July 2010
4 posts
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Would Braves bite on Kosuke?
The now, (thankfully) seldom-used Cubs outfielder was mentioned today in Jay Jaffe’s “Hit & Run” column at Baseball Prospectus (subscription required).
In the piece, which focuses on replacement-level players holding down jobs for contenders, Jaffe identifies Fukudome as an expensive, though viable, center field option for the Braves, who could use an improvement over Nate...
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“I told him, ‘You were just out by so much, I didn’t know what to...”
– Phillies shortstop Jimmy Rollins explaining why he failed to direct teammate Brian Schneider where to slide as Schneider attempted to score the tying run on Placido Polanco’s two-out, ninth-inning single Saturday at Wrigley Field. Schneider was safe at home when Geovany Soto dropped Tyler...
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“Wood, at 5-foot-11 and 163 pounds, looks like a left-handed version of fellow...”
– From Cincinnati Enquirer’s story on the Reds’ 3-2, ten-inning win over the Cubs, Thursday afternoon at Wrigley Field. Reds starter Travis Wood, 23, held the home team to two runs and two hits over seven innings in his Major League debut. The performance was comparable to that of...
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2010 National League Standings from a parallel,...
In a world without the Pittsburgh Pirates, the Cubs would be only four games, rather than ten, below .500, and they would be 5 1/2 games, rather than 9 1/2, behind the division leaders.
Would that it were so. (Though I bet it would still turn my stomach to see Parallel Universe Lou Piniella starting Kosuke Fukudome and Koyie Hill over Tyler Colvin and Geovany Soto.)
Shown: Current NL...
June 2010
14 posts
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“Len Kasper surmised that this was probably the game’s defining moment....”
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From my mini game review of Tuesday night’s Cubs win posted at The Cub Reporter. Funny how the very things that frustrate you about watching a certain player can become sources of immeasurable joy as soon as said player is wearing somebody else’s uniform.
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Triggering a Don Young flashback
Carlos Zambrano’s dugout tantrum at U.S. Cellular Field on Friday afternoon was sickening for most Cub fans to watch, and it was prominent in the baseball headlines yesterday and today. Still, it’s not like the Chicago Cubs don’t have a history with this sort of thing.
On July 8, 1969—yes, that 1969—the Cubs squandered a 3-1, ninth-inning lead at Shea Stadium and lost to the...
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“The Sean Penn of baseball? (Carlos) Zambrano wears his temper on his sleeve....”
– From an article on MLB’s most ill-tempered individuals, written on June 4th of last year, nearly 13 months before the Cubs’ erstwhile staff ace embarrassed himself and his team in front of a packed house at U.S. Cellular Field. Zambrano pitched just one inning in Friday’s 6-0 loss...
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“…after being the point man for that decade of decisive change, the former...”
– From a piece written by Bob Finnegan of the Seattle Times right after Lou Piniella sought and was granted his release from his position as Mariners manager in 2002.
In 10 years as Seattle skipper, Piniella went 840-711 (.542), led the M’s to three division championships, and was twice named...
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Arcane Cub List of the Week: Thrown Overboard in...
In honor of Lou Piniella, who is sounding more and more like a guy who should be looking for a new job—or perhaps, directed to find a new job—here is a list of Cub skippers who have been replaced in-season since 1970.
Noteworthy: only the 1972 move from Leo Durocher to Whitey Lockman saw the team climb in the standings and in only three circumstances did the team’s winning percentage...
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“It’s a game that has to have a strong human element, whether it’s...”
– Jim Hendry, as quoted by Bruce Miles in the Daily Herald, essentially explaining how much he doesn’t care that the team just hired Ari Kaplan as manager of statistical analysis. Kaplan, a former collegiate baseball player at Cal Tech, has been a consultant for “more than half of all...
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Your historically bad, 2010 Chicago Cubs
After taking the field in 14,490 innings without making two errors in any one of those innings, Derrek Lee broke new ground tonight. In the fourth inning of a grotesque 9-5 loss to the Athletics at Wrigley Field, Lee first muffed a ground ball hit by A’s pitcher Trevor Cahill and then, on the very next hitter, failed to close his glove on a toss from shortstop Starlin Castro.
The errors...
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Finding the feebleness
So far this year, as measured by OPS, the Cubs are getting better than league-wide offensive production from their leftfielders, centerfielders, catchers, shortstops and pinch-hitters; the rightfielders, first-basemen, third-basemen, second-basemen, and pitchers just aren’t holding up their ends.
Just as I suspected—it’s those weak-hitting pitchers who have been holding back the...
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“It came as a complete shock. We were hearing second to fifth round.”
– Southern Arkansas righthander Hayden Simpson on being selected by the Cubs with the 16th pick in the 2010 amateur draft. As Simpson acknowledged, his selection came as a surprise to most observers, but as Cubs scouting director Tim Wilken told Cubs.com, “This guy just made sense. [The...
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Cubs suffering from Paulino/Morton Syndrome
Felipe Paulino held the Cubs to one run over eight innings last night to earn the victory in the Astros’ 3-1 win. It was Paulino’s first win of the season after seven defeats.
Paulino doesn’t lead the National League in losses; he’s only tied for third. The current loss leader is the Pirates’ Charlie Morton, who has dropped nine decisions against just one...
“Get this: Garrett Jones hit a homer to right field and a Cubs fan — a...”
– From a summary of the Pirates’ 2-1 win over the Cubs on Monday, in Craig Calcaterra’s daily “And That Happened” post at The Hardball Times.
(For the record, as a Cub fan who HATES the tradition of rejecting opponents’ home-run balls after they’ve landed in the...
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In the Company of Orie, Swisher and Vic Harris:...
For reasons known only to themselves, the Cubs have continued to trot out Aramis Ramirez on a more or less regular basis, though: a.) he is said to be suffering from a lingering and painful bone bruise just beneath his left thumb, and b.) either as a result of the aforementioned injury or other, indeterminate causes, it appears he can no longer hit.
Neither a cortisone injection late last week...
May 2010
17 posts
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“What I’m saying is that being a lifelong Indians fan transcends any of the...”
– From an unforgettable and beautifully crafted piece by Esquire writer and native Clevelander, Scott Raab. The story is an excerpt from “Top of the Order: 25 Writers Pick Their Favorite Baseball Player of All Time,” and recounts an episode in 1970 in which Raab, his brother, and a...
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“The home-field advantage in baseball has to do with a…mundane reason:...”
– From Sean Forman’s post on the nature of home-field advantage at “Keeping Score,” the New York Times baseball blog. Forman’s piece was written well before Dodgers rightfielder Xavier Paul misplayed two balls into a triple and a double + error during the climactic eighth...
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Get this man an invisible dog fence
Extreme measures must be taken to keep Mike Fontenot from assuming a defensive position on the left side of the Chicago Cubs infield. My first thought was a shock collar and one of those invisible fences. All I know is that something must be done.
Case in point:
Filling in Wednesday night for regular third baseman Aramis Ramirez, who is still nursing a bone bruise on his left hand, Fontenot...
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“Like the rest of the team, the Chicago Cubs’ bullpen has largely been a...”
– From a piece written by Joe Sheehan for the Wall Street Journal about Cubs reliever Carlos Marmol. Heading into Tuesday night’s action, Marmol, relying on his knee-collapsing slider, had whiffed 45.8% of the hitters he has faced in 2010. If he sustains that strikeout rate for the rest of the...
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Lee, Ramirez among baseball's "unluckiest hitters"
In a Monday column, ESPN’s Christopher Harris identifies baseball’s most star-crossed batters, based on the discrepancy between their 2010 Batting Average on Balls in Play (BABIP) and their career marks. (The overall Major League average for BABIP is generally around .300).
Aramis Ramirez is the game’s second unluckiest hitter by Harris’s reckoning, with a .183 BABIP...
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It Wasn't Bob's Fault (At Least Not This Time)
I was looking for a photo of Bob Howry to accompany this post about the Cubs’ signing of the ex-former-Cub reliever in time for tonight’s game at Texas. I came across the shot you see here and learned that it was taken on June 21, 2007, during, ironically, the Cubs’ last visit to Arlington.
On that night, the Cubs and Friday night’s starter, Ted Lilly, spotted the...
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He's Good. And He's Ours.
Twelve games does not a career make, however twelve games into his Cub career, Castro has looked good enough to cause disbelief that this 20-year-old position player could actually be a prospect the Cubs selected and have nurtured themselves.
For the record, Castro is now hitting .364 with 1 home run (in his first Major League at-bat), 9 RBI, an OBP of .429, a slugging percentage of .500, and...
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About The Ballhawks
The good news for Wrigley Field’s ballhawks—the guys who plant themselves day after day and night after night on Waveland Avenue waiting to catch a home-run ball launched over the left-field bleachers—is that they are being celebrated in a new documentary entitled, cleverly enough, “Ballhawks.”
The film, directed by Chicagoan Michael Diedrich and narrated by the great Bill...
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Look At The Hole That Aramis Has Dug
Aramis Ramirez got the day off Wednesday when the Cubs defeated the Marlins, 4-3, in the conclusion of their three-game series at Wrigley Field. Tuesday night, Ramirez had gone 0-for-3 with a walk, which caused his season average to plummet to .159. How low is that?
In his six full seasons with the Cubs (2004-09), Ramirez has averaged 131 games played, 150 hits in 495 at-bats (.303), 29 HR and...
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“You wouldn’t think a team could pack so much failure into a simple 4-2...”
– From The Cub Reporter: a summary of Cubs’ 4-2 loss Monday night at Wrigley Field to the Marlins, a game in which Ted Lilly carried a no-hitter into the sixth inning before losing his no-hitter, his shutout, the lead, and ultimately the decision.
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Game #30: Cubs 14, Reds 7, Castro 6
Tonight’s post is actually not dedicated to the 20-year-old shortstop who was summoned early Friday from Double-A Tennessee in time to make his Major League debut for the Cubs tonight in Cincinnati.
Rather, it is dedicated to the MLB or STATS Inc. staffer who unearthed the fact that Castro is the first player ever to collect 6 RBI in his Major League debut. It was the stat that launched a...
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Roberts was a Pitcher for the Ages and Briefly,...
Hall of Fame pitcher Robin Roberts died Thursday at the age of 83.
I have always thought of Roberts as the quintessential Phillie just as I have always thought of Bob Gibson as the quintessential Cardinal. Same for Brooks Robinson as an Oriole.
Unlike Gibson and Robinson, however, Roberts was not a one-team player. After 14 years in Philadelphia, Roberts played in Baltimore, Houston, and...
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“For the 10th time in 11 games when they’ve scored a minimum of four runs,...”
– I didn’t watch a minute of tonight’s loss. Not a single, dismal minute. And yet after reading the game stories, I feel like I have witnessed this very Cub failure many times already in 2010.
(Cubs’ combined record against the Nationals, Reds, Astros, and Pirates, the bottom four...
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Game #27: Pirates 3, Cubs 2
In the aftermath of the Cubs’ loss Tuesday night in Pittsburgh, Lou Piniella said he is thinking about making changes in the middle of the batting order.
Aramis Ramirez, who popped up to Pirates catcher Ryan Doumit for the game’s final out with the potential tying run aboard, is now hitting .149 with a 482 OPS and 26 strikeouts against just 9 walks. He looks anxious and...
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"He might not be worth his contract, but there... →
FanGraph’s Dave Cameron on the Cubs’ Alfonso Soriano and his .400 AVG/.500 OBP/1.100 SLG week.
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Soriano to the Rescue
For the second week in a row, the Cubs put together a Friday-through-Sunday winning streak to salvage what otherwise could have been a disastrous week.
This weekend’s victims were the D-backs, who humiliated the Cubs, 13-5, in the opener of a four-game series on Thursday.
Between Friday and Sunday, however, the Cubs savaged the Arizona pitching staff for 28 runs, and Alfonso Soriano did...
April 2010
36 posts
The State of my Discontent
I didn’t see the first few innings of yesterday’s debacle. By the time I checked in via MLB At Bat, the Cubs were down 3-1 and a couple minutes later, it was 5-1.
After that, I chose to follow the game on Twitter rather than switch on the tv where I would be forced to witness all the grisly details. Like opting to hear updates from the traffic reporter up in the helicopter rather than...
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Game #23: D-backs 13, Cubs 5
With an outbound gale blowing at Wrigley Field Thursday afternoon, Ted Lilly surrendered five fly balls in five innings, and three of them landed in the bleachers, two off the bat of first baseman Adam LaRoche.
By the time Kosuke Fukudome connected for a grand slam in the home eighth, the Cubs were already losing 13-1.
That’s three defeats in a row, and the Cubs already trail the...
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The Cubs as Healers
Unless the word “BREWERS” is scripted across your chest, a series against the Cubs this year appears to promise great things, both in the present and in the games beyond.
The lowly Astros slunk into Chicago the Friday before last, a day after winning their first game of the season. The 1-8 Astros then proceeded to take two of three from the Cubs and subsequently won five of their next...
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Game #22: Nats 3, Cubs 2
From nine hits, four walks, and one opponent error, the Cub offense was able to generate but two runs in the finale of a three-game series with the Nats at Wrigley Field.
In the 5th inning, trailing by a run, the Cubs failed to score after loading the bases with one out.
In the 7th inning, still trailing by a run, the Cubs put men on first and second with none out and failed to score.
In the...
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The Easiest Baseball Trivia Question You'll Get...
The 6-10 Cubs open a three-game series in Milwaukee tonight. The 8-7 Brewers are hot off a three-game sweep of the Pirates, in which they outscored Pittsburgh, 36-1.
Most notably, Thursday’s game, which the Brewers won 20-0, was Milwaukee’s largest shutout victory ever and the second largest shutout in National League history.
Ironically, the team whose mark the Brewers just...
WatchAs seen and enjoyed at Sharapova’s Thigh.
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Insanity Defense
Here’s my take on Lou Piniella’s decision to move Carlos Zambrano into the role of setup man, one which almost everyone seems to be characterizing as pure madness:
It’s triage. A short-term move designed to stop the Cubs’ hemorrhaging of late-inning leads, which has been a major contributing factor to the team’s slow start.
No rational person could believe that...
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After another feeble offensive performance by the...
There's Ugly and There's Cub-Ugly: Mets 6, Cubs 1 →
“There’s nothing illegal about selling customers a product that’s...”
– Stephen Colbert on The Colbert Report (about 6:00 in), asserting the innocence of Goldman Sachs, which was charged with securities fraud by the Securities and Exchange Commission on Friday.
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Game #12: Astros 3, Cubs 2 (10 innings)
Against all odds—okay, maybe against most odds—the Cubs managed to lose a home series to the Houston Astros, who were winless as of this past Thursday and came into Wrigley Field with the lowest team batting average in the National League.
After Ryan Dempster had held the visitors to just one run over 7 2/3 innings, retiring 13 men in a row at one point, Lou Piniella turned the game over...
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Game #11: Astros 4, Cubs 3
Cubs starter Tom Gorzelanny was knocked out of Saturday’s game not by the production of the Astros offense, but by a line drive off the bat of first baseman Pedro Feliz in the third inning. Luckily for the Cubs, the shot hit Gorzelanny in a meaty part of his throwing arm and the injury is nothing more than a contusion.
Still, as a precaution, Gorzelanny was lifted after retiring the...