What are these guys doing???

Not a great day for Chicago baseball! What in the world went on today? The Sox set the tone early with a 20-1 shellacking at the hands of their rival Twins AT HOME! Not to be "outdone" the Cubs put together another absolutely pathetic offensive effort losing 3-1. The Cubs have now lost 4 in a row after winning 5 in a row. Ah...consistency...gotta love it.

That has been the trick for the Cubs...consistency. I heard a startling stat today. The Cubs are hitting .294 in their wins while hitting .193 in their losses. Well, the 3 game sweep at the hands of their rival Cardinals didn't go against these stats. Tue night's game was a JOKE offensively. Joel Pineiro threw an MLB season low 92 pitches in his CG 3-hit shutout. Last night, at least they scored...although it was just once and lost again 2-1. Much the same tonight going down 3-1 so overall they completed their 3-game anti-sweep losing 8-2. YEP two whole runs in 3 games combined. Who were they facing? The 1965 Dodgers with Drysdale, Koufax, and Claude Osteen (all three had less than 2.80 ERA)? Nope...the 2009 Cardinals who do have Chris Carpenter although he was making his first start in a month, but Joel Pineiro and Adam Wainright? Unless you're a serious baseball fan, you probably never even heard of these guys and yet they were able to TOTALLY dominate our Cubbies. Wainright came within 2 pitches of pitching the second CG of the series, but D-Lee muscled a jam shot into short right to bring the tying run to the plate. Fortunately for the Cards, Milton Bradley was the supposed potential tying run. LaRussa brought in Franklin to throw those two pitches, Bradley who is on pace to drive in 38 runs this year in total (Pujols drove in his 38th today!) did hit the ball hard, but right at Schumaker in RF to end the "threat".

But which team had the worse day? That has to go to the White Sox. It started all well and good as Kenny Williams finally came off his LONG vacation (where was he all off-season?) to work a deal with the Padres for Jake Peavy. With Contreras struggling and Colon still kind of iffy plus Floyd and Danks struggling, adding Peavy would have been a HUGE lift for the pitching staff. Don Cooper seemed REALLY excited in an interview I heard this morning. After taking the first two games from the Twins in their 3-game series with their rival, the Peavy news just seemed to be the cherry on the top of a great week. So what happened after that? Well, they went out and got DESTROYED 20-1 in front of the home folks. Yikes! That's the worst home loss in a baseball game in my recollection and tied the worst in Sox history.

My daughter's baseball coach is a Sox fan. I asked him tonight if he had seen the Sox game or heard the result. In typical Sox "fan" fashion, he had no idea. When I told him they lost 20-1 to the Twins today, his next question was curious. "Who pitched?" he asked. I said "lots of guys!" Colon started and left after 2 innings and 8 runs although only 1 run was earned after a Betemit error on a sac bunt helped the Twins push 7 across in the 2nd inning including a bomb from former Sox Joe Crede.

But as bad as that was, it wasn't the worst thing to happen to the Sox on this day. Shortly after the game was over, the Sox learned that Jake Peavy had rejected the trade to the Sox (maybe he was watching the game). Peavy has a no-trade clause so he can choose his next team. In his statement he said "Right now, this [San Diego] is the best place for me and my family." Tough day Sox fans.