How about those Cubbies?!?

Another "fabulous" outing by Neal Cotts tonight. Lefties are now hitting .333 with 3 HRs after this knucklehead gave up a 2-run bomb to Nate McLouth which gave the lead back to the Pirates. So three runs given up in the inning on 4 hits although 3 went for extra bases.

So I'm listening to the game on the radio and I just heard Ronny talking about the Pirates having 2 lefties in their rotation and three more in their pen. Could Hendry not get his "friends" the Bucs to trade one of them? Remember the Bucs "gave" Hendry and the Cubs Aramis Ramirez and Randall Simon in 2003.

So the Cubs FINALLY score some runs tonight, but get ZERO pitching! How about getting on the same page guys?!?

What was up with Reed Johnson batting 4th tonight? The guy has single syllable RBIs (8) for the season. Was he really the best option? It certainly wouldn't have been better with Micah batting 4th tonight. I guess I was WAY wrong on this guy as he didn't take as much advantage of his opportunity as he could/should have - left 6 on base by himself today.

Did anyone else feel better having Aaron Miles up there with 2 on, down by 2 in the bottom of the 9th than Mark DeRosa? BRUTAL trade which will only get worse if he ends up in Milwaukee. His 30 RBIs for a last place Indians team would lead the Cubs by 5 over our lead-off hitter, Soriano.

Well, the skid has now reached 8 and the Cubs are now below .500 for the first time since the end of April. They are 5 games out in 4th place behind Dusty's Reds. That says it all as far as I'm concerned.

May 19th Update

I wanted to do an update on the most recent happenings associated with the posts on my blog. I'll go through each of the most recent posts one at a time here so read the ones that interest you and feel free to respond/comment as you see fit.

Well, I simply must start with the Blackhawks. Does anyone else feel like the Hawks have the Red Wings right where they want them? Even though the Hawks are down 2-0, I feel like they are really "right there" and could easily take the next 4 games to win the series in 6. After being a non-factor in Game 1, Towes obviously came to play tonight scoring both of the Hawks goals. Khabibulin stepped up pretty well tonight saving 35 shots. Unfortunately, he was only 1-for-2 in OT and the Hawks fell 3-2. My daughter was hoping the Hawks would duplicate her soccer team's performance over the weekend. They were down 2-1 late in the game but were able to tie it in regulation and were able to pull it out in OT. The Hawks got it half right. Now they come home to a rockin' UC and will take back the momentum from the Wings. This whole thing kind of reminds me of the 1980 Olympics with the Wings playing the role of the "unbeatable" Russians while the upstart Hawks are the USA.

Now on to the Cubs...what the heck was THAT tonight against a reeling Cardinals team? Weren't the Cards coming off a home sweep at the hands of the 1st place Brewers while the Cubs were coming off a 4-1 homestand? That's not what it looked like to me. Did they really get completely dominated by Joel Pineiro? 3 hits? Really? 3 lousy hits! Where was the patience at the plate this team has exhibited most of the year? Pineiro pitched his first complete game of the season while throwing only 92 pitches. He came in with an unremarkable 4.17 ERA but after 9 innings of shutout ball, dropped it to 3.48. On a good note, they only left 1 guy on base. Of course, it is easier to let only 1 guy on base when 3 guys reach base with no walks to go with their 3 measley hits. Bradley hit into a DP to eliminate one of the runners and then Soriano was picked off to eliminate another; hence "only" one runner LOB. Wow!

How can you explain such a lousy effort against your #1 division rival? I just don't get it. You can't blame Lou for the lineup this time either. Other than Aramis being out with his injury, the rest of the lineup would have to be considered their best lineup. You really need to take advantage of those rare days when Phat Albert doesn't do anything too. Pujols was 1-4 and left 3 runners on base tonight. Too bad.

Cubs fans vs. Sox fans update. CSN is advertising this week as rivalry week with the Cubs in St. Louis and the Sox home facing the Twins. Cubs vs. Cards drew 41,374 while the Sox vs. Twins drew all of 26,696 on a GORGEOUS Tuesday evening. Where's all the Sox fans? Too busy watching the Cubs lose on WGN tonight? Hey Sox fans, double-bonus as I'm sure you didn't even notice - the Sox won tonight! By the way, just to put that pretty pathetic attendance figure at The Cell last night in perspective...the Cubs drew 23,441 to Miller Park with 24-hour notice on a rescheduled game that was supposed to be played in Houston but was moved to Milwaukee due to the hurricane in Houston. The game date was September 14th so don't tell me how last night was a school night because the game at Miller Park was a school night too.

Lee vs. Hoffpauir update. Maybe watching Hoffpauir play well in his absence clicked something in D-Lee's head. Lee has gone 6-11 in his last 3 games since coming back to the starting line-up and has even drove in 3 runs in those 3 games. Of course, the Cubs are 1-2 in those games. Hmmm. I was hoping Hoffpauir would take a little more advantage of his opportunity than he actually did, but he still did pretty well while being thrown into the starting line-up like he was. I'd still like to see him play more consistently but if just the threat of his being there and ably fill in is enough to help D-Lee produce, that works too.

I hope you are all enjoying my posts. Please be sure to comment as much as you can so I know you're "listening". Thanks!

Lee vs. Hoffpauir

So does D-Lee have compromising pictures of Lou or what? Why did the Cubs rush D-Lee back into the lineup even following the negative MRI? Hoffpauir was doing a FINE job filling in for D-Lee while he was out. In less than 2/3 of Lee's ABs, Hoffpauir has the same amount of hits, doubles and HRs and is only 4 behind in RBIs. Hoffpauir has struck out half as many times, has a BA over 100 points higher, and an OBA 83 points higher than Lee. Hoffpauir is nearly 200 points higher than Lee in SLG and considering Lee has hit 3rd or 4th all year, his pathetic .337 SLG is KILLING the team chances to score runs and/or have the big innings they are capable of having.

I just don't know what else Lou has to see from Hoffpauir to get him in there more and rest Lee more. Check out the comparison for yourself at this link.

I have to give it up for Milton Bradley. He is really starting to hit the baseball. After that mammoth HR he hit on Tue night, he motioned to his ear to try and hear some cheers for a change. It was a bit of a hot dog move, but I had no problem with it as he has been hearing a lot of BOOS thus far and should have heard some cheers after that bomb gave the Cubs the lead for good on Tue against the formidable Jake Peavy. He increased his modest hitting streak to 7 games last night with a bunt single although he did break his RBI streak at 5. You have to give D-Lee some "credit" there as he went 0-for-4 batting ahead of MB limiting his RBI chances as he left no runners on base last night.

Is Geo Soto coming out of his season long slump? Soto was 2-3 with 3 2-out RBIs last night to be the latest Cub to steal the show. Last night's 3 RBIs gave Soto 7 for the season after he had 86 last season. Again, the Cubs are now 5 games over .500 and they have done it with smoke and mirrors thus far. Lee, Bradley, and Soto have all sucked thus far with each hitting below .200 and Aramis has missed 15 games so how are they scoring ANY runs? Theriot and Fukudome have been amazing so far and Soriano is, well, Soriano - a lead-off hitter that's tied for 2nd in the NL for HRs. Even the bullpen has started throwing strikes and getting people out. Maybe this team can be as good as everyone thought if the other guys pick it up too.

GO CUBS!

I was going to say...

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?!?