Brew Ha Ha

Hey, remember how confident the Brewers were a week ago?

The Brewers have downplayed the much-hyped July series after initially calling it a dress rehearsal and a test for September and the playoffs.

"This is not a death sentence by any means," Yost said. "If this was September, it would be different. We have plenty of time to recover from this and get back on track."

I mean, obviously he's not wrong. It's not even August yet; at this time last year the Cubs still trailed by a game (tying for first for the first time all season on August 1). But given how people were starting to talk about the Brewers being the hottest team in the NL (which I guess they technically have been, record-wise) and how the Cubs were so bad on the road and were in real danger of losing the division lead...

Well, who's laughing now??? Not only did the Cubs win four straight on the road, they dropped the Brewers from one back to five back at a stroke, returning to a position the Cubs hadn't occupied since July 12. The starting pitching continued to be awesome and the hitting finally came around, with the Cubs scoring 31 runs in the four games - nearly 8 per - and allowing just 11. The Cubs now have a +130 run differential, and the Brewers' is down to just +10.

It may not make or break the season, but it certainly was a statement series. First of all, it proved the Cubs can win on the road (although of course the Cubs do have a lot of historical success at Miller Park), it proved they can score runs again, it more or less proved their starting pitching is better than the Brewers' top to bottom, and more importantly it didn't just keep the Cubs in first, but it pushed their advantage well out. It's certainly a lot better than splitting the series and still being up just a game, or losing three of four and leaving Milwaukee in second place.

More importantly, this should shut up Brewers fans for a while. And more importantly, this is hopefully the start of a new trend towards more offense again. As long as the starting pitching keeps up, 5-6 runs a game should be more than enough in most games. And coming up, it's nine games at home, with the first six against cellar dwellers Pittsburgh and Houston. (Of course, watch them somehow lose one of those series now that I'm getting all excited again.)

August is really the time to extend the lead in the division. Here are the August series:

August 1-3: vs. Pirates
August 4-6: vs. Astros
August 8-10: vs. Cardinals
August 12-14: at Braves
August 15-17: at Marlins
August 19-21: vs. Reds
August 22-24: vs. Nationals
August 25-27: at Pirates
August 28-31: vs. Phillies

There's really no excuse for losing any of those series, is there? The divisional series should all be wins, there's no excuse for the Nationals series not to be a sweep, the Braves have given up and are banged up, the Marlins still aren't that good and if we had had any offense last week we'd have swept them, and while the Phillies worry me a little, in a home series we ought to at least be able to split. So that's 28 games in August. I say nothing less than 18-10 is acceptable, and ideally even better. This is the month to push that lead in the division out closer to double digits. Let's see them do it.

Fire Bob Howry

Remember how, in 2007, Scott Eyre was struggling like crazy early in the year, and Piniella's response was to stop using him except in absolute mop-up situations? Well, what's his excuse for continuing to run Bob Howry out there in key game situations? He's got a 5.22 ERA for the year, and here's what his last eight appearances look like:

July 8 vs. Reds: Howry enters with a 7-1 lead in the ninth. He gives up a single, a deep out to left, another single, an RBI double and an RBI groundout before striking out Jay Bruce to end the game.
July 11 vs. Giants: Howry enters a scoreless tie in the eighth. He retires the 8-9-1 hitters in order and ends up getting the win when Aramis Ramirez hits a homer in the bottom of the inning.
July 12 vs. Giants: After Kevin Hart struggles to start the eighth, giving up two runs, Neal Cotts gets one out. Howry then enters the 7-2 game with a man on first. He retires Rich Aurilia on a sac bunt, then gets Randy Winn to fly out to end the inning. (Carlos Marmol subsequently pours gasoline on himself in the ninth.)
July 18 at Astros: Howry comes into the game with the score tied 1-1 and two outs in the bottom of the eighth. He retires Carlos Lee on a groundout. After the Cubs fail to score, Howry is brought back out for the ninth. He gives up a ground-rule double to Miguel Tejada, then allows another double to Hunter Pence on the very first pitch. Tejada scores and the Cubs lose 2-1.
July 21 at Diamondbacks: Howry enters in the 8th with the Cubs down 1-0. He walks light-hitting catcher Chris Snyder to start the inning, then gives up two deep fly balls to center which fortunately both go for outs. Then Stephen Drew hits a 1-1 pitch for a triple to put Arizona up 2-0, which is how it finished.
July 23 at Diamondbacks: Howry enters in the 8th with a cushy 10-3 lead. He gives up a single to Conor Jackson, then strikes out Mark Reynolds (who hasn't). Chris Young doubles. Tony Clark lines out. Howry then gives up a home run to Snyder on a 3-2 pitch to cut the lead to 10-6. Alex Romero strikes out to end the threat.
July 24 vs. Marlins: Despite throwing 33 pitches the previous night in Arizona, Howry enters in the 8th with the bases loaded, no one out, and the Cubs clinging to a 6-2 lead. He gets Cody Ross to fly out on the first pitch, then throws eight pitches to Luis Gonzalez before Gonzo hits the last one like a rocket to right center. Mark DeRosa bails Howry out with a diving catch, although the runner at third tags and scores. Howry is pulled for Carlos Marmol, who ends the inning with a strikeout of Josh Willingham.
July 25 vs. Marlins: Howry pitches for the third day in a row, entering in the top of the ninth with the game tied at 2. He immediately allows what turns out to be the game-losing solo home run to pinch-hitter Jeremy Hermida. The next four guys all hit the ball fairly hard off of him, but only Hanley Ramirez's double doesn't find a glove, so he escapes allowing just one run.

Basically, he's been awful recently. Not a single one of those outings is impressive. Either he's giving up runs, or allowing bullets that are fortunately caught. In the rare cases where he's cruised, it's only because he faced the bottom of the order or was gifted an out via the sac bunt.

But here's what kills me. Lou brought him into the game on Wednesday when the Cubs had a 10-3 lead. Seven runs! When a guy comes into a game with that kind of cushion, that makes me think that he isn't exactly trusted by the manager. Why use your top-level guys in blowout situations? It's not like Howry desperately needed to get some work in - he'd pitched two days earlier. The fact that he was being brought into the game in that spot suggests that Lou considered Howry's results in his last two outings - both of which saw him give up a run, once losing the game - and thought he should get some mop-up work just to see what was going on.

With that in mind, did the three-run homer he gave up to Snyder not make it clear that he's not cut out for high-leverage situations right now? Why was he right back out there with the bases loaded and nobody out the next night? (I know the answer here is: probably not a better option available. But that's pretty sad, isn't it?) More importantly, why was he out there today in a 2-2 game with everyone else in the bullpen available? The only possible answer is that Piniella still trusts Howry more than he trusts Cotts or Eyre or Gaudin or Marshall. And if that's the case, that's a really big problem.

The Cubs' starting pitching has probably been the best in baseball over the last 2-3 weeks. Since July 1, only three times in 20 games has the Cubs' starter gone fewer than six innings, and in no game has the starter allowed more than four runs; of the 20 games, the Cubs' starters have delivered fifteen quality starts (6 innings or more, three runs or less), and while that's kind of a bullshit stat, it at least gives you some idea of the kind of starting pitching that's been delivered. But the bullpen has been appalling. In the same 20 games, the bullpen has given up at least two runs eight times. They blew the win for the starter three times in that span (although only one of those turned into a loss for the Cubs, mercifully). Offense has probably been a bigger problem - the Cubs are averaging 4.3 runs a game in that span, with a 2-8 record in the games where they've scored three runs or fewer and an 8-2 record in the games where they've scored four or more. In other words, if they could score 4+ runs a little more consistently, the whole issue might evaporate. But while the team is going through a little bit of an offensive drag, it can't afford to have one entire sector of its pitching staff crushing the team the way it's doing right now.

But how do you fix this? Jeff Samardzija, who pitched two innings today, is one possible answer, although it's hard to believe he won't go right back to Iowa when Wood comes off the DL, if only because there's no other obvious candidate for demotion since Howry is too old for that. (Cotts, I guess maybe, but that leaves the Cubs with only one lefty out of the pen.) The trade deadline is still six days away, but reliable bullpen pitching is such a rare commodity that the guys out there for trade are either much more expensive than they should be or just not that good in the first place. (Remember, most guys are in the bullpen because they're not good enough to be starters. Sometimes that works out - Marmol - but a lot of times you're just left with a guy who's only good enough to get three outs one out of every three appearances. Right now Howry is that guy.)

Now, no one really has great bullpen pitching, it seems. Milwaukee's has been notoriously lousy for most of this year and St. Louis's hasn't been any good recently either. So it's not like that's going to make the difference, so long as the offense comes back around a bit. But until that happens consistently, having a bullpen that can't hold a one-run lead 40% of the time it's called upon risks being really devastating to this team, especially with the Brewers now just a half-game back (and potentially tying for the division lead by the end of the night). My dad's been freaking out about the offense the last ten days or so, but I think this team has too much talent there not to return to form pretty soon; it's the bullpen, which has been somewhat shaky all year and even worse than that lately, where I'm directing a nervous look.

The kind of game that will drive you crazy

There's nothing worse than losing a game you clearly should have won out of nothing other than sheer bad luck. The Cubs started their series at Arizona with one such. Randy Johnson, 12-0 with a sub-2.00 career ERA against the Cubs entering the game, was hardly the Randy Johnson of old. He was hit hard and often, facing 24 batters and striking out just four - he allowed fifteen fly balls, tied for a career high he had only given up twice before in his career (once earlier this year against the Twins, and once in 1992 against the Yankees). But all fifteen found gloves, with at least half of them doing so within ten feet or so of the fence.

Truly it was a night for horrible luck. The Cubs' two hits were both singles - a Jim Edmonds shot up the middle, and a Reed Johnson swinging bunt to third base. The Diamondbacks also only managed two hits - and Harden struck out ten Diamondbacks, giving them fewer chances to even put the ball in play. But their two hits were a solo home run (of course by the #8 hitter, who had zero previous major league homers) and a triple in the eighth (which of course followed a walk and so allowed Arizona to tack on an insurance run, not that they needed it).

Harden is now 0-1 as a Cub when he should be 2-0. He's the first Cub ever, or at least since 1900, to strike out ten men in each of his first two games as a Cub. He's pitched great. And he's 0-1.

If there's anything that will convince you that the universe doesn't really want the Cubs to win this year, it's games like this one. Absolutely unreal. Of course, maybe you could argue that it's one last test, but honestly, haven't we suffered enough?

Achilles tendency

By this point, everyone knows about the Cubs' road issues. And while they obviously could hit better in road games, to some degree they've just been really, really unlucky.

Consider the following. The Cubs have now played 16 series each at home and on the road. In the 16 home series, they're 13-3. In the 16 road series, they're 4-9-3. All is not totally lost, however; the Cubs started by going 1-6-1 in road series; they're 3-3-2 since, even after the series loss to Houston. What's more, the Cubs have still outscored their opponents on the road, 210 runs to 206.

The Cubs are 15-15 in one-run games this year. 16 of those games were on the road; the Cubs are 6-10 in those games, while going 9-5 in one-run home games. Some of that is just bad luck and minor park advantage when the Cubs are on the road. More importantly, that's fully a third of the Cubs' 49 road games that were decided by a single run. That 6-10 record could even out in the second half - if the Cubs are playing a lot of close ones on the road, it's likely that they'll win some of them at some point. (What's more, in 12 more road games, the game was decided by just two runs - the Cubs are 3-9 in those games. This, too, is likely to move closer to even as long as the Cubs are really a good team.)

The Cubs also have a nasty tendency for outscoring a team yet losing the series. This has happened at home and on the road, but of course it's happened much more on the road, since the Cubs only have three home series losses. At Washington from April 25-27, the Cubs outscored the Nationals 10-7 but lost two of three. In their very next series, at home against Milwaukee, the Cubs outscored the Brewers 29-19 - thanks to a 19-5 thumping in the middle game - but lost two of three. In their next series after that, they outscored the Cardinals 15-13 in St. Louis, but lost two of three. For the season, the Cubs have six series in which they outscored the opposition but still lost two of the three games, including this past series at Houston; five of those series have come on the road. This is the sort of thing that probably can't hold up over a full season, although you never know.

So what's the problem? The obvious answer is consistency. It's not that the Cubs can't score runs on the road or that their pitchers are suddenly much worse, since the Cubs have outscored the opposition for the year - by a slim margin, to be sure, but it's a positive margin and thus not indicative of a road record that's seven games under .500. Saying that the Cubs need to be more consistent on the road is more than a bit trite, to be sure, but it really seems like the answer. The Cubs have allowed just five more runs on the road in the same number of games; they're not exactly getting pounded. Really, it seems like a few more runs ought to do it. The only question now is can the Cubs, with probably the toughest part of the schedule coming up and with some players possibly in danger of wearing down a bit over the long season, actually find more runs on the road?

I guess we'll see.

All-Star Lame

I don't have a terrible amount to say about the All-Star Game at this point, aside from the fact that staying up until almost one in the morning just to watch your team is at least less disappointing when the outfield of "your team" is made up of three players you hate. Anyway, a few lingering thoughts:

1. The Cubs acquitted themselves well.
With eight Cubs named to the roster in one form or another and six seeing time, two as starters, they had a lot to live up to. Fortunately, they mostly did. Soto and Fukudome didn't do much at the plate, but Soto caught a good few innings (the two steals off him were much more the pitcher's fault). Zambrano was awesome (can he please get through two innings in 20 pitches more often in real games?), Dempster was awesome (striking out the side!), and Marmol was awesome. Dempster and Marmol both pitched in the bottom of innings that could have ended the game, so I was immensely relieved that both pitched well, although I'd have taken just about anything that didn't end with a Cubs pitcher giving up the game-winning run. (The 2001 All-Star Game, when Jon Lieber gave up back-to-back home runs in the sixth to put the game pretty much away, still makes me cringe.)

2. "This time it counts" is still stupid.
As has been pointed out in various places by now, there is no good excuse for claiming that the game needs to count, especially when it's clearly not being managed that way. The lineup that the National League had on the field at the end of the game was kind of pathetic - there's no reason that any All-Star Game that "counts" should be giving three at-bats to Cristian Guzman. What would be wrong with going back to just alternating home-field, which is how it used to be done?

I mean, this is how All-Star Games are played. The best players (mostly) start the game, and then the lesser All-Stars off the bench come in to get a little playing time and finish it out. This is fine when the game doesn't count, or if it's a blowout, but in a tight game where the outcome has any kind of resonance, that kind of thing just doesn't fly. Bringing in Cristian Guzman to pinch-run for Aramis Ramirez was a calculated "let's play for one run" risk on Clint Hurdle's part, but then why did he make no effort to get Guzman into scoring position, choosing to let Corey Hart swing away? Having a man on first and no outs leads to a run more often than having a man on second with one out, but having a man on second with one out leads to a run more often than having a man on first with one out, and Corey Hart's not a bad player but his OBP is only .327 this year. At the very least, it would have been nice if Hurdle had considered that the game might go to extra innings, at which point Ramirez would be a more valuable asset at the plate than Guzman, who may have a lot of hits but only gets on base 34% of the time. Ramirez's OPS+ is 133; Guzman's is 102.

Basically, when you've got Lance Berkman and Albert Pujols on your team, it's pretty weak to finish the game with Adrian Gonzalez at first base. When you've got Chipper Jones, Aramis Ramirez and David Wright on your team, letting Cristian Guzman get three at-bats at third base is unacceptable (to be fair, Wright was DHing, but still). In VORP terms, the NL starting lineup was almost 90 runs better than the AL starting lineup, in spite of the fact that it had the least-valuable player on the field in it (Fukudome, just 11.9, sad to say). By the time the 15th rolled around, the AL now had the more valuable lineup on the field, aided in part by the fact that the most valuable guy in the AL, Ian Kinsler, was coming off their bench. In fact, Kinsler and Grady Sizemore, two of the three most valuable players in the American League, both got five at-bats for the AL. The most valuable guy by VORP left for the NL in extras was Dan Uggla; look how that turned out.

I know it would be kind of ridiculous to make, say, Pujols play a full game while other guys are being rotated out just because he's the best player in the NL. And there's something to be said for trying to strike early, I guess, or for not holding chips on your bench for an inning you might not play. But it just seems like the current format is likely to lead to games like this - close affairs that end up being decided by guys who are barely legitimate All-Stars. Just look at some of the last few out-making batters for the NL in recent games:

2008: Nate McLouth, Russell Martin, Miguel Tejada, Uggla, Gonzalez, Guzman
McLouth has been valuable this season, but he could easily turn out to be a first-half wonder. Martin is a good catcher but Brian McCann, with the highest VORP of any catcher in baseball, probably should have made it into the game first. Tejada and Guzman were both sympathy All-Stars (i.e. the only selections from their crappy teams and not deserving on merit, although Tejada played well so fair play to him). Uggla was more deserving of being there than his performance indicated. Gonzalez has had a good year, but he was also a sympathy All-Star as the only Padre. Should the All-Star Game be decided by guys whose teams aren't coming anywhere near the World Series without buying a ticket?

2007: Orlando Hudson, Freddy Sanchez, Brian McCann, Matt Holliday, Aaron Rowand
Rowand was actually the third-most valuable OF in the NL in 2007, but that says more about how generally weak center field was - Juan Pierre was in the top ten in center, for crying out loud. And of course Rowand managed to make outs in both the 8th and 9th of the 2007 game with the NL attempting to rally, the latter time, famously, with Albert Pujols languishing on the bench. Hudson and Sanchez are both okay middle infield bats but probably shouldn't be deciding a game of this magnitude. Holliday actually deserved his spot. McCann, fittingly, was in the midst of what has been the worst offensive season of his career so far.

2006: David Eckstein, Holliday, Sanchez, Ryan Howard, Carlos Lee
This one actually wasn't so bad, but the mere presence of David Eckstein - the twelfth-most valuable NL shortstop in 2006 - negates everyone else's contributions to baseball.

2005: Luis Castillo, Paul Lo Duca, Carlos Lee, Morgan Ensberg
Ensberg is basically a one-season wonder; this was that one season. Still, he was brought in at first base to replace Derrek Lee, not at his position of third base, which was occupied by token Red, the extremely mediocre Felipe Lopez (though Lopez actually got on base).

2004: Johnny Estrada, Moises Alou, Mark Loretta, Todd Helton, Jack Wilson, Jim Thome
Not as bad as it looks by the names, perhaps; Loretta was actually the top NL second baseman in VORP in 2004 and Wilson was second at SS, and someone has to play those positions. Still, not exactly Murderer's Row.

2003: Preston Wilson, Richie Sexson, Aaron Boone, Rafael Furcal, Castillo, Lo Duca
It's kind of interesting to see which guys manage to be scrubby bench All-Stars year after year, isn't it? Anyway, this is the one that really killed me - you've got a team with Barry Bonds and Albert Pujols on it, with Gary Sheffield, Todd Helton and Jim Edmonds, and Mike Lowell has doubled in his last plate appearance. And the guy you're summoning off the bench to pinch-hit for Lowell - the second-most valuable third baseman and 14th most valuable hitter in the NL in 2003 - is Aaron Boone. (This game remains epically ridiculous for the fact that Eric Gagne - who allowed 11 earned runs in all of 2003's real games and had an ERA+ of 335 [!!!!] - allowed three earned runs in the bottom of the eighth. I was ready to get all het up about the fact that Gagne was pitching the 8th and not the 9th until I looked it up and saw that John Smoltz - who allowed only eight earned runs in 2003 for an ERA+ of 383 [?!?!] - would presumably have been the go-to guy in the ninth. You're off the hook this time, Dusty.)

Some of this is just due to the NL talent deficit in recent years. But this year I really think the NL had a better team and yet they lost, in large part because that better team was fairly frontloaded and so didn't get a chance to play in the most meaningful part of the game. And again, okay, you can't really ask Pujols to play 15 innings in an exhibition game. But that's exactly the point. It's an exhibition game. You wouldn't see the Red Sox pulling Manny Ramirez in the sixth inning of a game to make sure they could get Brandon Moss into the game; they'd leave Ramirez out there because they wanted to win. And while the talent dropoff between Ramirez and Moss is obviously much larger than between Pujols and Gonzalez, for example, the point remains. You can't make the game count and still expect managers to get everyone in like it's Little League.

Am I a little bitter because the Cubs can't possibly have home field advantage in the World Series now? Maybe a little. But then they have to get there first, something of which I'm hardly completely confident, and anyway this means that when the Cubs sweep - which if the 2004 and 2005 schneid-breaking titles are anything to go by, they're destined to do - they'll win it at Wrigley. Anyway.

3. I'm looking forward to the second half.
Now that the exhibition that isn't is out of the way and we're ready for more real baseball, I'm hoping the Cubs can keep doing what they've been doing - which is to say, best record in baseball, best average, OBP and SLG in the league (and best OBP in baseball), pretty good pitching and timely hitting. With Soriano coming back soon and Harden hopefully staying healthy, this could be a really great second half, even with the schedule getting a bit tougher. Here's hoping for a few more road wins.

Proof or GTFO

Show me a feel-good sports story and I'll show you someone lurking three steps behind, itching to ruin it. Rick Ankiel's incredible rebirth as a 30-homer outfielder in 2007 was followed quickly by reports that he had taken HGH several years before, while still a pitcher; Dara Torres' fifth Olympic games, at age 41, is greeted with extreme skepticism in spite of the fact that she willingly signed up for the most rigorous course of drug testing the IOC has to offer. And now we have Baseball Prospectus, a site I otherwise enjoy, promulgating the rumor that the Cubs are somehow cheating their way to the best record in the National League.

A few weeks ago, John Perrotto mentioned - in an oddly casual way - that there were some grumblings around baseball that the Cubs were stealing signs at Wrigley via the manual scoreboard in center field. Presumably there were two reasons for this: (1) the Cubs were playing extremely well at home and (2) the Cubs have a manual scoreboard in center field, facilitating the alleged theft. (Goat Riders of the Apocalypse made fun of the idea a few weeks ago, around the same time when I first read Perrotto's column. It's noteworthy that when I Googled "2008 Cubs stealing signs," most of the hits were Cubs blogs or message boards laughing about it, and no one actually accusing the Cubs of doing it. There was one top ten hit saying "Cards accuse Cubs of stealing signs," but it dated to 2002.)

At 34-10, the Cubs do indeed have baseball's best home record, and they combine that with a not-exactly-gaudy 20-26 road mark. But as noted before in this space, this isn't exactly all that unusual this year. Milwaukee (29-14/21-26), Boston (33-10/21-29), Tampa Bay (36-14/19-20), the White Sox (32-13/20-24) and Minnesota (32-18/18-22) all have comparable discrepancies, and that's just among teams with 50 wins or more. Are all these teams cheating at home? Surely the Cubs' mark isn't such an outlier that they're the only ones worthy of speculation. (Why not Boston, even worse on the road than the Cubs and basically exactly as good at home?)

There is, of course, the team hitting - the Cubs go .311/.391/.502 at home and .257/.331/.395 on the road. That's 54 points of average and 60 of OBP. But their home BABIP is also 41 points higher (.347 to .306); add in the home runs that the Cubs hit at Wrigley that might just be long flies elsewhere (the Cubs as a team average a home run per 27.4 PAs at Wrigley, and just one every 46.9 PAs away from it), and that accounts for much of the difference in average and OBP - a few more homers and plain ol' good luck.

Furthermore, again, this is not a problem unique to the Cubs, even if they are on the extreme end. The White Sox lose 99 points of OPS on the road; Milwaukee's road OBP is .317 (though their home OBP is a mere .332); Boston's road OBP drops 33 points from their home. The .500 Orioles hit 30 points better at Camden Yards. The Braves, baseball's ugliest road team, give up 38 points of BA and 40 points of OBP when they leave Turner Field.

(Fact: the Cubs' road OBP of .331, supposedly so lousy and proof that they're cheating at home, is seven points higher than the season OBP of Milwaukee, a supposedly dangerous offensive team. It's .003 behind the season OBP of Philadelphia, the #2 run-scoring team in the NL.)

But apparently it's not even just hitting where the Cubs are supposedly cheating. Out of nowhere - Perrotto's article is the only other place I can recall seeing a reference to the idea prior to Googling it for this post - Christina Kahrl dropped this little nugget into her analysis of the Harden trade:

If you really want to depress yourself, A's fans, sign up for the suggestion that the Cubs are cheating in their home park, and look at Gallager's [sic] road performance, where opposing hitters have pasted him at a .271/.341/.472 clip.

Uh, what? Even if you sign up for the idea that the Cubs hitters are getting the signs, how would Cubs pitchers be able to cheat at home in a way undetectable by umpires or opposing teams? (Even if something like overwatering the infield were being done - which I don't think I would even classify as cheating - doesn't that help the opposing team just as much?)

In addition, such an accusation isn't even borne out by the statistics. People have pointed to Ryan Dempster's record, but that owes mostly to his hitters' road woes; if you remove the aberrational 8-run disaster against the White Sox on June 27 from his road record, Dempster's road ERA is 2.55 - his home ERA is 2.58. His road WHIP is higher... by about one hit (or walk) every nine innings. His 0-3 road form owes as much to bad luck as anything - there were at least three games where he pitched well enough to win, only to see the bullpen blow the lead (most recently in his last start, July 2 in San Francisco, where he turned a 5-2 lead over to Marmol only for Carlos to serve a meatball to Ray Durham), and another game where he allowed five unearned runs thanks to errors by Fontenot and DeRosa.

Examining the rest of the rotation, Ted Lilly has actually pitched better, or at least more effectively, on the road (4.07 road ERA to a 4.92 home ERA) thanks to his home-run allowing tendencies, although he does have more strikeouts at home. Marquis' road ERA is nearly three runs lower than his home ERA. (Maybe he and Dempster should platoon.) Zambrano's ERA is a bit worse on the road but the sample size is such that the difference is negligible. Gallagher pitched worse on the road, but on the other hand he's a 22-year-old kid. Maybe the Cubs get a slightly more favorable strike zone at home, but a lot of teams with loud fans probably do, and anyway it hasn't made much difference to how many runs they give up. (Besides, that isn't the Cubs cheating, it's the umpires either cheating or just being inept and easily swayed by a raucous crowd.)

The Cubs as a staff give up .44 more runs per game on the road, but how tenuous is that figure? Well, it drops to .31 more runs per game if you take out Dempster's 2.1-inning, 8 ER debacle. Pull out the 9-0 abomination at Cincinnati on May 7 (when Lieber gave up 4 HR in one inning) and it's down to .18, which it seems to me is barely anything. How much of the "proof" for the claims of cheating at home is based on a little home BABIP luck from the hitters and two bad road starts out of 46?

In other words, I've had enough of this. Either give me some proof, or some statistics that can legitimately support the idea, or please, please, shut the hell up. Cubs fans have waited too long to have a season like this tainted by hearsay and conjecture, as the gleeful rumormongers grasp at any straws in sight. Isn't it bad enough that every single Cubs postseason appearance is going to be accompanied by video of Steve Bartman, a goat, a black cat, and every other terrible thing from the last 99 years on an infinite loop? Do you really have to try this hard to ruin the season for us before we even hit the All-Star break?

Harden fast

Well, that was quick. How quick did the Cubs pull the trigger on Rich Harden? Quick enough that the last two blog entries posted by Buster Olney are titled "Don't expect Cubs to answer CC trade" and, immediately thereafter, "Harden deal happened quickly."

Harden remains a big injury risk, as I noted yesterday. Given Billy Beane's usual shrewdness and how quickly he moved to deal Harden even though the A's are hardly out of the AL West race, I'm frankly a little worried - and then there's this, from Olney's post:

Harden returned from the disabled list on May 11, and in his first nine starts, he pitched as he usually does, dominating hitters, striking out 42 batters in 32 1/3 innings in June, compiling a 1.67 ERA for the month. Some scouts who saw his July 1 start reported that his velocity was down, and he lasted five innings. On July 6, Harden had five erratic innings, walking four and requiring a 95 pitches to get through five innings.

Who's excited???? I really hope Hendry checked out the injury reports before pulling the trigger.

Harden and Chad Gaudin, a reliever, came over for Matt Murton, Eric Patterson, Sean Gallagher and Josh Donaldson. The good news here is that there's not a ton of loss in that trade. Murton is a good little hitter, but it's unlikely that he's ever going to turn into an All-Star, and he can only play left, a position the Cubs have covered until 2014. Patterson has his assets but never really caught on with Piniella, it seemed; Donaldson is one of the top two or three prospects in the Cubs' system, but he plays catcher, a position that, God willing, the Cubs have set for the next decade or so. The big loss is Gallagher; at 22, his best years are surely ahead of him, and he was certainly showing flashes of serious talent in his time with the big club this year. At the same time, he wasn't going to be in the rotation for the rest of the year anyway, and the Cubs weren't in a position to let him pitch his way into improvement as a starter. From the Cubs standpoint, they really gave up very little they couldn't afford to part with. The loss of Gallagher potentially makes the Cubs a worse team in 2010 (Harden is a free agent after the '09 season), but the addition of Harden potentially makes them World Series champions in 2008, and that can't be overlooked.

Still, his health situation scares the shit out of me. How/if (bite your tongue!) he pitches the rest of the year will probably determine whether or not fate really wants the Cubs to win this season.

Reaction time?

On Sunday, as the trade of C.C. Sabathia to Milwaukee was becoming official, Will Carroll of Baseball Prospectus included this quote from someone in baseball in his article:

“The Cubs will react quickly to any deals in their division.”

Now, I don't know how true that is. But it seems reasonable to assume, doesn't it? Milwaukee made the Sabathia trade because they figure this is their year to try and contend - Sheets is likely gone next season and Fielder may not be around much longer either - but the thing is, the Cubs had already earmarked 2008 as "the year" to go for it, and their relatively hot first half, even with the recent stumble, has only encouraged things further. The Brewers, however, seem to be rebounding after a slow start, and while their bullpen is still extremely questionable, Sabathia certainly plugs one of their holes and potentially gives them one of the best 1-2 punches in baseball, one that could be particularly dangerous in any playoff series.

So Milwaukee has punched first. The question is, does Jim Hendry have a counterpunch in him? As good as the Cubs have been, they've been unable to shake St. Louis and Milwaukee so far, which isn't exactly an encouraging trend - while I hesitate to be too negative, one does have to wonder if the Cubs are actually going to win 96-97 games as they're ticketed to do based on current win percentages. And while the Cubs do have sizable statistical advantages over Milwaukee right now, their edge in pitching is actually fairly slim and could be largely erased by Sabathia and their edge in hitting has a lot to do with Milwaukee's slow start - and despite the fact that Milwaukee started slow, they now sit just 3.5 games back (possibly 3 after they host the Rockies tonight). The chance to take a 2005-White-Sox-like lead (10 games as early as June 22, 15 games on August 1), insurmountable even with late-season doldrums, has probably come and gone, and while the advantage the Central currently has over the rest of the NL likely means that the wild card will come from within, you'd hate to have to rely on that, especially since it would remove home-field in the playoffs.

I'm certainly not conceding the division to Milwaukee (though many Milwaukee fans certainly seem happy to assume a division title); that would be ridiculous before Sabathia even throws a pitch - and maybe after, since he only affects a game once every five days - and I think the Cubs are still more talented top to bottom. But the Brewers just got a lot scarier in the rear-view mirror, especially given that we finish the season with six games against Milwaukee in the final two weeks, including a season-ending series at Miller Park (where, of course, the Brewers are 28-13, the second-best mark in the NL behind the Cubs).

Anyway. The general assumption is that the Cubs are looking to add another starting pitcher, and presumably a #3 starter or better. Here's a list of the names being kicked around:

Rich Harden
Pros: 5-1 record, 92 Ks in 77 IP, 2.34 ERA (some of that due to a home park that strongly favors pitchers, but his road ERA of 3.38 is still quite respectable), frequently said to have ace stuff. Reports have Hendry working this angle quite hard at the moment.
Cons: When he's said to have ace stuff, it's usually followed by "...if he could stay healthy." Threw just 72.1 innings combined in 2006 and 2007; has a pretty substantial injury history. In spite of this, Billy Beane is said to want a comparable package to what he got from Arizona for Dan Haren last winter - which was fully six prospects, including two guys who are currently starters for Oakland and a blue-chipper they think of as their CF of the future. The Cubs probably don't have the pieces to put together that kind of haul, but then if Beane wants six players for a guy who still needs to prove he can pitch a full season, I'd run as fast as possible in the opposite direction.

Randy Wolf
Pros: Once upon a time, Randy Wolf was a pretty decent third starter. In 2002, he threw more than 210 innings, had an ERA+ of 121, and as many strikeouts as hits allowed. He's still capable of putting up pretty good ERA numbers, provided you play in Petco Park.
Cons: If you don't play in Petco Park, Wolf is a fourth starter at best, and the Cubs need someone elite, not someone who isn't even league average. Wolf's road ERA this year is 6.66, which should be a dead giveaway. He'd probably be cheap, but why give away anything for him when you could get the exact same results, or significantly better, by continuing to start Sean Marshall or even Sean Gallagher? This would be another Steve Trachsel deal, if you ask me.

A.J. Burnett
Pros: Apparently, Burnett would welcome a trade to the Cubs, and when he's on he can be very good, putting up an ERA+ of 115 or better in four of his six full seasons in the pros. He also strikes out nearly a batter an inning, a valuable asset on a Cubs staff that increasingly finds itself pitching to contact.
Cons: This year, his ERA+ is 82. He may not be fully healthy (like Harden, there's some injury history there). There's also some risk that he would be a rental player if good, but a liability if bad (he can opt out of his contract at the end of the year, but presumably wouldn't do so if he sucked, leaving the Cubs on the hook for two more years at $12 million per), but then again if you're the Cubs and trying desperately to win in '08, it might be worth the risk.

Erik Bedard
Pros: Has ace-like stuff. Last year in Baltimore, went 13-5 with a 3.16 ERA (146 ERA+) and 221 Ks in 182 innings.
Cons: Attitude seems questionable. Might be injured at the moment. Hardly setting the world on fire this year, though who knows how much of that is mental, due to Seattle's struggles. Mariners might not be willing to give him up for anything but a big package, given how much their previous regime spent to bring him in.

I'm not sure which of that list I want the Cubs to go for, though I can tell you for sure that they'd better stay the hell away from Wolf. As for the other three, I do have to wonder if the Cubs have the players to make a decent package - Josh Vitters, last year's #1 pick, is still extremely raw in the low minors, but of course he's not even 19 yet; Pie's value has dipped significantly; Hill is probably untradeable at this point; and while the Iowa Cubs have played awfully well this year, a lot of their value is tied up in older guys who may or may not be valuable trading chips. (Is Jason Dubois, at 29, suddenly a valuable commodity because he hits a lot of home runs at Iowa? Doubtful.)

So we'll see. I wouldn't mind seeing Hendry stand pat for the moment - let's not forget that this team doesn't have Alfonso Soriano and their history shows they play a lot better relative to .500 with him than without him. Obviously you can't wait too long to make a move, but let's make sure we know what we've got first, and not do anything out of panic.

How do you solve a problem like Marmol?

It seems like so long ago that Carlos Marmol was baseball's most unhittable pitcher, doesn't it? Now, it appears that three months of overuse have left him gassed and put the Cubs in a tight spot regarding the relief corps. On May 14, Marmol's ERA was 1.04; it was as low as 2.09 as recently as June 15. In his next appearance, four days later at Tampa, Marmol entered the game with a 3-1 lead, then walked two men and hit two more. He was yanked for Scott Eyre, who proceeded to allow a grand slam; despite not allowing a hit, Marmol was dinged for four earned runs, shooting his ERA to 2.93. In his next appearance, two days later against the White Sox, he entered with an 11-5 lead. After walking the leadoff hitter, he got two quick outs - then walked the bases loaded and allowed a run on a wild pitch. Once again he allowed a run despite not even giving up a hit.

The next two games were fairly uneventful - he threw an inning in the first and second games of the Baltimore series, allowing one total hit and walking no one. Then came Saturday. Marmol was brought in to start the seventh with the game tied at five; on an 0-2 pitch, he threw a high fastball to Carlos Quentin, who was able to put just enough on the ball to let it carry into the seats. Following that debacle, Marmol again got three days of rest prior to his appearance against the Giants last night. He came into the game with a 5-2 lead in the seventh and struck out the first two batters... then walked Travis Denker on five pitches, allowed a single to Fred Lewis, and then threw a first-pitch fastball to Ray "I Have Two Home Runs All Year" Durham. The fastball rose right into the zone, and Durham hit it out to right field to tie the game.

Marmol still has a devastating breaking ball, as he showed with the two strikeouts. But he's got a problem now. His command has gotten shakier - and let's not forget that even at his most dominant, his command could be an issue; remember all those at-bats where he'd leap to a 3-0 count, then manage to come back for the strikeout? He can't do that now, because he doesn't have the same fastball. Where it was touching high 90s earlier in the year, it now seems to top out around 93, and he just can't blow guys away with it. The same batters who would have been swinging futilely at a high 98-mph fastball are now jumping on 92-mph fastballs up in the zone and parking them in the seats.

Is Marmol masking some minor injury, or is he just tired? Yesterday on Baseball Prospectus, John Perrotto quoted a scout who said of Marmol, "He looks really tired to me, his arm is dragging, and his stuff isn’t as crisp. He’s a helluva young pitcher but [manager] Lou Piniella has been forced to ride him really hard this season and the wear and tear is showing." Marmol has already thrown 48 innings in 43 appearances after going just 69.1 (in 59 games) all of last year, and for a while he was on pace to throw well over 100 innings as the early-season struggles of guys like Howry made it more difficult for Lou to keep Marmol out of games. (Just ask Joe Torre what it's like to be a veteran manager who only trusts a few of his relievers.) He's also already given up 19 ER, eight more than all of last season - but 12 of those have been since June 1. So what do we do?

1. Give him a break.
Even three days off between games doesn't seem to be helping right now, so maybe Marmol just needs to be shut down for a while so he can rest. The question is, is there any way that a couple weeks of rest is enough? You can't possibly justify putting him on the shelf for longer than that unless he's actually injured, which I don't think is the case, and even while the fastball isn't there, his breaking ball is still good enough to get guys out if he can get a fastball over early in the count. But you can't always rely on that, as we saw last night.

2. Less use of the fastball.
There's always some risk that he'll just start firing fastballs all over the place, whereas the breaking ball is reliable and pretty much unhittable. Of course, if he turns into a one-pitch guy, that breaking ball will probably start to get more hittable as guys see a lot more of it. Still, I've seen at-bats where he's just buckled a guy's knees with three straight breakers right at the bottom of the strike zone, so it wouldn't be impossible.

3. Just use him less.
Lou doesn't seem to have a lot of trust in the bullpen beyond Marmol, but most of them have at least been decent this year. Ascanio looked pretty good in limited action before giving up a homer to Jim Thome on Sunday (but let's not forget that WWE officials were working that game); Cotts has been decent; Howry seems to be getting into form; Wuertz has a low ERA in spite of some command issues; Lieber has been solid pretty much every time he's come in but has appeared somewhat sporadically because of his assigned role as the long man. If all else fails, you could call up Hart (though it looks like he'll probably stick as a starter in the minors for right now and be brought up in that role maybe in 2009) or Pignatiello (who's been good in recent outings at Iowa, though his stats for the year are kind of ugly). And if all else fails, you could trade for a reliever in the next few weeks, although teams always end up overpaying for relievers and I'm not sure if there's a difference-maker out there.

Still, something has to be done, right? I don't think we can just keep doing what we've been doing when Marmol has been a time bomb recently. Thank God for Mike Fontenot.