Cubs Take the Season Series

Today's close game clinched this series for the Cubs, along with the season series. Once again both starters performed very well, and once again all it took was two runs to beat the White Sox. I almost felt bad while listening to their announcers on WGN today, as they spent most of the time discussing how bad the Sox are and why they are having the worst month or two in baseball. They've now lost 21 of their last 26 I believe. They even went so far as to try and find a statistic that the team is doing well in, to try and look on the bright side of things. Sadly, no such statistic exists.

The dominance that is Sean Marshall takes the mound tomorrow against Jose Contreras. Given the White Sox's dismal record against lefties this should get interesting. I'm refusing to say the 'S' word though, because a jinx is the last thing this team needs.

Consistency is Not Our Strongest Area

Rich Hill got the May monkey off his back and finally pitched a good game in this, the most dismal of months. He went 6 innings yesterday, giving up zero runs and returning to April form. But of course the Cubs relievers couldn't hold the Dodgers scoreless in their three innings of work, so a solo home run was given up in 8th inning to Andre Ethier after the Cubs scored a run of their own. This brought the game to the 11th inning, where we kept the Dodgers hitless, but gave up three walks and then beaned Juan Pierre in the leg. Great way to give away a ball game.

I just have a few questions.

• Why was Rich Hill taken out after 66 pitches Lou? I know he's not one of your ever so loved veterans, but come on! The kid finishes off the 6th inning with no runs and only 66 pitches, and the first thought that comes to your mind is 'Let's go to the bullpen'??
• Scott Eyre? He hasn't pitched since May 20th, and there's a good reason for that. So why do you put him in during a tie game? And Lou, why didn't you punch him in the face once he got back to the dugout?
• And finally, why do the Cubs always suck just enough to lose? Even Derrek Lee knows what I'm talking about.

"We need to be more consistent. It seems like every day, when we score eight runs, we give up nine, or when we score one, we give up two. We have to find a way to get over the hump. I don't have the answers. It's odd almost. We just come up short every day. We have to find a way to be the ones coming out on top."

My thoughts exactly Mr. Lee.

At the moment the Cubs are on their way to losing to the Florida Marlins, for whom it's been only about 3 years since they've completed dismantled and rebuilt their team. Here's some advice: completely forget the Cubs are even playing today, and go enjoy your Memorial Day. You'll thank me later.

Apologies May Be In Order

I've been really hard on the Cubs relievers this year. Most of it was well deserved, let's face it, they've been lackluster. But their failures are nothing compared to Nationals pitcher Levale Speigner. After Aramis hit a homer in the third inning and men got on first and second, the Nationals replaced their starting pitcher with Mr. Speigner. Excited about being put in the game, Speigner proceeded to give up a walk. And then another. And another. Then he threw a strikeout to Soriano, of course. Then, for the cause of being consistent, he gave up yet another walk. Three runs were walked in that inning, essentially the difference in a two run game. So to all of you relievers who I've been hard on, I apologize. But if you ever give up three walked in runs in one inning of a game, I will do everything in my power to make sure you are off the team faster than you can say Speigner. Be warned.

Game Summary for May 5th, 2007

• Score: Cubs walk to a win over the Nationals, 5-3.
  
• Player of the Game: Levale Speigner, for reasons mentioned above. He has a cool name too.
• Subject of Lou's Wrath: Rocky Cherry. I know it's still early, but he gave up two runs in 2/3 of an inning. He was the only reason this game was even close.
  
• Comments: Rich Hill reverted back to his more dominant form, giving up one run over six innings and lowering his ERA to an amazing 1.73. This was his shortest outing of the year and the first time he didn't make it through seven innings. I say that's Loue's fault thought, not his. Aramis Ramirez had another homer, putting him at 6 for the year. Derrek Lee reached base again, continuing his streak of getting on base ever game this season. And Ryan Theriot had 3 walks in 4 at-bats. For a rookie, that's pretty incredible. Like we've been saying, this kid needs to start every game.
  
• Magic Number:139. Milwaukee is on a blistering tear, and even with the Cubs winning 7 of their last 8, they'll be hard pressed to catch up at this rate.

Tomorrow is Angel Guzman's major league starting debut this year. Considering how bad he was as a starter last year, plus his 12.19 ERA, I'm worried. Combine that with the Nationals starting their own Hill tomorrow, who has been pretty solid this far, and it'll be tough to reach that five game winning streak and a sweep of the lowly Nationals. If Guzman can pull this off though, he can stay on the team for as long as he wants.

Season in Review: the 7/54ths Mark (Pitching)

As you probably don't know, cause there's a good chance you've never read this blog before, this was supposed to be a 1/9th season in review. That would have been after 18 games. However, I went to two Cubs games this week and didn't have time to do anything. So it's only fitting that the day when I finally have free time is the day that the Cubs have off, so it's not like there's anything else to write about anyways. I guess I could write about how my old high school principal is terrible, completely overreacts to everything, and does not deserve a job, but that wouldn't be very baseball oriented would it?

So far this year, the theme of the Cubs pitching staff has been...unpredictability. Good pitchers have been bad. Mediocre pitchers have been amazing. And bad pitchers, well they're still pretty bad. Here's a rundown of the way things have been.

Carlos Zambrano

• Current Stats: 1-2 W-L, 6.91 ERA, 27.1 IP, 23 K
  
• Projected Stats: 8-15 W-L, 6.91 ERA, 211 IP, 177 K
  
• Thoughts: It is a well documented fact that Carlos is like a freight train, he takes a little time to get going. After a very rough opening day he's settled down a bit. In his last game he left with the lead, but he left early enough that the relievers were doomed to fall apart. His numbers will improve as the season goes on. More wins, lower ERA, more IP, and definitely more strikeouts. Nowhere to go from here but up.

Ted Lilly

• Current Stats: 2-2 W-L, 2.18 ERA, 33 IP, 33 K
  
• Projected Stats: 15-15 W-L, 2.18 ERA, 255 K, 255 IP
  
• Thoughts: Lilly has been a pleasant surprise. An impressive ERA combined with a lot of strikeouts means that right now he is making a push to be the ace of the team. He has strict competition though, and right now he sits 3rd of the bunch. He probably won't keep up that frantic ERA pace, but I can see his wins staying around 15, especially if the Cubs can produce some run support.

Jason Marquis

• Current Stats: 2-1 W-L, 1.88 ERA, 24 IP, 14 K
  
• Projected Stats: 15-8 W-L, 1.88 ERA, 185 IP, 108 K
  
• Thoughts: While Marquis is posting a ridiculously low ERA, his innings pitched are low as well. He needs to go longer if this bullpen is ever going to get a break. He has been another surprise for the team, even performing well against his former team, the Cardinals. Let's hope he can keep that up tomorrow.

Rich Hill

• Current Stats: 3-1 W-L, 1.57 ERA, 28.2 IP, 23 K
• Projected Stats: 23-8 W-L, 1.57 ERA, 221 IP, 177 K
  
• Thoughts: Rich Hill is the undisputed ace of the staff at the moment. And it's no fluke, I said before the season began that he was going to be great. I'm not sure if I thought he was going to be this great, but I should have. Continuing where he left off at the end of last year, Hill has decimated the opposition in every game but one. The Brewers game was a fluke, he'll be back on track next week. On a side note, if I had done this 3 days ago like I was supposed to, I would have given Hill projected stats of a 27-0 W-L and a 0.41 ERA. Just goes to show how inaccurate these will be.

Wade Miller

• Current Stats: 0-1 W-L, 10.54 ERA, 13.2 IP, 6 K
• Projected Stats: 0-1 W-L, 10.54 ERA, 13.2 IP, 6 K
• Thoughts: Wade Miller will not pitch a game for the Cubs again. I'm in the process of writing a petition to see to that. Expect that to be up later today or sometime tomorrow.

The Relievers:

• Bob Howry: Has returned to almost last years form, posting a decent 3.65 ERA. Has already compiled 2 losses though, which means his talent is coming in spurts. Needs to regain some of that consistency and he'll be fine.
• Scott Eyre: Has pitched 7 innings, given up 10 runs, and posted a whopping 12.86 ERA. Worse than Wade Miller. We know he has talent though, but if he doesn't find it soon I don't know how much longer we can let him pitch.
• Michael Wuertz: The best reliever on this staff, has given up only one run in 12 innings of work. I call him the janitor cause he cleans up other people's crap. I don't see why he isn't the closer, or at least the setup man.
• Ryan Dempster: Hasn't blown any saves yet, which is promising. Keeping things calm with a 2.45 ERA, but I still cringe whenever he comes into a close game.
• Neal Cotts: Has been flawless so far with no runs given up in 8.2 innings pitched. I don't know why we haven't used him more often. Have him and Wuertz teaming up as the setup men and we're golden.
• Angel Guzman: Was doing much better than last year's shoddy performace until he was sent down to the minors to make room for Pie. Now that Pie is staying, and Miller is hopefully off the team, the Cubs need to find a way to bring him up as the fifth starter. I think a trade is in order, but not for any pitchers because Lou demands 12 of them, and 12 he shall have.
• Will Ohman: Another reliever who is struggling this year, Ohman needs to lock it down. The only reason that Cubs fans everywhere aren't crying out against him is that no one has any energy left after complaining about Eyre.
• Rocky Cherry: Brought up a couple days ago after Miller suffered his "back spasms", I'm still not sure what to make of Cherry. He's done fairly well so far, and I'm not even mad at him for losing the game a couple of days ago because I really wanted to go home anyways. Twelve innings is way too many for a baseball game.
  

Bill Hall Still Sucks, Just Not as Much

Today's game was not as much of a rowdy affair as yesterday's game. We were sitting in the second row where the incredibly drunk people were yesterday, and well, we were not incredibly drunk. Therefore, we did not succeed in harassing Bill Hall until our lungs collapsed. Because of this he managed to get a hit, and the Cubs soundly lost. No real highlights to share except that we were right next to security guy Scott again, and he's still the coolest. And I had an actually conversation with Ronnie Woo Woo this time, which basically amounted to talking about how the Cubs were going to win. Too bad it didn't actually happen. If we can't win with Hill on the mound, what hope do we have?

Game Summary for April 24th, 2007

• Score: Cubs lose a rainy one to the Brewers, 4-1.
  
• Player of the Game: Mark DeRosa. Got an RBI double in the 9th, for the only offense the Cubs could muster.
• Subject of Lou's Wrath: I want to say Rich Hill here, but I can't considering he still has a 1.57 ERA. He did fail pretty badly during this game though, however with no run support it would have been hard to win even with a shutout. So I think the whole team is getting an earful tonight.
  
• Comments: Lou came out and said before the game that today's lineup will be the permanent one that he'll work with for now. Well Lou, you might want to rethink that statement. Rich Hill was not his normal self, and the Cubs couldn't get anything going. Add the rain to that and it turned out to be a fairly depressing game. So much so that I left in the 8th inning, and I never leave a Cubs game early.
  
• Magic Number: Still 149. I hate the Brewers with a passion.

Tomorrow is the final game of the series, with the surprisingly good Ted Lilly facing off against the surprisingly bad Ben Sheets. It would be fitting if the one game in this series that I didn't go to was the one game that we actually won. Let's hope that happens.

The Solution to All Our Problems

Rich Hill pitched another incredible game today. I'm being completely serious when I say that I expect him to be a strong competitor for the Cy Young award. Sure he scared us all a little bit with that awkward stumble off of the mound, but I'm impressed that he was able to overcome that embarrassment and finish the inning strong. We just need to find four more kids like him and the World Series will be a breeze.

Game Summary for April 19th, 2007

• Score: Cubs dispose of the Braves, 3-0.
  
• Player of the Game: Rich Hill. Was lights-out yet again, and he hasn't had a major gaffe yet. Currently leading the league with a 0.41 ERA and a 3-0 record.
  
• Subject of Lou's Wrath: Nobody. This was a stress-free game, the only pitchers we had in there both performed very well. Some hitters had poor games, but nothing worth getting angry about.
  
• Comments: Rich Hill pitched a beautiful game, holding the Braves scoreless in 8 inning. Ryan Dempster picked up his 3rd save of the year, and he surprisingly hasn't given up a run yet. The Cubs scored on two solo home runs, one by Barrett and one by Ramirez, and an RBI double by Mark DeRosa. Not too bad, but it would be nice to see us string some more hits together.
  
• Magic Number: 151. We're currently tied with St. Louis for the last position in the Central, with the Cards being in the midst of a 4 game skid. Probably not how anyone thought the season would start off.

Tomorrow we start a three game series against the Cardinals at Wrigley in a fight for the worst record in the Central Division. Lilly pitches tomorrow against Braden Looper for the Cards. Both pitchers have a 2.37 ERA, so this might turn out to be a tough one. I just hope the Cubs can win a series for once and instill some confidence back it the fans that are tired of the same old stuff. I just don't know if we can win any games without Rich Hill.

Goin to the Game

In a spur of the moment decision, I'm going to the Cubs game tonight. Bleacher seats are $16 if you get the college discount. And at that price, why wouldn't you go?

If you're not in college, just call the ticket office and tell them you go to Northwestern, they'll give you the promotion code over the phone.

Hint: It's the school mascot. In all caps. Plural. If you can't figure that out, you don't deserve the cheap seats.

I just wish we had someone better than Marquis pitching. Someone like Rich Hill. Or half of the pitchers in baseball.

Hill makes an early push for the Cy Young

Today's game went almost exactly as I had imagined. Rich Hill was nearly flawless, yet again, and Bronson Arroyo is still the only Reds pitcher the Cubs have beaten this year. I don't know whether the possibility of Lou exploding in his face had anything to do with Hill's gem, or if it was just this kid's awesome talent. With a combination of the two, he could be a contender for the Cy Young. I'm not even kidding, he's 2-0 this year with a 0.64 ERA. Obviously he won't keep up this blistering pace but do you remember how he looked at the end of last year? I think Hill may be the Mark Prior we've been waiting for ever since 2003.

Game Summary for April 14th, 2007

• Score: Cubs defeat the Reds, 7-0.
  
• Player of the Game: Rich Hill. Seven innings pitched, no runs, three hits given up, five strikeouts. Only two innings where two men got on base. Low drama, just how I like my pitchers. I think he might be our new ace.
  
• Subject of Lou's Wrath: Nobody. All of the batters in the lineup, other than Hill, had either a run or an RBI. The offense produced, the pitching held up, nothing to be angry about here.
  
• Comments: It figure that the day that I'm not paying any attention to the game at all is the day that everything seems to click. Hill was solid, as was Howry, and surprisingly, Dempster was too. the offense put together a big 5 run inning to put this one away, Lee capping it off with a three run double. Soriano finally got two hits in one game, one of them was based solely on his speed as he beat out the throw, getting an RBI in the process. Also of interest, Theriot was played 3rd base instead of Aramis and did very well. Keep it up boys. Still no home runs.
  
• Magic Number: 155, pending the Milwaukee vs. St. Louis game tonight.

Tomorrow's game pits Ted Lilly against Kyle Lohse. Lilly wasn't too terrible in the home opener, Howry blew that game for him. Last time we faced Lohse he held us to two runs. But that was in the pre-Angry Lou era. I think we've got a solid chance at this game. All I ask is that we hit a home run or two. Come on DLee, I know you're hungry.

Lazy Thursday

Having two days off in a row from baseball is not good for you. So I figure we might as well take this time to look at what's coming up next on the radar. Tomorrow's game is against the Reds, a team that we just can't seem to get a handle on this year. Adam Dunn scares me the most, but this crack head kid Hamilton has been heating up too, he just hit his second home run of the year last night. Zambrano is pitching tomorrow, and I'm sure you remember what Adam Dunn did to him in his first game. He already got his first win out of the way though, and that's usually tough for him to do in April so I have high hopes. Rich Hill pitches on Saturday, which I'm very excited for, this kid has some great stuff. Ted Lilly pitches in the game on Sunday, and the jury is still out on him. Those are probably our three best pitchers at the moment, so if we don't take at least 2 out of 3, we have some serious issues. With the days off, Wade Miller has been pushed back as far as humanly possibly. I think we're gonna try and see if we can make it the whole rest of the month without him pitching.

Since I was at the home opener on Monday, I couldn't really hear Devin Hester sing the national anthem. The crowd was too loud, like always. However, I did just watch a video of it that I found at Len and Bob's Baseball Blog. Holy freaking God. Either he was having way too much to drink in Skybox Number 7, or he should never be allowed to touch a microphone again. Unless he's gonna return it for a touchdown.

The fun is just beginning with the football singers. On April 14th we have Bernard Berrian, the 15th is Brady Quinn, and the 22nd will feature Robbie Gould. The entire list through April 24th can be found here. There's also a high school boys football team and a girls basketball team, so those should be entertaining too.

So enjoy your day off. Go outside, run around, have fun. Oh wait, you can't, it feel like Alaska out there. Then I guess you can sit in your cubicle and work all day. Sounds like fun.

And the Snow Completes the Sweep

That's right, the Cubs got swept today by the Astros. But how is that possible, you're thinking, if the Cubs didn't play today? Well, the series ended up being two games, and the Cubs went 0-for-2. That my friends, is a sweep. We were torn apart by a team that came into the series with a 1-5 record. Saddening.

On another note, it is snowing in Chicago. Or it was earlier today, now it has changed to freezing cold rain. I just have one thing to say to this. What the heck happened to global warming? Scientists are talking about the earth's temperature increasing by a whole degree. Well I would like about 40 of those right now. Today the high was about 35 degrees. Now I'm no meteorologist, but I find it hard to believe that 35 degrees is actually a degree warmer than last year. I would look it up, but I have better things to do. Essentially the Cubs game being snowed out today proves that global warming is bunk. Maybe if it was warm enough for me to be at the beach I would agree with all you scientist types.

Even though we didn't have a game today, I'm still doing a game summary today. Just wouldn't feel right not doing one.

Game Summary for April 11th, 2007

• Score: Cubs lose to the Snow, Infinity-0.
  
• Player of the Game: Rich Hill. Gave up no runs, no hits, and no walks. I believe that's what we call a perfect game.
  
• Subject of Lou's Wrath: This ridiculous weather. Lou is used to managing is nice toasty places such as Tampa Bay, so this snow in April infuriates him. Expect him to rip off an umpires head during the next game just to let out this pent up rage.
  
• Comments: The game was called on account of snow. In April. Global Warming opponents of the world unite!
  
• Magic Number: 156. Reds and Pirates both lost yesterday. And there was much rejoicing.
  

That's What I'm Talkin About

I was about half-way through this post and Firefox froze on me. Not cool Mozilla, I thought you were better than Microsoft. Now I see you're just living a lie.

Because of this I'm gonna keep this relatively short. Rich Hill was completely dominant, and that first inning of offense for the Cubs was all we needed. Now, on to the summary.

Game Summary for April 6th, 2007

• Score: Cubs defeat the Brewers, 9-3
  
• Player of the Game: Rich Hill. Best stuff any of the pitchers have had so far, 78 pitches, 58 strikes, 0 walks, one hit. I know I keep picking pitchers for this, but they've all been solid other than Zambrano. Shame on you Carlos.
  
• Subject of Lou's Wrath: Nobody. I don't think even Lou can be angry after a game like that. Everyone will sleep in peace tonight in Wrigleyville.
  
• Comments: Like I said, Rich Hill was completely dominating tonight. The first inning saw some very solid offense, and Mark DeRosa got his second home run of the year, along with the second for the entire team. Ronny Cedeno was the next Cub to connect, and he now has more home runs than Soriano, DLee, and Aramis combined. Something is wrong there.
  
• Magic Number: 160 and falling fast.