, this team is not a pleasure to watch in the field or at the plate, nor is it much fun watching Piniella consistently screw up his lineups and pitching changes. At least they managed to win a game in Pittsburgh, and also it was refreshing to see Theriot take a couple of pitches and actually walk twice today, scoring four runs in the process. Perhaps Piniella or Jaramillo has convinced this erstwhile leadoff man that it is not a sissy thing to take pitches several feet out of the strike zone or over your head, and that as the first batter, you are expected to reach first base safely a fair proportion of the time.
On to Milwaukee, whom the Cubs have owned this year, and maybe they can come home bruised but not battered to face the hopeless White Sox this weekend.
There is just something terribly wrong with the mindset of this team, and I am not sure if it can be cured. Today, for example, Alfonso Soriano, watched patiently while his teammate Marlon Byrd ran around frantically for several minutes after being caught off second base. Byrd evidently believed (mistakenly) that his heroic efforts would at least result in Soriano being able to move into scoring position before he had to concede the out, but he did not reckon on Soriano's amazing lack of baseball instincts. The Cubs cost themselves a couple of runs on Sunday with the same lack of interest, and, of course, later in the same inning Soto managed to casually run up to the second baseman on Castro's slowly hit double play ball instead of stopping.
Anyway, this team is not a pleasure to watch in the field or at the plate, nor is it much fun watching Piniella consistently screw up his lineups and pitching changes. At least they managed to win a game in Pittsburgh, and also it was refreshing to see Theriot take a couple of pitches and actually walk twice today, scoring four runs in the process. Perhaps Piniella or Jaramillo has convinced this erstwhile leadoff man that it is not a sissy thing to take pitches several feet out of the strike zone or over your head, and that as the first batter, you are expected to reach first base safely a fair proportion of the time.
On to Milwaukee, whom the Cubs have owned this year, and maybe they can come home bruised but not battered to face the hopeless White Sox this weekend.
Saturday, June 5, 2010
A Breakout Game?
Certainly that is a little too early to say, but their performance Saturday night was refreshing. The Cubs since 2003 have largely been built around their pitching and the performance of Aramis Ramirez, so lets hope this guy gets in a groove and stays there as he did tonight. Lets also hope Piniella starts, minimally, to rotate Colvin into the lineup two-thirds of the time, as I have recommended in an earlier post.
With respect to the lineup, the Cubs were successful largely because of the performance of their hitters two through five, something they have lacked on a consistent basis up until now. A note to Piniella though: achieving balance doesn't mean just playing two left-handed hitters and continuing to bat Theriot leadoff when Fukudome doesn't play. If Theriot plays, he should bat eighth. Balancing a lineup, ideally, means setting up righty, lefty, righty sequences as well as playing contrasting hitters back to back rather than similar hitters. So tonight I would have to say they won despite the lineup. Until his walk, Theriot saw maybe five pitches and it was his first walk since early May! Fontenot needs to play half the time as well.
I did not comment last night, but I thought Zambrano's performance was encouraging. He started badly, but once he settled down he got guys out until his exit in the fifth after exceeding some sort of pitch count. I should also have noted that Soriano, even when he produces hits and runs, generally gives away nearly as many in the field, as he did Friday night by misplaying Berkman's double in the fifth inning. I'm convinced that no team can be a serious contender with this mope in the lineup. If there is any way to trade this guy, the Cubs should jump at it now as there are people who think he is having a comeback year. How wrong they are.
With respect to the lineup, the Cubs were successful largely because of the performance of their hitters two through five, something they have lacked on a consistent basis up until now. A note to Piniella though: achieving balance doesn't mean just playing two left-handed hitters and continuing to bat Theriot leadoff when Fukudome doesn't play. If Theriot plays, he should bat eighth. Balancing a lineup, ideally, means setting up righty, lefty, righty sequences as well as playing contrasting hitters back to back rather than similar hitters. So tonight I would have to say they won despite the lineup. Until his walk, Theriot saw maybe five pitches and it was his first walk since early May! Fontenot needs to play half the time as well.
I did not comment last night, but I thought Zambrano's performance was encouraging. He started badly, but once he settled down he got guys out until his exit in the fifth after exceeding some sort of pitch count. I should also have noted that Soriano, even when he produces hits and runs, generally gives away nearly as many in the field, as he did Friday night by misplaying Berkman's double in the fifth inning. I'm convinced that no team can be a serious contender with this mope in the lineup. If there is any way to trade this guy, the Cubs should jump at it now as there are people who think he is having a comeback year. How wrong they are.
Friday, June 4, 2010
Disgusting
I'm really not going to even try to summarize these games any more. What is the point? It is essentially the same scenario. The pitchers pitch reasonably well, sometimes really well, sometimes they make a mistake or two, but it doesn't really matter because you know that this team will never score any runs, so the whole exercise is pointless.
The Cubs are finished with a third of their season and they are on a pace to lose 90 games with the third highest payroll in baseball. Changes are clearly in order, starting at the top. There are rumors floating around that people are interested in Lee and Nady and maybe Lilly and Gorzelanny. That's mostly good news except that the guy who will be evaluating the players the Cubs will get in return is Jim Hendry who is responsible for, among other things, the Soriano and Bradley signings, and also letting Casey McGehee (who leads the NL in RBI) go for absolutely nothing and for a whole series of idiotic misjudgments and trades since the few decent moves he made in 2003. So the odds of doing anything but dumping salary that is likely to be dumped in any case in the off-season seem pretty slim.
The Angels are interested in Lee or Nady, but I don't see them as a likely trading partner just because looking over their roster and their prospects, they don't seem to have much to give. The Giants and Red Sox may be more likely buyers for the washed up or marginal hitters we have to market. I agree with the guys at MLB Trade Rumors that Gorzelanny is potentially a bigger chip to deal, especially if the Cubs think they have pitching prospects coming along to replace him, which I think they do. Lilly is also a chip to spend, but maybe a less valuable one. I've also come to think of Theriot, who I formally thought was a smart and over-achieving gamer, as a guy who has become pretty much useless, but who retains some value to dump. The real question is whether the Cubs can figure out what they need, which, in my opinion is a switch-hitting or left-handed first baseman, third basemen, or catcher who produces runs, preferably two of those three.
The Cubs are finished with a third of their season and they are on a pace to lose 90 games with the third highest payroll in baseball. Changes are clearly in order, starting at the top. There are rumors floating around that people are interested in Lee and Nady and maybe Lilly and Gorzelanny. That's mostly good news except that the guy who will be evaluating the players the Cubs will get in return is Jim Hendry who is responsible for, among other things, the Soriano and Bradley signings, and also letting Casey McGehee (who leads the NL in RBI) go for absolutely nothing and for a whole series of idiotic misjudgments and trades since the few decent moves he made in 2003. So the odds of doing anything but dumping salary that is likely to be dumped in any case in the off-season seem pretty slim.
The Angels are interested in Lee or Nady, but I don't see them as a likely trading partner just because looking over their roster and their prospects, they don't seem to have much to give. The Giants and Red Sox may be more likely buyers for the washed up or marginal hitters we have to market. I agree with the guys at MLB Trade Rumors that Gorzelanny is potentially a bigger chip to deal, especially if the Cubs think they have pitching prospects coming along to replace him, which I think they do. Lilly is also a chip to spend, but maybe a less valuable one. I've also come to think of Theriot, who I formally thought was a smart and over-achieving gamer, as a guy who has become pretty much useless, but who retains some value to dump. The real question is whether the Cubs can figure out what they need, which, in my opinion is a switch-hitting or left-handed first baseman, third basemen, or catcher who produces runs, preferably two of those three.
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
Lineup Different, Same Result
Well, umm, uh, what can you say? I guess this is a perfect illustration of the thesis I proposed after yesterday's game: that there comes a time when anything a manager does is wrong. The Cubs had one good inning when Fukudome tripled and scored on Nady's home run. The following inning Castro made a great throw to cut down a Pirate runner at third before the lead runner had scored and rob them of a run. After that they relaxed and wound up losing 3-2.
I will say this, Lou Piniella manages as if he had no bullpen at all. He always leaves a struggling starter around one batter too long and this is not the first game he has lost in this way. It is, I think, the third or fourth. In this case, there was no excuse for not removing Lilly after he walked a man in the bottom of the eighth inning. There was one out and Marmol, only the most difficult pitcher to hit in the league, was ready. Instead, Walker hit a two run homer to win the game.
I really don't care what the reasons may be or who is hurt or sulking or unhappy, this kind of effort is just impossible to tolerate. 1-7 against the Pirates. Give me a break. It looks like they will never score a run and they will always find a way to lose. Maybe Zambrano needs to lean on someone after each inning tomorrow night to shake things up. Lou certainly won't.
I will say this, Lou Piniella manages as if he had no bullpen at all. He always leaves a struggling starter around one batter too long and this is not the first game he has lost in this way. It is, I think, the third or fourth. In this case, there was no excuse for not removing Lilly after he walked a man in the bottom of the eighth inning. There was one out and Marmol, only the most difficult pitcher to hit in the league, was ready. Instead, Walker hit a two run homer to win the game.
I really don't care what the reasons may be or who is hurt or sulking or unhappy, this kind of effort is just impossible to tolerate. 1-7 against the Pirates. Give me a break. It looks like they will never score a run and they will always find a way to lose. Maybe Zambrano needs to lean on someone after each inning tomorrow night to shake things up. Lou certainly won't.
Another Disappointment
The Cubs wasted a decent start by Randy Wells and lost their sixth game in seven tries to the miserable Pirates, who had previously dropped five in a row and who are 15-30 (.333) against everyone else. It is hard to quarrel with most of Lou's pitching moves on paper, but it is a fair question to ask whether you need five pitchers to lose a 2-1 game and whether you really need to reevaluate the notion that Garrett Jones, the left-handed hitting Pirates' right-fielder, is at any sort of disadvantage facing the Cubs' left-handers. He has so far hit more than half-a-dozen homers, triples, and doubles against them after all.
The Cubs continue to struggle offensively and the performance of Lee and Ramirez and Theriot are the principal causes. Piniella rested Theriot on Sunday, but did manage to get him a key AB to end the game. I'm not sure what they can actually do here. Clearly they need to break up that succession of right-handed hitters, but unless Piniella commits to playing Fontenot and Colvin pretty regularly and they bring up Tracy, that is not a likely event.
I think sometimes you reach a point with a team where everything you do is wrong and that that point has been reached with Piniella so whether it is just or unjust something has to give and really he needs to go to shake things up. I also think, though there is no objective evidence for this, that it is probably the case that the core of a team has one shot for the brass ring and when they fail, as the Cubs did in 2008 (and earlier in 2003 with a different set of chips) they just lose confidence or karma or whatever and they are never going to get it back without the addition or subtraction of significant players.
The Cubs continue to struggle offensively and the performance of Lee and Ramirez and Theriot are the principal causes. Piniella rested Theriot on Sunday, but did manage to get him a key AB to end the game. I'm not sure what they can actually do here. Clearly they need to break up that succession of right-handed hitters, but unless Piniella commits to playing Fontenot and Colvin pretty regularly and they bring up Tracy, that is not a likely event.
I think sometimes you reach a point with a team where everything you do is wrong and that that point has been reached with Piniella so whether it is just or unjust something has to give and really he needs to go to shake things up. I also think, though there is no objective evidence for this, that it is probably the case that the core of a team has one shot for the brass ring and when they fail, as the Cubs did in 2008 (and earlier in 2003 with a different set of chips) they just lose confidence or karma or whatever and they are never going to get it back without the addition or subtraction of significant players.
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