Well, after watching Lou leave Dempster in too long again I was planning to complain about it again, but now you see Lou's dilemma - the bullpen SUCKS! After playing a great game with a score of 3-2 going into the bottom of the 7th with Micah going deep with a 2-run, 2-out HR (did you see that D-Lee?) to bring the Cubs within a single run, Lou decided to leave Dempster in there even though he was over 110 pitches before the inning started. After getting the lead-off hitter in the 7th, Dempster gave up a bomb to Craig Counsell (ya, that's what I said!) on the first pitch followed by an even bigger bomb by Ryan Braun which went from chasing one run to chasing 3. Then it got REALLY bad as the bullpen was called upon to put out the fire, but all they did was pour gasoline on it instead. Neal Cotts is THE WORST left-handed reliever in the history of the game (well, maybe Jeff Fasero would have something to say about that) as he continues to SUCK against lefties - .308 BA with 6 walks including another one today. Did Lou bring him in to walk the left-handed Prince Fielder to then face the right-handed JJ Hardy? Don't think so, but that's just what he did. That's OK, he's an equal opportunity bad reliever - JJ Hardy stroked a single following the walk to Prince Fielder.
Today's relievers combined for 1 2/3 innings, 7 ERs, including 6 walks. Newly recalled (and hopefully even more newly demoted) Chad Fox (he now has a 135.00 ERA!) joined Cotts with 2 ERs and ZERO innings pitched. Maybe these guys just don't know what the root word "relief" means in reliever because they aren't really relieving anything other than the Cubs' chances of winning the game.
So let's see...today's game combined three of the posts I have done this week. Micah Hoffpauir IS seemingly taking advantage of his opportunity to play in place of the injured D-Lee going 2-5 today with a 2-run HR to move his BA up to .298 and more importantly, bring up his RBIs to 11 (just 4 behind Lee's 15 in just over half the ABs).
Second, was Lou's poor handling of the pitching staff. This one kind of cancelled itself out with the ultra-poor effort by a horrific bullpen, but it was clear to me that Dempster was done after 110 pitches through 6 innings. Lou left him in there as he doesn't trust his pen but after back-to-back jacks, he still had to go to the pen.
Third is Hendry's terrible off-season. Jim, WHERE'S the bullpen? There's one lefty in there which is OK, but not when the lefty we have cannot get lefty's out! Let's hope Freel is going to help even out the bench as DeRosa certainly could have done although he was a late scratch before the game today with a hammy.
The good news is that they are still 3 games over .500 and just 2.5 games behind the Cards as they lost again tonight too. I think the Cubs are finding that the rest of the division isn't just going to bow down and let the Cubs walk away with the division as yes, they're only 2.5 out, but they're in 4th place behind the Cards, Reds, and Brewers. It's too early to panic other than about that bullpen. What are you going to do about it Hendry?
HOW ABOUT THOSE HAWKS?!?
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