Category: chicago national league ball club

Game 2: Dodgers 10 – Cubs 3

Dodgers 2-0

POTG: the crowd. For all that’s been said about the game 1 fans and the reasons they were as quiet as they were, the people who showed up for this game decided things were going to change. They were going to cheer, they were going to cheer more, and they were going to start a Go Cubs Go chant on top of that. They gave a standing ovation to a pitcher coming out down 6-0! They stayed and cheered in the bottom of the ninth, treating a 9 run lead like it was 1. Yea, there was moments of mock cheering and booing (like every Fukudome at bat), but these fans were far more into the game than you’d expect from any crowd in this situation. If the difference between winning and losing was coming down cheering, the Cubs were not going to lose.

Unfortunately, the different was about eight million times bigger than that.

(Far away from where anyone could hear me, I got up after the bottom of the 8th and left to go home. I couldn’t take it a minute more and have no idea how I’ll cope with hearing about it all tommorow except going in to total shut down mode. It’s fun to care about a baseball team!)

(and I did flip the radio about 30 minutes later, just to be sure, and in time to hear Pie get his walk. It went downhill from there.)

I was talking about this before the game – in isolation of any other factors, I think the Cubs are favorites in a Harden/Kuroda matchup, and I think the Cubs are favorites in a Lilly/Maddux matchup. (Not sure we’re getting it, with Maddux warming up in the pen again today, but that’s the idea.) The problem is this is far from isolation from outside factors.

The best thing is the Cubs getting the heck out of Chicago. They ought to fly out right this moment, and not stay here a day longer. The sun will rise tommorow, and it’ll shine on a very angry, bitter city and it won’t help them to get caught up in that.

I hope, one month from now, we’re still talking about what crazy thing the Cubs did to stop being so tight, sparking a humongous turnaround. Hope’s all I’ve got left

and even more

I think I may be getting excited for this. Hard to tell, what with more posts in three hours than in some three week stretches.

– I hate doing predictions, because they’re so useless and no one really cares about them, they just care about what actually happens. But I think the Phillies are a deeper team than the Brewers (Gallardo is unhuman for coming back this soon and is going to be lots of trouble for the years to come, but it’s a lot to ask him here, and I don’t trust another Brewers pitcher not named CC), I think the White Sox exhausted themselves to make it this far and the Rays will end them (last person on the bandwagon, I know) and the Red Sox/Angels is way too hard to call with the Red Sox injuries and the Angels being on cruise control all year. Anything could happen there and I wouldn’t be surprised.

– the Ramirez/Fukudome “there’s only one October” commerical? hilariously hilarious. The Cubs have to win the World Series so I can see that all month. Does Aramais really use a Macbook. I’d think he’d want something with more RAM.

yea, that was horrible.

– it’s going to be SO COLD. 50s and 40s, for the first time since fall. I don’t know what it’s going to be like when it’s 10PM in Game 2, but it’ll be a factor.

– bigger factor: Felix Pie making the roster instead of Micah.

I think this means Fukudome’s starting, someone’s going to pinch hit for him if they need it, and Pie’s there to take his spot (or take CF with Reed moving over.)Now I’ve got it.If DeRosa could go, they’d just use Fukudome for defense, so Mark’s not doing too well. Maybe he can update us on his (better than I was expecting) MLB blog!

DeRosa’s injury is surely worse than they’ve been letting on. I don’t blame them for not giving out info, because it’s the right stragey, but it makes me worry other injuries (Soto) might not be as minor either.

This is all just setting the stage for Mike Fontenot to take over the playoffs and steal the hearts of a nation. I can’t wait.

– WGNRadio.com used have a link to a special radio player which had an adjustable buffer allowing you to match the delay on the TV. Watching the game with the radio doesn’t work as well nowadays with the dump delays, and my TiVo adds another couple seconds at times. I really wish I had the device or knew what it was called, because I’d so prefer to here Pat & Ron over Dick Stockton (bad again last night.) I’d even take the ESPN radio crew over what they’ve been doing on TV.

I won’t be able to watch the early portion of today’s Phillies/Brewers game, but that’s fine – between GameDay Audio and 620 from Milwaukee coming in pretty clear here, I’ll be all set.

the obligatory playoff preview

I’m with the those who say playoff baseball is as much random chance as anything else. I don’t believe it takes anything away from the champions, because everyone has a chance to the rules of the game before they play it, but it’s different enough from the regular season that you shouldn’t be surprised when the team that struggles to make it in the playoffs succeeds or the one with the great record falls, and quick.

For most of the second half of this season, I’ve been worried about the Cubs being the latter. The 2008 Cubs regular season was the best in my lifetime; they surpassed the ’84 Cubs sometime in August, and the other teams aren’t close. As much as I enjoyed that, I kept thinking back to another Lou team, the 2001 Marniers, and how it all came crashing down in a blink of an eye. Regular season success doesn’t guarantee you anything.

Most Wins, NL
2007: 90 (Colorado, Arizona)
2006: 97 (Mets)
2005: 100 (St. Louis)
2004: 105 (St. Louis)
2003: 101 (Atlanta)
2002: 101 (Atlanta)
2001: 93 (Houston)
2000: 97 (San Francisco)
1999: 103 (Atlanta)
1998: 106 (Atlanta)

In the previous ten years, only the 99 Braves, the 04 Cardinals and the 07 Rockies made it to the World Series. Accounting for last year’s tie, there was a 27.5% random chance the best team makes it out the NL. 30% did, which doesn’t say much for being the best team.

I’ve had these numbers in the back of my head for a few months, and visions of Webb, Haren and RJ shutting the Cubs down just as easily as last year. Thankfully, Arizona took care of themselves so the Cubs wouldn’t have to try, but that doens’t mean I’m not fearful of being crushed even harder this year.

At least I was, until the series in Milwaukee against Houston. The Astros had plenty of excuses (some valid) for their performance, but the way the Cubs absolutely crushed them while breaking away from the division. They Cubs were so dominant when they need to be, they seem significantly better than the rest of the NL teams. The Brewers and the Phillies had to fight to make it in the last week and the Dodgers would’ve been fifth in the NL Central. The Cubs are a step ahead, a big enough step to outweigh the numbers.

Maybe even a big enough step ahead to avoid all the expecations, all the hype (each paper will have a story a day about a possible Chicago/Chicago World series, and it’ll be five stories if they make it to the LCSs) and everyone trying to capitalize and monetize the Cubs success. I love baseball, I love the Cubs, but I know I’m going to hate a billion things going on around it the next three months.

—-

Look, a break. Like this thing is coherent or focused at all.

1: Dempster vs Lowe

Derek Lowe’s line for the last 7 games:

44.1 IP
27 H
4 R
8 BB
27 K
0.81 ERA

If the Cubs can steal this game, this series is going to be a rout. It turns to the Cubs advantage for Game 2-4, but this as tough a start as the Cubs are going to get.

Game 157: Cubs 9 – Mets 6 (10)

box
Cubs 96-61
Mets 87-71

POTG: 3B A Ram (2 R, 2 H, 2 RBI, 3 BB, HR)
very close: RP Cotts (1.1 IP, BB, 3 K, 0 R, 0 H, 2 marooned)
Runner Up: LF Soriano (2 H, 2B, RBI, BB), SS Ryan Theriot (3 H, 2 R, SB, still over 300), B D Lee (2B, 2 R, RBI, 3 BB), RF DeRosa (2 H, 3 RBI, HR), CF-LF Johnson (2 H, RBI), C Blanco (2 H)

That was the one of the best games of the season, even if you only picked up right before Z was pulled out of the rotation. Big scores and comebacks and the other team making comebacks and relievers walking tight wires and living to tell the tale. Of course, it was completely meaningless for the Cubs and there might be 20 people besides myself who watched the game in Chicago (there’s a rumor there was a slightly more vital game), but it still was pretty great.

A completely crushing loss for the Mets. FanGraphs has them peaking at 91.1% win chance before the Cubs started there rally back from 5-1 and a 93.% after Murphy’s triple to lead off the 9th. The Mets had runs on 1st and 3rd with no outs in the 7th, 1st and 3rd with no outs in the 8th, and 3rd with no outs in the 9th and scored all of 1 run. And that’s Keith Hart, Jeff Samardzija and Bobby Howry, not guys who’ve been lightning the world on fire.

This doesn’t make up for 1969, but this sure is some good vengence for 2004 and the Victor Diaz game. Hopefully Harden kills them tommorow (or they continue comitting suicide), and then they burn Shea to the ground.

not too worried

It’s easier to say it after a win (and big exhale when Pie caught the last ball, far short of the wall than it looked off the bat) but I haven’t been too worried about the Cubs the last few games then iI was earlier in the bad streak.

– It wasn’t a good play by Cedeno on Sunday, but it was a tough bounce and Cedeno ws responsible for the lead being there anyway so it’s hard to fault him much
– Tuesday’s was bad luck; it wasn’t as though the Cardinals were really great and the Cubs were really bad, St. Louis was just a little better that game. It just sticks out more when it’s preceded by a lot of losses.

Marquis’ been pitching pretty good, Dempster’s been fine, Lilly piched great last night, and hopefully Harden and Z come back right where they left off. There’s a missing likn out in the bullpen, with Gaudin being out indefinitely and Jeff Samardzija has been figured out a bit by the hitters, and I’m not sure how they’ll fix that yet, but the hitting has been good enough that I figure it’ll come back around soon or later.

Most of all, it’s hard to get really concerned when everyone else seems to playing as badly. The Cubs probably could’ve clinched by next Tuesday if they had played decent, but they’re still well ahead in the only race that matters (getting any playoff birth, 8.5 GA) All they’re losing is a few extra games of irrelevance at the end of the season, not the end of the world. You don’t have to be hot going into the playoffs, you’ve just to get in.

Hopefully this hurricane doesn’t strain things, and the Cubs get a chance to lengthen that lead over the Astros.

* – everyone saying Houston’s made the right choices to go trade for a race after all are way too quick on the trigger. They’ve been as hot as possible to get this far, but they’re still five games out. If they win the wildcard, then they’ve done something worth congrulating. If they’ve don’t, they’ve made the cardinal mistake of paying high costs to finish out of the playoffs. Your franchise goal shouldn’t be “finishing a strong third”, because then you’re missing the point.

the startling, scary truth

thru 118 team games, AVG/OBP/SLG (OPS)

Player L: 269/369/399 (768)
Player H: 277/313/482 (795)

Player L can be quickly identified as the beloved Kosuke Fukodome. He’s still credited for walking 10% of the time, but it’s more like 7% in the last couple months.

Who’s Player H?

Continue reading “the startling, scary truth”

i hold in my brain the anti-win formula

So far this year
Cougars record in games I’ve gone to and kept track: 2-8
Cougars record in all other games: 57-47

On the upside, I can now repeat the speech from Animal House in my sleep.

I have playoff tickets, but I might support the team better by staying away at this point.  I’ve got at least 2 more regular season games to fix things.

Other trend: the last 2 Cubs games I’ve gone to have ended in horrible rainstoms. I bring this up because I’ll be in the bleachers on Saturday afternoon. There’s isolated thunderstorms in the forecast.

07/29: Cougars vs Peoria @ Wrigley

Took long enough to write this. I found myself standing around Wrigley again, which is sure enough time to get started. Too late for a narrative, but maybe bullet points. There’s tons of photos on flickr too.

1) The neighborhood itself was taking the day off. My usual parking place was unstaffed, and I got stuck at a place that boxes me in instead. The bars and the atmosphere felt different too…

2) but maybe that’s because the crowd was different too. Lots more families, less 20/30s singles like at a usual Cubs game. It was very similar to what you’d get at a normal minor league game, just a lot more of it.

3) 32,000 people was shocking. I was thinking they’d be happy with 20,000, but they ended up being six ML games (I think). It being in Wrigley and being a novelty were contributing reasons, but not one of the biggest. The much discounted ticket prices were one – $5 upper deck ticket is old school. Like old times, those seats weren’t even filled, but that’s because the main level seats were so much cheaper than usual that people just grabbed them before the upper deck went on sale. The main level and the bleachers seemed about 95% full (the obstructed sections of the 200s might have not been sold), and most of the empty seats were upstairs.

4) The second biggest reason for the tickets was Ryne Sandburg, who’s still very beloved. More than any player or either team, Sandburg was the guy most people came to see, and the number on the most Jerseys. Sandburg’s probably the reason the game happened – he does National City bank ads all the time, and they were the big sponsor for the show. The early plan was to rotate the game with all the minor league teams. Iowa will probably work out pretty well, but I don’t about everyone else.

5) My seat was right behind the Cougars bullpen bench. Always fun when you can sneak down that far, and watch the players with people. Usually, only a couple guys sit in the pen early on and the relievers who might be used wander down during the early inning. In Wrigley, every pitcher on the team was hanging out there.

6) When the Cougars were warming up, I looking at the uniforms and was surprised to see they got new ones for this game. (Unlike pretty much every other team, the A’s give the players A’s jackets so they can keep wearing them at every level, instead of Cougars gear.) It took me about five minutes to realized the uniforms looked new because this was a ROAD game and they were wearing their ROAD uniforms and I still haven’t gone to see them at a visitor’s park this year. Duh

7) The Peoria Firedog is dumb. Why is the mascot for the Cheifs a fire fighting dog, anyway?

8) I don’t have many thoughts about the game. I was hoping that since it was a major league park, they’d do something crazy like give out the lineups before the game. No. (They were better about pitchers changes than the Cougars game.) This was the first time I saw fantastic new draftee Jemilee Weeks, and sliding into first and getting hurt wasn’t the greatest impression. Paramore has some power but I don’t if he’s going to hit for average. Richard seems to get all of his hits when I’m not at the game. It was a pretty fine hitting day because of the conditions and it showed on the scoreboard.

Leonardo Espinal is my favorite guy on the whole team. I’m not sure he’s the best player, but he’s the best guy.

The only scores they had on the scoreboard were this game, and the Milwaukee game. Every time a number went up on the board, or people checked their phones and heard something good happened, the crowd cheered louder than anything for the game they were actually watching.

9) It started to sprinkle in the middle innings, but it never got more than an occasional drop and I thought we might have missed it. The game just took long. It started raining decently in the bottom of the 9th, they tried to play thru it only because it looked like the Chiefs might just end it and solve the problem for them, but the Cougars held on just long enough (perhaps stalling a little bit on purpose) and the skies just opened up and unloaded on all of us on once. It was the worst storm I’ve seen at a ballpark*

Like everyone else who was exposed to the elements, I rushed towards the interior of the stadium. 30,000 people crammed into the concourse, trying to get away from the seats but just as disinterested at getting all the way out of the stadium. It wasn’t a soccer crushing situation, but you couldn’t really move without forcing your way thru people, and you couldn’t do much else but stand and wait.

I waited about 10 minutes, killed time writing stressed out text messages (crowd aren’t my thing.) I had promised to meet Mike at his apartment to exchange tickets* and pretty much needed to do it. Once I could no longer stand anymore standing around, I slipped my way to the exit, opened my small umbrella and made a run for it.

My umbrella quickly broke, bent in the wind. And also, I kinda started walking towards Mike’s old place, maybe a half mile west of where he actually was. On the upside, I got plenty of practice wearing my new bluetooth headset when I got directions.

The rain stopped by the time I left to walk all the way back to Wrigley for my car, and my car was no longer boxed in, so it worked out in the end. Except for that non-finish thing.

* Since then, I’ve been back to Wrigley on Monday (08/04) and that storm beat this easily. This time, I was seated underneath the upper deck and we were all willing to sit out the rain delay for at least a while. We were still feeling okay when they told everyone to seek shelter, because we felt pretty safe. Then the tornado sirens went off, possibly for the first non-test ever at Wrigley, and no one much felt safe.

Again, I was stuck on the concourse, packed in with people watching a storm blow by. This time was worse. The storm was so bad, the wind took driving rain and made it go horizontal. (Which made it a good thing we left our seats, because nothing was protecting people from that.) And the concourse waiting was worse too; because the rain happened before the 6th, beer vendors were free to keep on selling, and they had no issues with getting people hot, confined and on nerve very drunk too. It was so dumb.

I got to the park way early (another story that I’ll skip) and I had gone to IHoP for dinner. Everyone else had just gotten from work and didn’t want ballpark food, so the plan was to go to a place around Wrigley after the game for an actual meal. We decided we might as well go now, rather than wait out a game that didn’t look like it was restarting and tried to time it with a down moment with the storm. The idea was great, but the storm kicked up again once we battled thru to the exit and I had no umbrella (because it’s still broke and unreplaced.) But dinner was good and it was finally sane outside when we were done.

I was just about home when the game picked up. It looked like it was going to restart at some point when I passed it again on the way to my car – amusingly, some ushers were stopping people from coming back in, but you could walk around to another side and be welcomed back with a problem – but I was still surprised it actually happened. Given that they only lasted about 40 minutes before being stopped (and for good) again, I’m not sure why they bothered.

I took Lake Shore on the way home. Lightning over the city and the lake is awesome to see, but it would’ve been better if people were not slowing down to watch it.

** Mike had to give me a ticket for the Fire/Everton game the next day, and I thought enough to give him my new camera so I didn’t have to carry it around in any more rain. I had planned to take more pictures at THAT game, but Mike didn’t think to bring the camera into the stadium, and so I didn’t get it back until later.

short: The Fire’s stadium’s really nice, it was a fun game, and I’d totally go back.

Game 71 to Game 95

Yea, I’m not doing 22 entires. Wanting to talk about a game, not being able to talk about beacuse there are a dozen entries left to go, and forgetting about what you wanted to say when it finally comes up is awful lame. So I’m going to go lightning round on these, and start fresh tommorow.

re: throwback day – didn’t actually SEE much of it. My experience was mostly listening on the radio, and hearing Santo complain frequently about the lack of replays (he can’t identify pretty much anything on the original play, it seems) and the overall setup. Ron was quite not a fan.

I did get home just in time to see Len do the Brickhouse HR call, which he was so excited about (and I’m probably good with missing him talking about it for three hours prior.) I did have time on that day to go back and watch a little bit of the early innings, and the 1st (or 3rd?) base camera angle for pitches was…well, you can easily tell why everyone uses the CF camera nowadays. Even if it wasn’t disorienting, it wasn’t very good.

71: Cubs 2 – Rays 3
POTG: SS The Riot (H, BB, RBI)
note: this is actually one of the more memorable plays. Consensus is Reed made a good call by trying to for the game tying squeeze bunt with 2 outs in the 9th, because it was placed just right, but Longoria was moving in the right direction and made a great play.

72: Cubs 4 – Rays 5
POTG: C Soto (HR, 2B, injury spotting)
note: this was the “oh crap, Z’s hurt” game. Luckily, it turned out to be a vacation.

73: Cubs 3 – Rays 8
POTG: SP Sean Gallagher (6 IP, 4 H, 1 R, 0 ER, 2 BB, 3 K)
note: the night it went bad for Marmol. It kinda snuck up, because it wasn’t really like a switch came on – Marmol’s been especially wild for the month before, and you can’t be too concerned when he walks guys because he usually does that and still gets out of it. Not so much here, though it’s worth nothing it was Eyre who came in and gave up the grand slam. And everyone was still chalking Marmol up to one bad night.

Despite the sweep, I still didn’t believe in the Rays. I just don’t expect their pitching to hold up. We’ll see how wrong I am.

74: White Sox 3 – Cubs 4
POTG: 3B A Ram (2 HR)
notes: for all the vaunted White Sox bullpen, Dotel and Linebrink took it on the chin here. Ted Lilly giving up multiple home runs on even slightly home games is becoming very old hat. Howry got a huge out late.

75: White Sox 7 – Cubs 11
POTG: CF Jim Edmonds (2 HR, BB)
name: this was the utterly ridiculous 4th inning, where almost everyone scored a run. Soto got 2 of the outs, so Edmonds picked him up with 2 HRs. It was unbelievable to listen to, and hear two back to back home runs in one inning. It got closer than it should’ve been before the end, but I was pretty okay with Wood picking out the 1 out save for fantasy baseball purposes.

76: White Sox 1 – Cubs 7
POTG: LF Eric Patterson (HR, 2 H, 3 R, 2 BB, CS)
Note: E-Pat is very slightly past Dempster, who held the White Sox in check despite giving up double digit hits. It very much helped that Javi Vazquez is more than willing to pitch himself out of ballgames, and that this Cubs teams are more than happy to take any walks they can get. This one was easily over early.

77: Orioles 7 – Cubs 5
POTG: CF Edmonds (HR, 3 RBI)
Note: I was at this game! In the second to last row! It was still a decent seat, and a much better game than it seemed it was going to be for quite a while. When it’s 7-1, you start hatching escape plans to avoid the traffic, but this Cubs team scores as many runs in late innings as any I could remember, and it seems very very likely the Cubs were going to make one more crazy comeback at home. (Win Expectancy actually had them as 51/41 favorites when Ronny Cedeno came in, despite being down two runs. Bases loaded and two out helps.) Cedeno, Fukudome and Blanco are not the most intimidating threesome ever, but I could better believe Sherrill on the All Star team after he struck out all three on 11 pitches.

Not as crushing as trying to get of the parking lot after game. People driving crazy to sneak in line caused a car to bump mine from behind. I couldn’t actually get out to check, so it wasn’t the most fun ride home. When I got a chance to look, I couldn’t even find a mark. YAY BUMPERS.

78: Orioles 4 – Cubs 7
POTG: C Soto (2 H, 3 RBI)
notes: you probably should be winning any game the starting pitcher goes 1/3rd of an inning before leaving for major surgery. The Cubs didn’t do much after the Orioles moved on from the first reliever, Cormier, but they did all they needed to. Another home run by Edmonds, now making Hendry looking like the smartest GM in history.

79: Orioles 11 – Cubs 4
POTG: 2B Fontenot (2H, R)
notes: Jason Marquis being Jason Marquis. Not that it mattered, but no XBH doesn’t help.

80: Cubs 3 – White Sox 10
POTG: C Soto (3 H, HR)
notes: Dempster’s first really bad outing of the year, which didn’t make for the greatest timing. Lieber was a bullpen life saver on a day they needed it, but this one was over when Swisher’s home run landed.

81: Cubs 5 – White Sox 6
POTG: 1B D Lee (5 H, 2 2B, 3 RBI)
notes: not the strongest outing from Gallagher, but he battled. Vazquez was still bad, but the White Sox bullpen was much stronger this trip thru, and Marmol gave up just enough to lose it. Ram struggling hurt here – how else does Derrek get on five times and never score?

82: Cubs 1 – White Sox 5
POTG: 2B DeRosa (2B, R)
notes: being swept on Sunday Night Baseball, never fun. Marshall pitched good, just didn’t get any offense and Ascanio getting toasted didn’t help.

83: Cubs 9 – Giants 2
POTG: 3B DeRosa (2 HR, 3 R, 3 H, 6 RBI, BB)
runner up: SP Ted Lilly (8 IP, 7 H, 2 ER, 2 BB, 5 K)
notes: swear to go, in the first two innings, Len Kasper said “With everyone out, what we really need tonight is someone to pick up the team – a two home run, six RBI game, an eight inning start, something like that.” Never in my life have I seen such a display of someone skipping to the end and spoiling the results, because I do not how else he could’ve been so on. DeRosa got the hitting, Dempster got the pitching.

I don’t what to say about A Ram’s departure during this bit, because I still have no idea what was going. The whole thing was weird: papers/radio briefly saying it was for a birth while the game brodcast never said anything more than a personal matter, Ram asking for 4 days but the clubs deciding 3 days (as if that one day would’ve made a difference), Ram never actually going on the seemingly all-purpose bereavement leave so the Cubs could call someone up (seems like it’s been used for situations like this, but would require revealing what was going on.) So odd.

84: Cubs 1 – Giants 2
POTG: 1B D Lee (2H, 3B, R)
Notes: the token good Jason Marquis spot to keep him from being kicked out of the rotation. Giants young pitchers have talent, and it’s a shame the Giants team has no idea how to get hitting (and haven’t, since the World Series) year so they never support.

85: Cubs 6 – Giants 5
POTG: CF Edmonds (HR, 2R, 2 RBI)
Notes: Runner up to Fontenot and his big eight inning home run to grab the lead. He had to, because this was yet another Marmol blow up. He was throwing strikes this time around, but they were just being hit hard and hit out to blow a Dempster win. Going back to Fontenot, he’s hit for much more power than I ever expected out of the game. A near 500 SLG is impressive, and he’d be a 30 HR hitter if he was a full time starter. It’s really helped by Lou picking Fontenot’s spots well:

(starst as of July 18)
2008 vs RHP (153 PA): 11 2B, 7 HR, 275/371/519
2008 vs LHP (16 PA): 1 2B, 0 HR, 167/333/250

Yea, he probably wouldn’t be as bad versus lefties if he got more at bats, but he still would be bad enough that Lou’s doing a fine job keeping him in situations he can succeed.

86: Cubs 3 – Giants 8
POTG: 1B D Lee (2 H, R, RBI)
notes: Gallagher wasn’t bad – the defense really did not do him any favors. Bullpen was pretty universally awful. When Wuertz is the positive guy, it’s going bad. Marmol giving up the big home run ended this one and started the questions.

I think the Giants are closer than everyone thinks. Not that they should go for it this year, but hitting seems easier to acquire than pitching, and they have enough pitching right now. It’s up to their GM to get people who can hit instead of people who used to be able to hit, but the NL West isn’t as tough as people thought it would be.

87: Cubs 2 – Cardinals 1
POTG: SP Z!!!!!!!!!!! (6 IP, 4 H, 0R, 2 BB, 5 K)
notes: !!!!!!!!!!!!! oh did I miss that. The scene after the 6th was totally predictable but enjoyable – Z trying to talk his way into just one more inning, Lou saying now but offering him an AB instead. I like a lot of guys on this team, but it’s not the same without Z taking the ball every five days. Doesn’t hurt it was against the Cardinals, and doing it to them in their own park. Soto had a nice day – calling this game and hitting a HR for the margin.

88: Cubs 4 – Cardinals 5
POTG: 1B D Lee (3 H, 2B, R)
notes: Kerry Wood blew the game, which was notable for actually existing. I think people were worried Wood wouldn’t work as a closer; if they were told Marmol had a perfect inning and Wood blew a save, you’d expect peopel calling for them to switch roles instead of slight relief and slight disappointment. Even though this goes down as his 5th blown save, he’s been better than those expectations after struggling early. He was perfect in June, so you can’t hold this one against him too much. It was just disappointing to see the dreams of a crushing sweep be flipped into a painful loss.

Doesn’t really occur to me how important and valuable Lee has been until I go thru the list of individual games where he’s meant a lot. There’s not a lot of games where he takes over, and you could make the case that DeRosa had a stronger day here (HR/3B), but Derrek is scary consistent.

89: Cubs 7 – Cardinals 1
POTG: SP Sean Marshall (6 IP, 6 H, R, BB, 4 K)
notes: Ram had nice day (2 SF) and he’s not the only one, but Marshall continues to out perform expectations. He’s never going to be a top starter, but he looks to be maturing into a lefty who will make a lot of money for a long time. I’m sure, if money was no object, Marshall would permanently have a spot in the rotation over Marquis. Even though Gallagher has the better pitches, the Cubs clearly prefer Marshall. Two lefties in the rotation means at least one per series and more pressure on the lefty sluggers.

90: Reds 3 – Cubs 7
POTG: SP Ryan Dempster (7 IP, 2 H, R, 4 BB, 5 K)
notes: when did Aaron Harang get so bad? He was just awful here, no control of anything. The odd pitch that was hittable was hit hard. It seemed the performance of someone hiding an injury, and he did end up going on the DL after this one, so perhaps someone needed to be a bit more proactive here.

With 10 wins at home and 0 at home, Dempster’s officially ridiculous. It’s not like his stats are that different

(thru July 18)
home: 204/296/291
road: 225/296/396

The slugging difference is all due to giving up twice as many HRs on the road. He’s given up 1 in every single road start since the first, but you wouldn’t think Wrigley would be easier to keep the ball in the park. It’s still a great bit of luck and sample size stuff going on, but I can’t say I’d be too disappointed if he ended up getting like 16 wins at home and 0 on the road.

91: Reds 1 – Cubs 5
POTG: SP Z!!!!!!!!!!! (8 IP, H, ER, 0 BB, 5 K)
notes: !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I think it was about the sixth where we realized that, if not for one bad pitch to Adam Dunn, Z would have a no hitter. He’d actually have something beyond that, but I don’t even know what you call it when a pitcher gives up no hits and no walks but his defense gives up an error. If not for that Dunn home run, Z would’ve surely been out to finish it. Same thing, if it wasn’t his second start from a DL appearance. Cubs almost needed him, but I got Wood’s second 1 out save in a month, so I’m not complaining.

92: Reds 12 – Cubs 7
POTG: 2B Fontenot (HR, 2B, 2 RBI, 3 R)
Runner Up: I don’t know that the Cubs have figured this out yet, but as much as I like Rich Harden, he can’t be the Cubs #2 starter necessarily. Z’s pitching the first game, whenever wherever, but Ted Lilly has to pitch on the road, even if that means Harden’s pushed back. Maybe things will improve, but right now he’s completely untrustworthy at home.

Home ERA: 5.34
Road ERA: 4.07

OPS actually has him about the same regardless of where he is – 801 at home, 760 on the road – but all his disaster starts of late have come at home. I don’t know why it’s not working, but he’s not the pitcher I thought he was last season.

93: Giants 1 – Cubs 3
POTG: SP Marquis (7 IP, 3 H, 0 ER, 2 BB, 4 K)
notes: Marquis token very good start. If you’re going to pitch him, you might as well get it. Runner up for Ram, who actually only saw five pitches on the day. 1 hit him, and 1 he hit out for all the runs. That works.

In retrospect, Kerry’s struggles in the 9th was probably all blister related. They did a fine job of keeping that quiet until it got close and late the next day.

94: Giants 7 – Cubs 8
POTG: RP Marshall (2 IP, 2 K, 0 R; H)
notes: Harden was great for the time he was in, but 5 1/3rd performances was the reason I was worried about picking up Burnett. He seemed to have the same concerns after the game.

Marmol’s implosion was not fun to watch. He wasn’t helped out by the defense – his own, and Theriot’s really dumb throw. And he wasn’t helped out by Lou, who clearly did not want to put Marshall in unless Marmol collapsed on the mound, rather than risking his last healthy pitcher in play. It was great for everyone’s sanity that Marshall shut down the Giants and got the hit to start the rally, and it was great that the next day was the last for a while.

95: Giants 4 – Cubs 2
POTG: 1B Lee (2 H)
notes: the problem here was the Cubs kinda took the Break a day early. Not totally, but a little is all Lincecum needs. Dempster did not have a great game and didn’t get much help. Credit to Guadin for keeping it close enough late that the Cubs had a chance for a big rally, but it wasn’t meant to be on this day.

I’ll add up all the POTG a bit later.