Friday, May 5

Let's Recap...


What the hell is going on?



Tonight was another miserable one in AZ. We dropped our second in a row to the snakes and we've lost five out of our last six. I'll focus on our mini-series in the desert though, as it is particularly despressing.

First of all, we were outscored 11-1 in these two games. Our inability to bring runners home was taken to a new extreme in this series. In all, we left 22 (twenty-two!!) on base. Our only run was WALKED IN. Who drew the walk? Maddux. I don't get it either...guess it was some kind of fluke or mecry run. Anyway, I cannot remember a time that our offense has struggled like this. Arguably, our two most productive players at the plate are rookies. Probably the biggest disappointment is Ramirez. No longer can we blame the strained ass muscle (you thought I forgot didn't you?). He's not seeing the ball (tonight he literally struck out w/o swinging the bat once), he looks uncomfortable and it doesn't matter if you have him hit 3rd or 8th, he's in a deep funk. Then there's Juan. Granted, he did go 3-4 tonight. Let's take away one of those hits because got picked off. Maybe I should take two since the catcher picked him. Anyway, he's batting a paltry .250 with an OBP under .300. Great lead off guy. I'll admit that when we signed him I was giddy. I thought we finally had locked up a solid lead off guy and that was at least one spot in the line up where we wouldn't have to worry. Wrong, as optimistic cub fans almost always are.

How about our pitching over the past two? Well, Maddux picked up his first loss of the season and Hill's debut start lasted all of four innings. The bullpen managed to put up a few scoreless innings including Ohman and Rusch throwing two each. What's up with those two? They can't hold it down when we have a lead or if it's a close game? But if there's a 4-5 deficit then they have no problem putting up goose eggs? Too much pressure? Regardless, I could do without either of them.

Enough, we're out of AZ for the year and heading into San Diego for the weekend. I already have tickets for saturday and sunday and I'm ready to see one of two trends break. The Padres have been horrible at home this year (4-11) and the cubs have looked horrible over the past few games. Hopefully the latter will change and the Padres can roll to a 4-15 home record.

4 Comments:

At 12:34 PM, Blogger Jim Hendry said...

Great picture.

I am equally upset. Hill looked like he was throwing marshmallows at wiffle ball bats last night.

 
At 1:58 PM, Blogger Jim said...

Don't expect the Pads to keep losing at their own ball park. The laws of averages will turn that around somewhat, and the Cubs have become the team to help them do it. Currently, they are a far worse team than any other in the majors.

Ramirez doesn't appear to be the guy to put the team on his back and carry it, and Walker has been hitting balls directly at people of late.

I like Murton and think he'll be a good player, but he's no Al Kaline, who won a batting title when he was younger than Murt and put the Tigers on his back at an early age and carried them through a number of years when they had a very sub par team.

I like Cedeno too and think he'll be an all star short stop at some point, but he's no Ernie Banks, who set a home run record for short stops as well as a fielding record, both of which stood up for years, and won two MVP awards while playing on Cubs teams that couldn't break the .500 mark.

I've got to admire Walker a whole lot. Everybody wanted to trade him off, and he didn't get down on the team. He was led to believe he'd be the regular first baseman, and management messed with him over that. Then they asked him to play first, and he continued to hit and to field the position reasonably well, although he lacked experience. This guy's a pro all the way.If he can pull himself out of his recent mini slump, the team will score some runs, but he's not the kind of hitter who can put the team on his back.

 
At 2:01 PM, Blogger Jim Hendry said...

Jim --

who will be our saviors? who will save us??


OH, funny link to a story about everyone's favourite SoCal wussbag, Mark Prior:

http://www.rivalfish.com/rivalroom/2006/05/mark-prior-tender-cha-cha.html

 
At 4:35 PM, Blogger Jim said...

Gen. Lee was waiting for Jeb Stuart to show up at Getteysburg. If Stuart and his cavelry had shown up for the battle, he quite possibly could have changed the course of events at that critical moment in history. But Stuart had ignored his general's orders and was off doing other things and never arrived in time. Lee's army was broken beyond repair after that and was never able to seriously threaten the north again. The old south's demise became just a matter of time.

What's that got to do with baseball? Ask Gen. Doubleday. It beats the hell out of me.

 

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