Our Bullpen Needs a Nap

That's right, it turns out that the latest tendency the Cubs have of blowing games when the bullpen comes in to pitch is because they're overworked. Lou mentions the painful 14 inning game we all just had to endure, when he used all six of his bullpen pitchers. He then mentions that Ohman will get his stuff together eventually, which is a boldfaced lie. However, this is my favorite line:

Prior to Wednesday's game, Piniella stated that only Eyre, who used two pitches to get the final out in the ninth, was really rested.

Apparently being rested does not equate to pitching well as Eyre decided to follow up his first two easy outs with a walk, a single, another walk, and then two more singles. The Cubs had the lead for about 5 minutes when Eyre fell apart. I don't care how rested he was, Lou should have taken him out after the second walk. Even Dusty would have seen that coming.

Game Summary for April 18th, 2007

• Score: Cubs lose to the Braves, 8-6.
  
• Player of the Game: Mark DeRosa. The man is a machine. Another home run, two more RBIs, he's on pace to hit about 40 of them. Would have been Pie, but no one has won it twice in a row yet, and I'm trying not to overhype the kid too much.
  
• Subject of Lou's Wrath: Scott Eyre. Was handed the lead on a silver platter, proceeded to vomit on said platter. Bad table manners Scott.
  
• Comments: Zambrano was bad in the first inning, but it's April so we expect that. What's important here is that the offense actually fought back to take the lead, and the bullpen couldn't hold it. Again. Pie scored two runs and is still the most exciting thing about this team.
  
• Magic Number: 152. Slowly dropping, but no fast enough. Remember, this needs to get to zero by the end of the season. A few weeks before would be nice too.

Rich Hill pitches tomorrow, so you can put away the Prozac. He's facing off against Mark Redman, who is 0-2 with a 12.96 ERA. If we can't finish the job here, an intervention is in order.