Extra painful

Once again, the Cubs lose in extras and look bad doing it. It's bad enough that they blew a bases-loaded, no-out situation for the second time in four days (both times where a single would have all but locked up the game); the really disappointing part is the disappearing act in extra innings again. This team is now 1-6 in extra frames and frankly it's amazing they even got one win, so cold do the bats go once the inning number rolls into double figures. In four extra innings, the Cubs had four baserunners, but three of those were in the bottom of the 13th already down 5-3. And the fourth was an infield single that probably could have been called an error and wasn't. In that same timespan? Six strikeouts. The Mariners' bullpen is pretty good, I'll grant, but ugh. Not good times.

There's talk about Barrett's baserunning (again) and the inability to cash in the bases-loaded, no-out jam (again), but for me the worst move of the game was leaving Ohman in once he'd given up the double to Vidro. Ohman is used to going an inning or less; now he's on his ninth batter faced in Bloomquist (although Betancourt, having been intentionally walked, doesn't really count for this discussion), who isn't even a lefty! Gallagher was ready in the pen; I know he's a recent call-up, but Ohman clearly looked gassed (besides the fact that he sucks).

Naturally, Ohman gives up two runs and the Cubs lose another one. (The whole "Barrett can't find the ball" thing was weird, but it seemed like it just kind of squirted out of his glove as he started to come up... I mean, that'll happen. Frankly it's amazing that Jones got the ball to the plate at all, so I'm hesitant to pin the blame on the defense here.) Even more naturally, we had to get teased with a two-on, one-out in the bottom of the inning before Soriano was pitched around (shock of shocks) and Hill grounded out. (Another second-guess: why hit Hill there? Sure, he's an "actual batter," but given how he's looked at the plate, why not take your chances with Marquis? I mean, he's a better pro hitter right now.)

So of course, no ground gained on the Brewers (even as they were no-hit!) and the Cardinals are still right there. Plus the suddenly kind of annoying Astros won again. I really hate following this team every day of my life sometimes.

Pick 'em up

We needed a big game from Zambrano and we got it. I'm a little bothered that he threw 128 pitches, and he seemed pretty gassed by the time he finished the eighth - but he struck out eight, allowed just five baserunners (three hits, a walk and a hit batsman), and hit 96 on the gun early in the game. And, of course, he hit what turned out to be the game-winning home run into the left-field seats. All told it was a fun game to be at, unless you like a lot of hits. I don't mind a good old-fashioned pitchers' duel, though (in fact, many of the Cubs' games I've attended have turned out to be such), although it was a little frustrating to see the offense struggle. (To be fair, a lot of balls were pretty well hit and just found gloves. Mike Lamb's liner stab and scramble to first to double Lee off, for example; pretty lucky on Houston's part.) I know Ramirez is out, but Lee has looked off for a couple weeks - he seems to be taking too many pitches. If I had a dollar for every third strike he's looked at in the past week, I could have a pretty big lunch tomorrow.

Still, good to see the bullpen get some rest, even if it meant a ton of pitches for Big Z (he seems to be one of the few guys capable of handling that workload, but I'm biting my tongue here), after getting shredded last night, and good to see Dempster rebound. And good to see a win when I'm actually in the ballpark. By my count I'm actually 6-1 since returning to Chicago for school in 2000, including five straight since 2001. Maybe I should go more often.

Same old sorry-ass Cubs

Between 1990 and 1998, the San Francisco 49ers beat the Los Angeles/St. Louis Rams seventeen times in a row. In the midst of this run, the Niners came to St. Louis for the first time in 1995 with the Rams in their new home and supposedly improved. San Francisco ran away with the game, and a 49ers player was quoted as saying, "Same old sorry-ass Rams."

I mention this because the title of this post, a paraphrase of the Rams quote, was what popped into my head after the conclusion of tonight's game, the second straight devastating loss in a row just when we thought the Cubs were turning the corner on their season.

First came last night, of course - when the Cubs put up a four-spot against Atlanta's best starter, Tim Hudson, in the top of the first and then saw him leave the game early, it looked like things were steaming along nicely. Then Jason Marquis laid a six-run egg, going just an inning and two-thirds, the bats fell asleep for the rest of the game, and the final score was 9-5.

Taken by itself, of course, those games are bound to happen occasionally. And with the good fortune of having John Smoltz pushed back again, the Cubs looked like they could still win the series - three out of four on the road would have been huge. So what happened?

Ted Lilly hit Edgar Renteria in the first inning, and because it appeared to be retaliation for the Braves' having hit Soriano on Saturday, Lilly got ejected. This forced the pitching scramble that, ultimately, led to the loss.

Marmol, Ohman, Wuertz and Howry took the Cubs through the seventh with a 4-2 lead. In the top of the eighth, a great time for insurance runs, the Cubs loaded the bases with no outs - but Mike Fontenot, who had homered to lead off the seventh, hit into a double play, and no runs scored.

Although four relief pitchers had already been used, I'm not sure about Piniella's decision to send out Dempster in the eighth. Was he hoping Dempster could go two innings? He must have been; with Eyre and Gallagher - who had both pitched multiple innings on Saturday - the only other relievers on the bench, and Howry having pitched two innings already, Dempster going two was the only way the Cubs were going to get out of it with a win.

As it turned out, Dempster avoided having to go two by absolutely gagging up the game. First he gave up a double. Then he gave up another double; 4-3. Then he gave up a single. First and third, still no outs. Willie Harris, on first, stole second; now Dempster walks Kelly Johnson intentionally to load the bases. He induces a double play, but the tying run scores and Harris moves to third. Dempster proceeds to walk the bases loaded again, and then throws a wild pitch, allowing Harris to score the go-ahead run. Soriano and Pie hit a couple long flies in the top of the ninth, but the Cubs lose 5-4.

I said before the series that I'd take a 2-2 split on the road. But Jesus, like this? Marquis shitting the bed on Saturday and the bullpen getting shredded on Sunday? Derrek Lee going 0-for-4 on Sunday to continue his June funk, lowering his average to .332? (Granted, not having Ramirez for protection is hurting, but ugh. .233 in the last week and an OBP higher than his slugging?) This should have been 3-1 at least, probably 4-0. And the same stuff that always bites the Cubs in the ass did it again.

Zambrano starts tomorrow in the makeup game against Houston. I'll be there. Hopefully the real Zambrano is too.

...are we back?

Since the season hit what hopefully will turn out to have been its nadir a week ago, things have been going a lot better for the Cubs. First came the blowout win in the final game of the Atlanta series, finally giving Sean Marshall some much deserved offense, and then came a series win at Miller Park (and if Ted Lilly had not gone homer-happy in the second game, it could have been a sweep... but I will take series wins all the way to the bank). Now a dangerous four-game set has started in Atlanta, and while the Brewers series was important, it's the current set that may well make or break the season. If the Cubs win three or (dare I hope) four - and they've already taken the first one thanks mostly to a brilliant outing by Rich Hill - against a team that is currently pretty close to a playoff spot, I think that would solidify the start of a turnaround (knock wood). One scout, as quoted by Jayson Stark yesterday, described the Cubs as having a chance "to rip off about 14 out of 15 one of these days." I don't know if that specifically would happen, but a handful of 8-of-10 strings over the next couple months would be just what the doctor ordered. Winning two would be slightly disappointing, but acceptable for a road series. But if, God forbid, they were to lose the next three, it would be back to the drawing board, back to nine games under, back to everything getting questioned. It would be a disaster.

Personally, watching this team recently, I feel like they're starting to get it. They didn't look great offensively tonight, but at least they didn't have to. Games like that are going to happen sometimes. The trick is minimizing them. If Soriano continues to be a monster at the top of the lineup - when he hit the home run off his shoetops on Monday, I actually yelled at the TV, "That's why we signed you! - I think this team can go a long way. Of course, Ramirez is hurt and Lee has been in a little slump recently, losing 20+ points of BA in about a week, so hopefully those things don't continue.

The big question is whether the Cubs are buyers or sellers at the trade deadline. Personally I doubt it will be either. Traders, perhaps, like just trying to mix things up a bit, but they aren't going to be shipping out prospects for any expensive pieces and I just don't see Hendry dismantling this team. I do wish they could figure out a way to get the money for Zambrano released already - he's never going to be cheaper than right this minute, I think - but I'm starting to really worry that the turnover at the very top is going to cost us this guy. Let's try not to worry about that right now, though.

Tomorrow: Sean Marshall tries to be awesome again. Can the offense get him runs more than once?

Sweet and Sour Lou

Braves 5, @Cubs 3

It was a lot closer this time, but in the end, things turned out like they have for the Cubs most of this season: they self-destructed down the stretch. After Rich Hill had one bad inning, giving up three runs, the Cubs scratched back to tie the game at 3-3 through seven. Enter Will Ohman; exit lead. After going 0-2 on the first hitter of the inning, Ohman proceeded to walk him. This despite the fact that Ohman was only brought on because the leadoff hitter was a lefty. Then, despite being a prototypical LOOGY (Lefty One-Out Guy), Ohman was left in, and proceeded to give up the go-ahead run. In the bottom of the eighth, Angel Pagan led off with a double and tried to make third when the ball got away from the catcher; unfortunately, it didn't get far away enough, and Pagan was gunned down in a bang-bang play. Pagan and Quade argued with the third-base umpire, and then out came Piniella, who was almost immediately tossed from the game and spent the next five minutes kicking dirt and his hat and ultimately being restrained by the umpires. For good measure, the game had to be delayed for several additional minutes because the bleacher fans deposited most of their beer cups onto the field at this point.

If yesterday was an embarrassing day to be a Cubs fan, today wasn't much better; for one thing, there's no excuse for throwing stuff onto the field, and for another, at least yesterday there was little belief the Cubs might actually win. When Pagan doubled I thought the tide was turning in our favor. Instead it was just another disappointingly close loss; once the dust settled in the eighth, the Cubs' remaining five outs went pretty smoothly for Atlanta aside from a Soriano single in the ninth. Lee came up as the tying run in the bottom of the ninth and grounded weakly into a fielder's choice. Obviously it's unfair to think he would be able to hit a home run in that situation all the time - no one is going to do that - but this was a big spot for the Cubs' season as a whole. And Lee went down without much fight.

After hitting their 25-33 nadir last year, the Twins turned around and won 21 of their next 23. Before they lost consecutive games again they were already 11 games above .500. I sure don't see that happening with this team. I'm sure Lou's ejection was half to vent his own frustration and half to try and motivate the team. Do you get any sense that it may have worked?

We were dead before the ship even sank

It's June 1, 2007. The Cubs, who committed nine figures to this year's payroll in the hopes of winning now, are 22-30. During today's game, Carlos Zambrano and Michael Barrett got into a fight in the dugout after Barrett passed a ball and then threw wildly to third; Zambrano pointed to his head on TV replays, evidently telling Barrett either that he should have caught the ball or shouldn't have thrown to third, period, after which Barrett appeared to gesture to the scoreboard, most likely pointing out that Zambrano had allowed 13 hits in just five innings. (The Cubs allowed 20 on the day. Frankly it's amazing they only lost 8-5.) After being separated, Zambrano and Barrett went separately into the clubhouse where, out of Piniella's watchful eye (?), they fought again, ending with Barrett getting his lip split. Barrett doesn't even catch Zambrano, but Henry Blanco is on the DL, leading to Barrett getting replaced by Koyie Hill, who I'd never even heard of until I checked the box score to find out who the hell could have replaced Barrett.

There are, of course, two ways of looking at this:

1. This is a good team that needed a kickstart, and maybe this will provide it.
2. This is a bad team venting its frustration with a season that, on June 1, appears already to be hopelessly lost.

Historically, teams that fight with each other are not very good teams. SportsCenter today showed video of a few other dugout fights, and they included the 2006 Kansas City Royals (62-100) and 2006 Toronto Blue Jays (87-75 but never a threat to make the playoffs). They did also include the 2002 San Francisco Giants (95-66), but that was Bonds and Kent, who both hit more than 35 home runs that year. Also Bonds' OPS+ was 275. That was clearly superstar egos. Zambrano might have a superstar ego but he sure doesn't have a 275 ERA+.

This team is not as untalented as it looks, although you could argue that it's benefited from some of the starters pitching above their historical averages thus far. (Key case in point: Jason Marquis and his 2.93 ERA.) Of course, Zambrano has sucked, though he's been the one getting the run support, which is why he has five wins. Offensively it's been pretty much an average showing, with the team OPS+ slightly below average (98), but that's not what you want from a playoff team. (Even the 2005 Padres, arguably the worst playoff team of all-time, had a team OPS+ of 104.) The Cubs have scored more runs than they've allowed, even after the -14 in two games against the Marlins this week, so their Pythagorean W-L is over .500, which suggests that they've been the victims of some exceptionally bad luck. But some consolation that is.

Now, on June 7, 2006, the Minnesota Twins were 25-33. Eight games under .500, just like the Cubs are now, and through more games. In their final 104 games of the season, the Twins went 71-33 and won an exceedingly competitive division in which three teams won 90 games or more.

The Twins also had the league's batting champion, the league MVP, and the AL Cy Young Award winner, of course. Also, a team OBP of .347 (although their OPS+ was a mere 101). Also, a team ERA+ of 113 (the Cubs', right now, is 104, though at least that's above average).

Am I looking for reasons to be optimistic? You're damn right I am. I intentionally lowered my hopes prior to the season because the Cubs had failed me too many times for me to assume they would win just because they spent money. But right now this team is failing to meet even my modest expectations. My thought was that, worst-case, they'd stumble around .500 all year. Right now, .500 is looking pretty sweet - they're on pace for 93 losses, which for $300 million would represent a three-game improvement over last year.

I hate overreacting and tossing blame around. But it's June fucking first. Among the people who need to queue up for some share of the blame:

Carlos Zambrano. Great, he's tied for the team lead in wins. He's also 5-5, has been bailed out by some of the majors' best run support, and has looked like absolute shit in a goddamn contract year. A lot of people have speculated that he's hiding an injury - for his sake, I hope he is, because I don't understand how anyone trying to justify a nine-figure contract could play this badly.

The bullpen. In particular, the holey trinity of Ohman, Howry, and Eyre, who have a combined WHIP of 1.78 through the end of May. It happens every year: the swallows return to Capistrano and the Cubs have a bunch of shitty middle relievers. In typical Cubs fashion, Neal Cotts pitched badly enough to get demoted to Iowa, while the guy for whom Cotts was traded, David Aardsma, is striking out more than a guy an inning. (Although his ERA isn't so hot either, so I guess whatever.)

A lack of fundamentals. Welcome to another Cub staple. Michael Barrett has seven passed balls this year. Cesar Izturis, the guy who was obtained straight up for Greg Maddux and was touted as a defensive whiz, has a .964 fielding percentage. Remember, he won a Gold Glove in 2004! (For good measure, he's hitting .258 with an OBP of .319 and an SLG that is, in rare fashion, even lower. But when you get a guy with a career OPS+ of 68, you're getting a guy with an OPS+ of 68.) Wednesday's game, the 9-4 loss to the Marlins, featured multiple abysmal baserunning blunders. And this team still can't take walks - they're twelfth in the league and no Cub is on pace to draw even 75 free passes. Dusty Baker may be gone, but his stink remains.

A lack of power. Part of the reason the Cubs have been struggling is that their decent team BA isn't translating to runs, and part of that reason is that there has been a surprising power outage at Wrigley so far. Most years the Cubs hit home runs like crazy - this year they haven't even done that. With 47, they're in the bottom half of the league, and 13 of those have come off the bat of Aramis Ramirez. Alfonso Soriano, who hit 46 last year to get himself a fat contract, has four, putting him on pace for about 13. In Wrigley Field.

Lou Piniella. Sure, it's not Lou's fault that the players on this team do things like hold team meetings before games and then get beaten 9-0, but doesn't it seem like he's just going through the motions? Here's some Lou chatter from today's postgame press conference, much of which has seemed typical of every post-loss press conference in the last month:

"I only have so many players that I can play. You know? And it's about time some of them start playing like major leaguers! Or, get somebody else in here that can catch the damn ball or run the bases properly! All right? That's all I can say!"

Also, Lou said "What am I supposed to do?" about 15 times. Hey, Lou? You're the fucking manager. Have you given any thought to managing? We all know this team is better than it's playing right now, but dumping all the blame on your players is not the world's classiest move, even if they're not playing well. Also, way to throw Barrett under the bus, since "catch the damn ball" and "run the bases properly" are both things that Barrett has not done in the last three games.

So what's the solution, assuming there is one? Some possible alternatives:

1. Trade Barrett.
Between this and last year's Pierzynski fiasco - although who doesn't want to punch A.J. Pierzynski - is he more of a distraction than he's worth? You can't hide Barrett on defense - last year's NL Gold Glove winner, Brad Ausmus had one passed ball, while Barrett had 10, and he's on pace for twice that this year - and his offense, while pretty good for a catcher, isn't irreplaceable. He and Zambrano are both pretty combustible - can you really keep them in the same clubhouse anymore? And remember, this team won the division in 2003 with Damian Miller (bad) and Paul Bako (worse). Ship Barrett out for a good defensive catcher, get some other bat to plug into the lineup... yes?

2. Trade Zambrano.
If the guy's this bad in a contract year, and he's as much of a head case as he is, do you really want to build around him? The problem here - well, one of them - is that Zambrano's stock right now has very likely never been lower, and any trade partner will be well aware of the Cubs' inability to sign Zambrano and may just take their chances in free agency, or at the very least trade as little as possible to get him. And of course if you trade Zambrano, you no longer have an obvious #1 guy (even if Z hasn't pitched like a #1 in more than a couple of games this year). Plus who do you replace him with? Any team trading for Zambrano in midseason probably doesn't have pitching to give away and I'm not exactly relishing another dip into the farm system right now.

3. Do nothing for now and hope this gets the team fired up.
Of course, if it doesn't, either or both guys might get traded in late July anyway.

4. Make a different move altogether.
Ideally, neither Barrett nor Zambrano will be traded, they'll make their peace, and things will be fine. Still, the idea of a trade is appetizing, and if one's going to be made it should be soon. But what trade do you make? Ship the perennially unhappy Jacque Jones out for pitching, which also helps clear up some of that outfield logjam? ...actually, yeah. Go with that one. Jones is hitting .245 with an OPS+ of 68, which makes him the outfield equivalent of Cesar Izturis. Carlos Zambrano is a more valuable hitter right now than Jones is. Of course this raises the question of what you'd get back for Jones... but does it even matter? How about a reliever with a sub-1.6 WHIP? That'd be fine.

Argh. I really hoped this season would be different, you know? And even though there were warning signs, I let myself get talked into it when the pitching started hot... and now it's not as good as it was and no one's hitting. Wonderful.

On the bright side, I discovered possibly the best misery-loves-company Cubs fan site of all time: Hire Jim Essian. Their amusing take on the fight is here.

Let's not go NUTS

Nice job by the Cubs not blowing the rain-suspended game (Rocky Cherry, perhaps the first ever Cubs player to sound like an ice cream flavor, picked up his first major-league win), and great job by Marquis winning the second. To show you the value of April stats, Alfonso Soriano hit better than .500 in the three-game Pirates series and is now hitting .310, just a bit up from where he was a week ago. He also hit his first two Cub home runs. Ah, the value of filling your team with slow starters. Although, oddly, notorious slow starters Derrek Lee and Aramis Ramirez are both off to pretty good starts (Lee, currently hitting .415 and with a double in eight straight games).

But that's not what I'm here to talk about. Every season begins with an inevitable "how is team X achieving feat Y?" glut of stories, and this year is no different. The Brewers have started the season like a house on fire, standing at 18-9 after beating St. Louis yesterday and currently leading the Central by - this is not a misprint - five games over the Reds. (To show this is still a competitive division on the whole, note that the remaining five teams are bunched within three games of each other.)

Lest any Brewers fans start going nuts, though - and I'm sure they are - let's consider a few things.

Hey, remember last year?
Oh yeah, last year, when the Reds started 18-8 (that's where they stood on May 1, leading the division) and everyone started talking about Cincinnati's resurgence. As of May 1, 2006, the Reds led the majors in runs scored (155). They did only lead the Central by a game, but still: 18-8! Better even than the Brewers' record on May 1 of this year! So, uh, how'd that work out for Cincy?

Oh, they finished 80-82 and in third place. Now to be fair, they still had a shot at the playoffs until the last week or so, but that says more about the suck-job finish the Cardinals had than anything else. The Reds also ended up scoring 749 runs, which means that after averaging 5.96 rpg over the first month, the Reds averaged just 4.37 rpg the entire rest of the way. Meanwhile, they allowed 4.94 rpg over the course of the season. Whoops.

Maybe it's something about playing in Miller Park, since the Indians, who rather famously were forced to play there due to snow in Cleveland in mid-April, are the only other team in the majors right now who can match the Brewers' .667 winning percentage (the Indians, at 16-8, have done so in three fewer games). If these trends continue, both teams will win 108 games, so I think it's safe to say that they won't (last NL team to win that many: 1986 Mets). The Brewers' Pythagorean win-loss record right now is 15-12, so while they're a good team, we can suggest that they're probably overachieving a little bit. (The Cubs actually lead the NL Central in this stat, at 16-10; their currently 0-6 record in one-run games accounts for a lot of the reason they're actually 12-14, but the good news is that they're one of only five teams in baseball who have given up fewer than 100 runs through May 2.) The Brewers are also 14-7 against the Central so far; I doubt they'll continue to blow through the division at quite that rate, don't you?

Don't get me wrong - the Brewers have a good young team that finally seems to be living up to the "up-and-coming" tag they've gotten for three years now, and if it weren't for the fact that their fans desperately want to be rivals with the Cubs (guess what, Johnnies-come-lately? We've already got a divisional arch-rival and a locational arch-rival; we don't really need another one of either), I'd probably be rooting for them. But do we really think this team can possibly stay this hot - or even close to it? Right now their shortstop, J.J. Hardy, is hitting .306 with an OPS of .919. Prior to this season he was a sub-.250 career hitter and his best OPS+ (where 100 is league average) didn't crack 90. Granted, this is a limited sample size as he only had 500 career ABs before this year and he might just be breaking out, but I don't know. How about Geoff Jenkins with an OPS of nearly 1.000 so far? (Career average: .850.) Although really, so far this team has been more about doing everything okay than anything super-well (they rank in the top six in the NL in BA, OBP, SLG, and runs, but not in the top three in any of those). At least from a hitting perspective. Jeff Suppan's ERA so far is two runs below his career average; Chris Capuano's is more than a run below even his best prior season. Many of the Brewers' players are pretty young so it's hard to generalize - they could all be having their breakout season at the same time, and certainly the 2005 White Sox showed us what happens when four starting pitchers have career years all at once (the one thing that does scare me about the Brewers right now is that Ben Sheets, who should be the staff ace, is 2-2 with his highest ERA in four years, which may very well also not continue, but in a better way for him).

It'll be interesting to see how the division race shakes out, since every other team in the Central is currently under .500, and yet I doubt anyone believes the Brewers are very likely to be wire-to-wire winners. Maybe they end up like Detroit last year, another fairly unheralded team driven by decent hitting and outstanding pitching, but remember - that team didn't win its division, either.