Just in case you had visions of this team battling back in the standings, today's brutal, horrifying, stupefying loss to the lowly Astros at home should have put an end to all of that. After a tremendous come-from-behind win last night (down 7-1 early only to come back with 13 unanswered runs to win by a touchdown 14-7) and taking 3-of-4 from the NL defending champs even I had started thinking...well, maybe if Aramis and if D-Lee and in a mediocre division and with possibly a new and improved Zambrano coming back; well, just maybe they could do this.
Well, this afternoon's game was a microcosm of the entire season. It started with good starting pitching (great actually) by Ted Lilly in possibly his final Wrigley Field start as a Cub, continued with non-existent offense (1 run through 11 innings), mismanaged bullpen and bench, and finished with 2-for-14 with runners in scoring position (only one of those hits resulted in a run) stranding 16 runners on base including 9 in the 9th-12th innings (that's 2 each in the 9th, 11th, and 12th along with 3 in the 10th!).
Lilly took full advantage of the win blowing with 11 fly outs on the day; many hit pretty hard. But Lou left him in just a little too long allowing him to bat in the bottom of the 7th in a 1-0 game and start the 8th with the same score. On the second pitch of the 8th, pinch hitter Pedro Feliz launched a game tying HR to LF. After a pop-out, Angel Sanchez wripped a line-drive single to LF and that ended Lilly's day. You have a plan going in...try to get your starter through 7, bring in Marshall for the 8th and Marmol for the 9th. Lilly had thrown 102 pitches through 7 and it seemed to be perfect, but Lou altered the plan and it likely cost his club the game...I know it cost my family and I an extra 1 1/2 hours of watching a painful display of ineptness by the home team. After that and with a day off tomorrow, Lou just went through his bullpen like he had a real MLB pen changing pitchers every single inning using 3 guys for the fateful 12th. He does know you can double-switch and have these guys throw more than a single inning, right? Marshall, Marmol, Cashner, and Berg combined to pitch 3 2/3 innings allowing only a walk while striking out 4...none pitched more than one inning. Then he used 3 guys for the 12th with each only recording a single out. Howry started the 12th throwing something like 10 straight 89 mph "fastballs" allowing 2 hits and ended up as the eventual loser as both guys scored raising his ERA to 7.29. Russell came in to get the only batter he faced before yet another pitching change. Lou brought in the righty to face the right-handed Jason Michaels for some reason (over-managing I guess after under-managing in the 7th/8th) as Michaels actually hits a few points LOWER against lefties. Michaels ripped a double to left-center off Justin Berg scoring both of Howry's runners. For good measure, Berg gave up another 2-out RBI to allow the Astros to score more runs in the 12th than both teams combined to score through the first 11 innings.
As far as mismanaging the bench, I'll start with WHY have Koyie Hill up there to lay down a bunt? He was 0-for-3 with 3 Ks and hadn't actually touched the baseball with his bat the entire game. After a lead-off single by rookie Starlin Castro and a wild pitch advanced him to 2nd, Koyie failed in both attempts to lay down the sac bunt. The next question is WHY didn't you have him try again even with 2 strikes? He was going to strike out anyway which he promptly did. Hey, at least he showed a little emotion in breaking his bat over his knee as if the bat was the problem. Lou brought in Fontenot later in the game to lay down a sac bunt and pinch-hit for Koyie later too so why not do it in the 8th and WIN the darn game right there?
I hope none of these guys drives a manual transmission car, because they wouldn't know clutch if it hit them in the face. I'd love to just say they kept getting unlucky and had the wrong guys up at the plate every time they needed a clutch hit, but pretty much everyone had the chance to be a hero and NONE of them came through when it mattered most. After a big day yesterday, Ramirez 1-for-5 with a bloop hit and 4 pop-ups and left 4 guys on base. Fukudome whiffed with the infield in and the bases loaded in the 10th when all he really had to do was put the ball in play to win the game. Bird, Soriano, Lee, Soto (although he came through later with a 2-run HR to make it interesting in the 12th), and Colvin (the kid is a rookie and shouldn't need to be the man at this point) all blew chances as well. If nothing else, it was a total team effort or lack of effort.
Anyway, now I'm completely sold on the fact that the Cubs are officially "sellers" at this point. As much as I hate the fact that they need to pull out the white flag and dump payroll when they have the highest ticket prices in all of MLB (can you believe that??? even higher than the Yankees!), they need to dump any of the following guys to try and get some decent, young talent for the future: Lilly (finally got his first hit of the season and pitched great!), Ramirez (has he done enough lately to make another team think he may have turned the corner?), Lee (the most aggravating player on this team to me - most talent, doing the least with it while remaining in the heart of the lineup all season long), Fukudome, Nady, and Theriot. Really anyone on the current MLB roster is free game in my mind except Colvin, Castro, Cashner, Marmol and Marshall.
Of course, the problem is we're relying on our current GM to make these moves and he brought nearly all of these guys here in one shape or another. More on him later this week though...start selling Jim!
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