Tuesday, June 14

Surreal Sergio Strikes Again!

In his last two starts, Sergio “who needs the outfield” Mitre has been brilliant. If his outing against Toronto was miraculous then I don’t know how to describe tonight. Epic? Biblical? Anyway, he went the distance forcing 16 groundball outs and allowed only five hits. He only threw 99 on his way to his first complete game. His opponent, Josh Beckett, gave up four runs before pulling himself in the sixth. After giving up a line drive homer to D Lee and nearly shattering Burnitz’s right knee cap with a wild pitch, Beckett decided to tend to his blisters (not only did blisters take him out of this game, they’ve put him on the DL five times in the past few seasons, somebody needs to toughen this guy up) in the clubhouse.

Not only did Sergio hurl a great game but our bats were LITERALLY on fire. MV Lee singled, doubled twice and went deep once while Ramirez hit two out (how hot has this guy been lately?). Barrett added insult to injury with a three run dinger in the 8th. Burnitz, Walker and Hollandsworth also had multi-hit games. When it was all said and done, there were fourteen runs on the board coming from eighteen hits.

So our offense was great but how about the defense? Well, when the pitcher serves up 16 groundballs it’s a bound to be pretty easy night. Of course, Neifi! “so what if my ass is huge, that’s no reason to keep me out of the all-star game!” had a great game at short gobbling up several groundballs and assisting in two double plays. As for the Marlins, their defense only helped us put up fourteen runs. On multiple occasions, the outfield fumbled around with the ball at the wall before casually getting it back to the infield. I’m not sure how to describe their performance other than “drunk looking.”

So what’s there to complain about after a 14-0 blowout? How about Corey’s 0-4 performance? Other than that, I got nothin’.

In other Cub news, Kerry “mechanics mechanics mechanics” Wood’s rehab is going well. In his first of what looks to be three outings in Iowa, he threw 46 pitches and “felt good.” Prior’s also coming along and threw off the mound for the first time since his “incident.”

So tomorrow afternoon we’ve got Maddux (5-3, 4.11 ERA) up against Burnett 3-4, 3.09 ERA). My money is on Maddux especially if we get half as many hits as we did tonight.

6 Comments:

At 10:58 AM, Blogger Jim Hendry said...

I think when you reach a certain level of defeat, you stop racing for every ball in the outfield.

Although if I were Bentz, I would be pissed -- as Lazlo pointed out, the poor guy's ERA is now at 45.00, and I wouldn't want any drunken outfielders letting a double turn into a triple, or even worse.

I think Maddux will come out strong today, but you never know.

 
At 1:45 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

The man is a tour de force of top-notch pitching!


6 shutouts in the majors last night, most on one evening since 1998...

mitre, carpenter, mussina, wells/timlin/foulke, ohka, blanton

 
At 10:23 PM, Blogger Jim said...

Okay, who wants to take me up on the following bet?

Steibrenner (sp?) will make an offer to the Cubs for Correy Patterson following the series this weekend. He'll offer Bernie Williams and Jason Giambi and maybe Flash Gordon.

The Cubs will show interest but back down because Giambi is being included in the deal, having just shed one steroid dude this past winter.

 
At 11:18 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

First off, Jim, I would like to note your poor spelling. This shows uncommon thoughtlessness on your part, and I'd like to see you shape up. Get your head in the game. Look like you care!

Sorry, still upset about that game today. That was terrible. Maddux just didn't have it today, and the ump was not giving him the borderline calls that he needed. At least the comes struck back a bit in the 7th.

I do wonder about Corey and the Yanks though. Corey is just the type of player Steinbrenner loves, except his batting average is about 30 points too low. But he'll say, "Look at that kid in the outfield. He's classy. Let's buy him." I don't want to see any Cubs player go to the yankees. If they offer us Jeter and Rodgriguez, I hope Hendry says, "Keep them. They're too feminine to play any sports in Chicago. When they stop waxing before games, we'll talk."

However, with the way Corey has been going, I'm afraid he is going to end up getting traded sometime soon. maybe this off season. Ihope he can pull it together and show some semblance of being the hitter we all thought he was going to be in 2003. As far as his defense, I don't think anyone has any complaints their.

So Jim, in conclusion, no matter what deal Steinbrenner wans to make, I hope Hendry meets with him, eats something nice and expensive, laughs in his face, and sticks Steiny with the bill.

 
At 2:24 AM, Blogger Jim said...

Lazlo, it's clear you don't know the difference between the pitching rubber and a rosin bag. Steinbegger isn't about to trade A-Rod for anyone on the Cubs team. Well, maybe MVPLee, but that's out of the question.

I figure Steiny will offer a sizeable trade and include paying off Sosa's salary. Don't forget, the Cubs, which means the Tribune Company, which already owns Channel Eleven in New York, is run by a bunch of CPAs, and you know what they are like. Everything is like, "What's the bottom line this quarter?"

Speaking of the Washington Nationals, has it occurred to you that they are a commie organization. I mean its group owned! The whole league owns it. Baseball is supposed to be the epitome of capitalism. That means really wealthy white guys, sitting in executive boxes, high up where they can smoke their cigars in peace while having a bunch of working class types playing out their fantacies on a big green field. When is the major leagues going to put that stock up for sale? Will it be public? Wouldn't it be neat to own a share?

Okay, I'd rather own a share of stock in the Cubs.

 
At 12:49 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Jim-

Obviously my comment about Jeter and Rodriguez was made in jest. Although I still don't want them on our team. All this talk about Steinbrenner and the Yankees is making me irritable though, so I think I switch onto the subject of our east coast commie ball club, the ironically named and located Washington Nationals.

First off, having baseball anywhere near the white house or the capitol building is ridiculous. Those fatcats wouldn't appreciate a good baseball game unless it somehow won them an election. However, I do think it would be interesting if Nationals stock opened up to the public. Cubs fans could buy up all the stock, and then demand that we trade players like Brad Wilkerson, and Livan Hernandez to the Cubs and a low cost. Of course, we might take a hit on our stock prices, but any really committed fan should be willing to do that. On a related note, the tribune company should be willing to take a hit once in a while to keep the Cubs fan base loyal, although that obviously hasn't been an issue over the past 90 years or so.

 

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