First time the Cubs have won a game that was within 2 runs
First time the Cubs have won back to back games since April 7th against the Brewers
Felix Pie's first home run as a major leaguer
First time the Bulls have won an away game in the playoffs since Michael Jordan played
First time this blog received 100 hits. And 200. And 300. And...let's just go all the way up to 1,000.
First time the Bulls have advanced to the second round of the playoffs since MJ (I'm assuming this based on the fact that no team has lost a series after going 3-0).
If you watched the Bulls game, good for you. It was exciting. I won't write about it in depth, because that's not what we do here. We're a Cubs blog. So on with the Cubs.
Tonight's game was a lot more tense than it should have been. Marquis had a healthy lead until he gave up a 2 run homer to Yadier Molina, at which point Lou brought in the shaky bullpen to scare everybody watching at home. I plan on sending my medical bills for the near heart attack I suffered directly to Ryan Dempster for being inches away from giving up the game tying home run to Scott Spezio. I still feel that Wednesday was the turning point for this team, but today's performance didn't make me much more confident.
Game Summary for April 27th, 2007
Score: Cubs defeat the Cardinals, 5-3.
Player of the Game: Felix Pie. Hit a 2 run blast, the first of his major league career. I'm sure there will be many more to come.
Subject of Lou's Wrath: Ryan Theriot. Lou shows trust in the kid by putting him in the starting lineup for a second day and he responds by going 0-for-4 and making a dumb play at short that should have resulted in everyone being safe and us not winning this game so easily. Starting The Riot is not supposed to be this stressful.
Comments: Marquis pitched another relatively solid game, at least up until the 7th inning when he gave up that home run. His ERA is still very low at 2.35, but he's starting to look a little shaky. Lock it down Marquis. Pie and Aramis each had a home run, showing that maybe the power is returning to the Cubs. And I swear Soriano is taking batting tips from Sammy Sosa. He swung at two straight pitches that hit the dirt about 5 feet in front of him. He should not be our leadoff man.
Magic Number: 146. Still got a lot of work ahead of us.
I've spent most of the past week solely writing game summaries for RTWF. While I think these are important and useful, especially for people who didn't have time to watch the game or don't feel like reading the boring game wrap-ups by the MLB reporters, they're becoming repetitive for me. I try to spice things up by adding in something before the summary, but that only does so much. So as a result of this I'm going to try and write more about whatever I feel like, the more posts the better right? For now I'm just going to throw together some stories I've found. I call this STB. (Shenanigans, Tomfoolery, and Ballyhoo).
The Cubs have a new Spanish version of their website. Maybe we should have had that when Sammy was around, so he could understand why everyone ended up hating him.
SportsBiz has a list of the top eight candidates to buy the Cubs. I'm pulling for Colangelo or Levin. Colangelo has led the D-Backs to a World Series and the Suns are due for a championship soon. The man knows how to win. Levin has built an AHL team that's more successful and exciting than the Blackhawks. And of course it would be great if Bill Murray got in on this action. It won't be Mark Cuban though, he's too radical for the tradition of this team. We don't need his circus antics to win.
The Knicks are complaining that the Bulls were running up the score the other night. The Bulls say they were just trying to do something nice for the fans. I won a Big N' Tasty at a game a couple of years ago when the Bulls won 100-98. Was an extremely exciting game. Never underestimate the power of free McDonald's. Eddy Curry, I'm ashamed that you don't realize this.
Apparently some people think that the crack-addict story is actually a feel-good kind of thing. Some are actually calling it a good comeback story. I don't know if I agree, but everyone's entitled to their own opinion. And Hamilton does look pretty BA with all those tattoos. Still a crack head though.
In case you've been living under a rock for the past week or so, a new word has been added to the blogger's dictionary. Schrutebag. I think it's safe to say that most of the bloggers out there do not like this man.
ESPN fails at fantasy baseball. If you're using ESPN instead of Yahoo, and paying for it, you fail at life. Period.
One last thing. The NHL Playoffs have started. I'm cheering for the Nashville Predators, based solely on the name of the stadium that they play in. There is still hope for hockey in my mind.
Well that was interesting. This was all haphazardly thrown together, we'll see what it evolves into in the future.
You know, I like Wayne Messmer, I really do. Heck everyone does. The guy is just loaded with class, and every time he sings the national anthem it makes me love my country so much more than when anyone else does it. He even survived being shot in the throat, and still has a better voice than just about everyone else in the world. But seeing as the Cubs have completed a miraculous 98 year stretch without a World Series title, I think they could use a little something extra to push them over the edge. Something like having Ray Clay as the public address announcer.
Think about it. In 1990 the Bulls had never won an NBA Title before. Then they decide to bring in Ray Clay to announce the starting lineup, and they win 6 in the next 8 years. Coincidence? I think not. The Cubs need to do something as drastic as this to turn their season around. Or I guess they could just spend $297 million in the offseason. Yeah, that could work too.
And with that, here is the Opening Day lineup for the Cubs this year.
Alfonso Soriano, CF
Salary: $17 million (includes $8 million signing bonus)
Key Stat: See above
Comments: Fonzy is a phenomenal player, there's no doubt about that. And I was very impressed that the Cubs managed to reel him in, as I'm sure most Cubs fan were. But what is Lou doing with him? Well we need a centerfielder, and Soriano's never played there before, so let's just put him there instead of putting him back at second base where be belongs and bringing up the kid that everyone has been praising for the last three years to play center. And in the meantime let's put him at the head of the lineup even though his on-base percentage is unimpressive at best and he's the best power hitter we have. The only consolation I have from this train of thought is that he does put up his best numbers when he's batting leadoff.
Matt Murton, LF
2006 Salary: $380,000
Key Stat: .303 Career Batting Average
Comments: This kid is the best value for the money the Cubs have. And he's more consistent than the ailing Cliff Floyd. And he has brilliant red hair. What more do you want?
Derrek Lee, 1B
Salary: $13 million
Key Stat: His entire 2005 season
Comments: Derek Lee is the total package. In 2005 he was dangerously close to winning the triple crown until late in the season, and he kept pace with Albert Pujols for most of the year. Not only that, but he wins gold gloves consistently. If he hadn't been injured last year, well the Cubs still would have sucked, but we would have at least beaten the Pirates.
Aramis Ramirez, 3B
Salary: $9 million (includes $1 million of his $5 million signing bonus)
Key Stat: 38 Hr, 119 RBI in 2006
Comments: Aramis is a lot like Lee, except that he doesn't get on base as much and when he does, well, he doesn't like to move to the next base in a hurry. The guy is a slacker, which I can understand. Supposedly Lou is on his back about hustling on the basepaths, but I'll believe it when I see it.
Jacque Jones, RF
Salary: $4 million
Key Stat: Whined to the press about 12 times last year
Comments: Despite an extremely weak start to the season last year, Jacque actually did a decent job of finishing off the year (.285 BA, 27 HR). But in that month or so when he was basically the worst player in baseball, Jacque famously complained that the fans were booing him. I'm sorry, what did you expect us to do when your batting average was at .188 through 20 games, shower you with daisies and kittens? I respect the man for dealing with it and turning his season around but come on, what kind of fans did you have in Minnesota if you weren't expecting us to be disappointed with your start?
Michael Barrett, C
Salary: $4.4 million
Key Stat: 1 punch to the face of a White Sox player
Comments: Michael Barrett is a stud. He's one of the best hitting catchers in baseball, and if he has a problem with you he's not gonna cry about it (looking at you, Jacque), he's just gonna sock you one in the jaw. I respect that in a man. And he may not call the best game as a catcher, but that's why we resigned Henry Blanco.
Mark DeRosa, 2B
Salary: $4.33 million
Key Stat: .263 Career Batting Average before last season
Comments: My first reaction to hearing that the Cubs had signed the "talented" Mark DeRosa as a second baseman was..."who?". The guy had a pretty good contract year in 2006 with the Rangers but that's exactly what it was, a contract year. Now that he's tied down until 2009, I won't be surprised if he plays poorly enough to warrant replacing him with Ryan Theriot (Batting .371 in ST and only making $380,000 this year).
Cesar Izturis, SS
Salary: $4.15 million
Key Stat: 54 Games Played last year
Comments: The late season acquisition the Cubs received for Greg Maddux, Cesar was supposed to solve our shortstop problem, namely that we had Ronny Cedeno playing the position. He may not have the best hitting stats, in fact he has pretty terrible hitting stats, but he's won a Gold Glove before so we assume he can play the position well. We only assume this because shortly after joining the team he was injured, as is customary for the job (Nomar anyone?).
Carlos Zambrano, P
Salary: $12.4 million
Key Stat: 12.16 AB/HR in 2006
Comments: Carlos is a dominating pitcher, but that is for another post. He is also a great power hitter, as he demonstrated last year with 6 home runs, which is twice as many as Juan Pierre had, even though Juan played in every single game last season. His AB/HR ration last year was better than the career ratio for everyone who has ever played the sport other than Mark McGwire and the Babe.
Come back sometime in the next couple of days and we'll have the pitching preview, where I will basically tear down everyone who isn't named Zambrano or Hill.
