This may not be the year

I know it's technically still early, and the Brewers beat up on the Cubs in the first two series last year only for the Cubs to flatten them down the stretch (except in games where they had already clinched), but my God - did you ever think you'd see a Brewers/Cubs game where the Cubs' bullpen was so much worse? Let's take a look at the bullpen so far:

Angel Guzman: Perversely, he's been the best of the bunch, with the lowest ERA (4.11) and best strikeout-to-walk ratio (2.67). He's also thrown the most innings (15.1), so at least the guy who's throwing the best is getting the most work. With all due respect, though, when Angel Guzman is your best reliever that probably isn't saying much about your pen.

Carlos Marmol: His injury probably hasn't helped, although he seems to be on the way up - in his last three appearances he hasn't walked anyone, and his ERA is somewhat artificially high thanks to a four-run, 0.1 IP appearance on April 29 in a game that the Cubs were already losing 4-0. Still, his ERA is 4.50, he's already blown two saves, and his K/BB ratio is just 1.42 after being around 2.75 the last two years. At least his numbers aren't too bad aside from his leap in walk rate, which is inflated thanks to four walks in that Arizona game. He'll probably be fine.

Kevin Gregg: Gregg actually seems to have settled down after a rough start, as he's up to five saves and has still blown just the one at Milwaukee on April 10. His ERA has receded to 4.40, and his K/BB in his last six appearances is 6/1. Still, for the year he's allowing 15 W+H/9. That number will probably improve significantly if his current form keeps up, at least.

Aaron Heilman: Here's where things start to get bad. At 15 IP, Heilman has been the second most active member of the bullpen, but he seems to be going in the wrong direction. In his first eleven appearances this year, Heilman allowed just one earned run; after a scoreless inning and a third on April 26, his ERA stood at 0.82. Today it's 5.40 after just five additional outings. Most of the damage was done on April 30, when he entered a tie game with the Marlins in the top of the tenth and proceeded to get charged with six runs, five earned, without recording a single out. However, he hasn't been much better since then; after two scoreless appearances against Florida and Houston, he's been abused by Milwaukee, allowing The Incredibly Annoying Ryan Braun's game-winning eighth-inning home run on Friday (in a spot that should have been Marmol's, except I guess Lou is trying not to use him every damn day like he did in the early-going last year) and walking three after coming on in relief of the incompetent Chad Fox (about whom more anon) on Saturday. At least, I guess, if you take away the Marlins game he hasn't been that bad - his ERA is only 2.40 if you pull out those five runs.

Neal Cotts: I know Cotts is a lefty, and those are hard to come by, but I don't know what it's going to take to get him run out of town. Luis Vizcaino didn't give up a single run as a Cub and was released; Cotts seems to be allergic to outs. In 14 appearances he's recorded just 20 outs while allowing 18 baserunners (9 hits, 8 walks and a hit batsman). He's actually only given up runs in four of his fourteen appearances, but because he has a tendency to pitch 0.1 innings, his ERA is 6.75. One of the reasons why he hasn't given up that many runs, though, is because he has a lot of outings that look like this:

April 10 @ MIL: brought on to face PH Craig Counsell. Hits him with a pitch; gets yanked. Marmol finishes the inning.

April 11 @ MIL: brought on to face Prince Fielder. Walks him; gets yanked. Heilman finishes the inning.

April 18 vs. STL: brought on to start the 7th. Walks the first two batters he faces; gets yanked. Marmol finishes the inning.

April 21 vs. CIN: brought on to start the 8th. Strikes out the first batter, then allows a single and a walk; gets yanked. Marmol finishes the inning.

It goes on. In fact, only four times this year has Cotts recorded as many as three outs; on the same number of occasions he hasn't recorded any. Don't the Cubs have anyone left-handed at Iowa or even Tennessee? I don't see how they could be any less effective.

David Patton: Speaking of less effective - it's David Patton, everyone! The Rule V draftee was a fun story making the team after never pitching above A ball, but I think it's time to admit that he looked good in the spring because he was pitching in late-inning situations against total nobodies. If I'm a manager, I think I have a few spring games where I throw a few relievers to start the game; if that's what you're basing the team on, you need to know which of these guys can actually face down real big-league hitters. I guess considering Patton spent the last two seasons as a middling high-A reliever, he hasn't been as bad as one might have feared, and his ERA is certainly made worse by his 1.2-inning, five-ER outing on April 25 when he gave up the grand slam to Pujols - but if you take that away it's still over 5.00. Aside from Cotts, he has the worst WHIP of anyone who's pitched more than four innings - really, across the board his stats are second only to Cotts' in their awfulness among the regular relievers. Is it really worth not having to offer him back to Colorado, or is there just no one else in the pipeline? (What about Jose Ascanio, who's been destroying the PCL so far? Albeit he's done so as a starter, and maybe he's being saved for that role.)

Jeff Samardzija: Samardzija is already back down at Iowa, but he wasn't given much of a chance - just five appearances and 3.1 IP. He didn't have a very good start, coming into a game vs. the Reds on April 23 and giving up four hits and two runs in one inning, but since then he'd gotten two Ks in mop-up duty on April 27, another two Ks on April 29 (although between those he gave up a three-run double, all the runs getting charged to Marmol), and gotten out of a bases-loaded spot with a short flyball on May 1. Then on May 5 against the Giants he turned in this string: HBP (to load the bases), two-run double, RBI single, popout, walk. Only one of the three runs was credited to him, but apparently Lou had seen enough and Samardzija was bounced back to Iowa. While he certainly wasn't super-effective in his brief time up, it's worth remembering that Samardzija gave up runs in two of his first three appearances last year, and then went the entire month of August without allowing another one.

Chad Fox: The real reason not to send Samardzija back down is that it resulted in Chad Fox being called up. I would rather Jake Fox come up. To pitch. Here's what Fox has done since returning to the big club:

May 7 @ HOU: enters the game in the bottom of the ninth with the Cubs up 8-2. Jason Michaels walks, Ivan Rodriguez triples (scoring Michaels), Jeff Keppinger grounds out (scoring Rodriguez), Darin Erstad triples (scoring on a sac fly after Kevin Gregg replaces Fox). Final line: 0.1 IP, 3 ER.

May 9 @ MIL: enters the game in the bottom of the eighth with the Cubs down 9-6. Ryan Braun walks, then Fox throws a wild pitch in the middle of walking Prince Fielder and gets yanked mid at-bat. (Aaron Heilman comes in and finishes walking Fielder, then eventually allows both Braun and Fielder to score. Baseball's bizarre scoring system charges Fox with one run but two earned runs.)

So in two appearances, Fox has two walks and half of a third (he's credited with three in the stats), two hits, and five earned runs... and one out (and that an RBI groundout). His ERA? 135.00. His WHIP? 15.00. He makes Chien-Ming Wang look like Bob Gibson. I've gotta think we've seen about all we're going to see of Chad Fox at this point. Whatever he was doing at Iowa - where he had a 1.64 ERA and 1.00 WHIP, along with a 10/3 K/BB in 11.1 IP - he can't seem to replicate it at the major league level. If you can't even get outs in mop-up duty, you need to be out of here.

EDIT: I didn't actually get to see Saturday's game, and after writing this I found out that Fox got injured on the 2-0 wild pitch he threw and that's why he was "yanked" mid at-bat. Most likely he's thrown not just his last Cubs pitch but his last big-league pitch as well. With that in mind I feel kinda bad for the guy, but really it wasn't working out even if he'd stayed uninjured. Jose Ascanio is coming up instead, so hopefully that goes better.

So that's the bullpen so far. I guess the top end really isn't all that bad, but the bottom has just been awful. Last year the bullpen was a relative strength, but it's just looked bad way too often so far. Maybe this is just the result of a few really bad outings, but I don't know.

Add in all the injuries - especially with Ramirez set to miss at least a month and Zambrano on the 15-day DL - and the Cubs will be lucky to hold on until everyone gets healthy, if indeed everyone ever does get healthy at the same time. The worst part with all this is that 2009 was probably the best chance; this team is only getting older, and if guys can't stay healthy now, what chance do they stand in two years when Soto is basically the only guy under 30?