Rest Day
Lot of work to do today, so this will be brief. It's an off-day for the Cubbies, and pretty much an off-day for me too.
Briefly:
- The Cubs lost the rubber game to the Braves, 3-1. It took a bit of luck on the Braves' part, with Furcal's sharp 7th Inning groundball hit powerfully enough at Lee that he couldn't make the play. 2 runs would score, and Farnsworth reminded us what we're missing by striking out the side in the 9th for his second save of the season.
- Nomar is staying off the DL after convincing everyone he's healthy. He should be in the lineup against the Marlins tomorrow.
- A-Ram left the game in the first fucken inning with a "moderate-to-severe" left quad strain. He hit into a double play and collapsed midway through the gentle trip to 1st base. If anyone thought we might still make the Wild Card, this should put an end to that uncertainty once and for all. We seriously cannot catch a fucken break. After a good game with the Braves and an important series against the Marlins upcoming, we lose our second most potent offensive weapon and everyday quality defensive 3B. So what now? Jose Macias every fucken day on the bag. Ramirez will be reexamined with an MRI on Friday, but the prognosis does not look good.
That's it for today, unless something major comes up. I need to get cracking on work matters, not to mention listening to the cricket on Radio 4 LW in England. Let's win those Ashes, boys, beat the Aussies.
Rest of the Wild Card
Philadelphia 7, San Francisco 4
NY Mets 18, Arizona 4
San Diego 7, Houston 4
Milwaukee 6, Florida 4
Washington 5, Cincinnati 3
Philly keeps winning, Houston has slid a little, and Milwaukee has been pounding the Marlins. It's all positive (except for the Phillies' progress) given that the teams ahead of us are beating each other up, but someone has to chop down Philadelphia. They visit the Mets and Nationals and host the Astros over the next week, and they need to lose a good chunk of those games.
posted by Jim Hendry @ 7:38 AM
8 comments
8 Comments:
We traded for a Yankees prospect? Great. Not that I think Lawton was the best long-term investment, I'm just morally opposed to giving the Yankees didlysquat.
I'm looking forward to see some of the minor leaguers. And I remember watching McClain for the past two or three spring trainings. He's a good hitter in march at least.
Yeah, who knows. Maybe this will be the start of the rookie renaissance that comes to most out-of-contention teams in September.
McClain should provide some good spark, if he gets to see the field, that is. Dusty would have to push a lot of his "guys" out of the way to get to the likes of McClain.
I think we can look forward to seeing some of the younger guys. Lee, Burnitz, and Aramis (though he's out now) have been played constantly. I think that both Lee and Burnitz could use the rest, and obviously Ramirez is just flat out for a while.
Today's game was awful. Maddux isn't going to want to say in Chicago after this year. How can we not get a win when our pitcher gives up only 2 runs in 9 innings? That's bad. Willis is good, but you've got to be able to score runs. 3 runs is possible off any pitcher, if you execute.
Check out the difference in offenses though. No one really jumps out at you on the Marlins as being a great hitter except Cabrera. But Pierre and Castillo make that team offensively. Check out the first. Hit by pitch. Stolen base. Sac bunt. Sac fly. Sounds like the hitless wonders to me. But that's how you get to a good pitcher! Pitchers commit all their time and energy to keeping you from getting a hit, so it tends to throw them off when you find some other way to get on, or some other way to advance, or some other way to score. Granted it takes some creativity, some luck, and specific kinds of talent, but it's do-able.
Someone's got to support our pitchers offensively, playoff bound or otherwise, and D-Lee has been played so much and is pressing so hard that he is slumping. Somebody else needs to hit. Barrett, Burnitz, Hairston, Nomar, Perez, Walker... somebody. Nomar and Barrett did all right today, but someone's got to be on to be driven in too.
Lazlo, I know exactly what you mean. I hope that Maddux does want to stay -- he's doing everything he can but suffering from the same problems as Zambrano (I think I wrote about him at the beginning of the week). They both have their quality starts wasted.
It's beyond a joke, undoubtedly -- and I agree, you can get 2 or 3 off Willis. They have got to stop this 3-0 hacking at the ball to groundout, and start taking hints from opposing teams: use the sacrifice, use the bunts, use the steals, do whatever you must to get guys into scoring position. The only way you can score is by being in scoring position, right?
Sunday: Todd "Joe Hussle" Hollandsworth scores from second on an infield hit.
Wish I could have watched today's game. This team baffles me. We lose two miserable games in a row, then get a ton of runs off of a team, and a starting pitcher, that is supposed to be one of the best in the league, defensively. So how'd it happen?
And another question, how is it our leadoff hitter ends up with 4 RBIs, and only 1 run scored? Something is wrong there... But at least the runs crossed the plate. Can't complain about that. And Zambrano pitched a very good game. If we can get him a couple more wins this season, maybe he won't feel too bad about being ont the team. We really need to keep the young guys with talent happy. Guys like el Toro are not gonna want to stay on the team if the players and the organization don't show an initiative to win.
Cubs Win!
Sorry I haven't checked in lately. Been busy and there's not much hope left in my book. Let's see what the rookies got.
Sorry to hear you missed this one, lazlo. It was a bute, like the very first game of the season, when we all thought the Cubbies were gonna tear through the league this year.
El Toro hitting a stand up triple and mowin' 'em down at the plate, MV-Lee blasting them onto the street, even our catcher batting in the eight hole driving in runs. The team looked like the team we thought they could be today.
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