Category: Cubs

Edmonds belts two, Blanco puts the icing on the cake against Cards

A few friends from work went up to Chicago to catch the Cub-Cardinal game today.  Thanks to Rich, who is a gracious Cardinal fan by the way, who sent me some photos of the game.

Before the game, a member of the US Navy Seals Leap frog team parachuted into Wrigley Field:

navysealsatwrigley

I only listened to the game but from my vantage point, I don’t think they could have chosen a better game to see.  A pitcher’s duel with a tie game with both starters (Looper and Lilly) allowing two runs each after seven runs.  Rich had told me earlier that he was concerned about the Cardinals bullpen but all things considered they didn’t do ALL bad.  That is, till Franklin got to the 11th.

wrigleyvscards

The stories of the game from a Cub perspective?

Of course, the bases loaded walk-off single from unlikely suspect Henry Blanco.  To be fair, Blanco is hitting .300 in limited play. 

Jim Edmonds was 0-7 against his former team, the Cardinals.  He seemed to have made up for lost time today with two solo shots and was literally all the Cubs offense for the first 10 innings.  And he seemed to be having fun:

Edmonds appeared to enjoy his first homer Friday, pausing at the plate momentarily to watch it take off before rounding the bases.

Maybe more surprising, the Cubs handing the ball to Bob Howry with a tie ball game.  Bob Howry and his 5+ ERA.  But Howry got the job done, pitching a perfect 11th with 2 strikeouts to get the win. 

One down, two to go. 

Go Cubs!

Elvis makes appearance at Wrigley during rain delay

During the 2 hour 45 minute rain delay (quite a bad storm from all reports), a man dressed as Elvis used the Wrigley Field tarp as his own personal "Slip and Slide". 

elvis

It WAS 70s night at Wrigley Monday so I guess it wasn’t too surprising to see the Elvis impersonator.  But I bet the security guards were a little surprised to see him come on field like that. 

You have to wonder once it was all over, did he think it was all worth it for his 15 minutes of fame?  Still, with the weather the way it was and the Cubs losing to the Astros 2-0, there wasn’t much else cheering about.

(h/t Deadspin)

Patterson at the bottom

Andy from Stat of the Day is probably stating the obvious but claims that Corey Patterson is an “awful” player at least when it comes to offense.  Among players with 200+ at-bats, He ranks last in batting average (.183 to second place Eric Byrnes’ .209) and ranks last in OBP (a paltry .216 to Kenji Johjima’s .252, a .32 difference).

The Cubs traded him in January ’06 after a miserable 2005 campaign not much better than this year’s (.215/.254/.348).  In the two years in Baltimore, Patterson picked it up slightly, hitting .276 and .269 and even managing to steal a combined 83 bases.  Of course, knowing us Cub fans, we wondered if it was a management issue then.

Looks like Corey is back to his old ways again.

Newcomer Karstens has Cubs number

The Cubs may have won four straight against the tough Milwaukee Brewers but couldn’t handle the last place Pirates today. 

Is this how it’s going to be the rest of the season?  Surely, if we can take on big shots like Sabathia and Sheets, we can beat uhhh, Jeff Karstens??  Who is Jeff Karstens? 

Karstens pitched his NL debut against the Cubs today and well, he showed some good stuff.  He spread out five hits in six innings and didn’t allow a run for the win.  Karstens is a Yankee product who was drafted in 2003 out of Texas Tech.  In the past two years, he’s only pitched fifteen games (9 starts).  In that small sample, his numbers were unimpressive but he’s had some decent stats in the minors.  Most particularly in 2007 when he combined for a 5-0 record, a 1.49 ERA and 47 Ks in 48 plus innings.

That said, one game is one game and I hate to say it but the Cubs have a tendency to have problems with newcomer pitchers.  Maybe that’s why we’ve done not so good with Pittsburgh in the last two years. 

Go Cubs!

Questions for the Cubs

Cubs No doubt the Cubs needed to do well against the Brewers this week to show they were serious about taking the NL Central.  Well, they were up to the task and swept the Brew Crew all four games including two against two of top pitchers in the National League. 

Now that’s over, a couple questions come to mind that the Cubs themselves are probably asking themselves right now as they prepare for the homestretch. 

1.  The Cubs have just won four in a row against the Brewers at Milwaukee.  Can they compound upon that success and continue to win on the road?  Up until that series, they had a pretty miserable 21-30 record on the road.  Pretty bad considering they had the best record in the NL.

2.  Along the same lines, can Ryan Dempster continue HIS recent winning ways on the road.  He’s won two games all year away from Wrigley all year.  Fortunately, they’ve both been in the last two weeks and hopefully signal a trend. 

3.  Is Alfonso Soriano back and healthy?  His post-DL production seem to indicate so.  Since coming back, Soriano is fire.  He’s batted .343 with an OPS of 1.000.  Now if we can only keep him healthy. 

4.  Can the Cubs keep from overusing Carlos Marmol?  With the addition of Chad Gaudin and now Jeff Samardzija (who I assume is getting a trial in the bigs), the load will be lessened but Piniella will still need to resist the urge to use Marmol as the go-to guy.  When the game is tight, it makes sense.  But there’s no need to wear him out by pitching him in 6-1 ballgames.  For evidence, just look at his performances just before the All-Star break. 

5.  Finally, the coming of August brings a shift in the schedule which prompts the question, Can the Cubs beat the East Division.  They handled the West just fine, thank you with a 23-10 record.  But in August, the East Division is a-comin’ interspersed with the usual suspects in the Central. 

6.  And speaking of that brings us to my last point.  Will the Cubs dominate the Cardinals like they have in previous years?  So far, they are 3-3 against the Redbirds.  In 2006 and 2007, the Cubs have handled them well with a decent 22-13 record combined.  Despite what logic tells us, St Louis isn’t going away (yet) and they still need to be dealt with.  With two Chicago-St Louis series in August (one home and one away), this is the time to do it.

Go Cubs!

Gonzo trades some leather with a fan

Outfielder Luis Gonzalez played for the Cubs for only a year and a half but that was long enough to establish a tradition that he plans to re-establish today. 

Back when Gonzo played left field for the Cubs, he and 50 year-old fan Gary Stromquist, whose seat was out in the left field bleachers, would trade gloves every year. 

This year Gonzalez will be playing right field but he’ll make the effort to meet with Stromquist.  Stromquist, otherwise known as "Loudmouth Gary" had some kind words for Gonzalez.  From an article on the ChiTrib:

"Gonzo is like the milkman or the mailman or your school teacher," he said. "He’s the nicest guy on the face of the earth."

In other news, Luis Gonzalez is actually playing right field.

Cubs: again with the "not winning on the road" thing

I had hoped the All-Star break would have done the Cubs some good.  More than a couple Cub fans had commented to me on how “tired” the Cubs had looked before the break.  In particular, Carlos Marmol who almost didn’t look like he didn’t want to be out there pitching. 

Fast forward to after the break.  It looks like the Cubs still need to learn how to win on the road.  As of this writing, they’ve lost two at Minute Maid Park.  As good as the Cubs’ overall record is (57-40), their 20-28 away record is abysmal.  Without taking the time to compare, I’m sure their +.329 home/away differential is the highest in the league. 

Like I’ve been telling anyone who would listen, even if they do make playoffs with such a record, let’s face it; Roughly half (more now after the All-Star Game loss) will be on the road.  The Cubs will need to learn to become road warriors. 

Other Notes from Wrigley:

Friday’s 2-1 wasted effort of Ted Lilly’s fine seven inning performance makes the Cubs dead even (15-15) in one-run games.  Among NL Central teams, only Houston has a losing record in that category (yes, baseball fans, that includes Pittsburgh).

Also, it looks like we got Chad Gaudin just in time.  Not only is Jon Lieber headed to the disabled list with a sore right foot but now there’s talk of putting Kerry Wood to the DL, too.  Wood’s got’s a blister on his right index finger.  So sayeth Skipper Lou:

“We’ll miss a week [that way], it might not be a week.  We’ve got a fresh pitching staff, why for three or four days take that chance? If we had a real tired pitching staff or we had some injuries, it’s a different story. Right now, the decision’s been made to ride it out a little bit longer. And if we have to [DL him] we will.”

Wood hasn’t pitched since mid-July so the move would be retroactive. 

Finally, an article from yesterday’ Chicago Trib on a firm who has made a “firm offer” for Wrigley Field.

Baseball Zealot Radio: Trade Talk and All Star Jabbering

Pirate fan and resident umpire Todd V and I recorded show 45 for Baseball Zealot Radio.

We analyze the two big trades in the NL Central, Harden and the big guy before critiquing the voters’ choices in the All-Star balloting.

It’s been a while since we’ve done an honest-to-goodness roundtable so the two of us took a look at the MLB division-by-division pinpointing the big surprises of the 2008 season so far.

Length: 41:26

Date Recorded: 7/14/08

Listen to Episode 45 Listen to the show via iTunes!
Listen to other Baseball Zealot Radio episodes BZR Podcast Feed

Welcome to the NL, Mr Harden!

Glad to have you onboard the World Series Express.  Cubs win 8-7 against the Giants.  Three points I’d like to make. 

1.  There are three numbers that sum up Harden’s first appearance for the Cubs. 

0

Zero runs given up.  He did spread out five hits and three walks but none reached home plate.  Awesome job. 

10

Ten strikeouts, an impressive performance. 

5 1/3

The number of innings pitched.  Harden’s pitch count was still 96.  That’s the important one.  Piniella knows not to stretch him

2.  Carlos Marmol.  Our trusty righty from the pen blew up and allowed five runs to almost lose the game (and certainly take the well-deserved win from Harden).  Do I fault Marmol?  Not necessarily.  Piniella needs to use him less, plain and simple.  Pick and choose the spots where he best suited, Lou.    He’s getting worn out. 

3.  My last point… Jim Edmonds hit his 10 homer of the year.   I only bring this up because the day I did a writeup on Edmonds, I got a text message from DonS that simply said, “He’s still a punk”.  It took me a half a minute for me to actually get who he was referring. 

The linescore for Diamond Jim today:  2 for 4, 2B, HR, 2 runs and 4 rbis. 

My kinda “punk.  DonS was actually referring to A-Rod in his text message. 

Update:  Looks like the some of the guys they got did pretty well, too.