Category: chicago national league ball club

Roy Oswalt will be fined, but not suspended, for his actions on Sunday against the Chicago Cubs, Bob Watson, Major League Baseball’s vice president of on-field operations, told a Houston television station on Wednesday.

Oswalt contended that the plunking was not intentional. – MLB.com

That’s a load of crap. And the Cubs can’t do anything about (chitrib) because they definitely are going to get suspended if they hit anyone. There surely be retribution by the Cubs at some point, but it’ll likely wait till next season.

It’s cute how Oswalt is still pretending it wasn’t intentional when no one else in his franchise is willing to back him up on it. And that they think they’re still in the playoff race. In face, let me double the gap to show today.

CHC  --- 36 7-3 (Prior v HOU Backe)
SFG  1.0 34 7-3 (Tomko @ FLA Beckett)
SDP  2.0 36 6-4 (Eaton v NYM Trachsel)
FLA  6.0 38 7-3 (Beckett v SFG Tomko)
HOU  6.0 36 8-2 (Backe @ CHC Prior)
PHI  8.0 35 3-7 (OFF)
CIN  9.5 37 5-5 (Harand v STL Carpenter)
PIT 10.0 36 4-6 (OFF)

(Mets? Mets? Anyone seen the Mets?)

That’s closer than I thought. They’ve just had the unfortunate timing of getting hot when everyone ahead of them was nearly as hot, so the 8-2 run didn’t really get them out of their hole.

Remaining Houston Schedule
4 @ CHC
3 @ CIN
3 v PIT
3 v CIN
5 @ PIT
3 @ STL
3 v MIL
3 @ SFG
3 @ MIL
3 v STL
3 v COL

I don’t know if this makes sense to everyone, but if I was a team who needed quite a few games to catch up, I’d rather take a harder schedule where I play games against the teams ahead of me than a weak schedule where I don’t get those head to head matchups. Astros just have this 4 game series vs the Cubs and the 3 game series in SF to gain any ground. They could actually sweep both of those series and still be behind those teams if they play even down the stretch, so the control is out of their hands. If they get some help and take care of their own business, they could get up there, but if you need some help, I don’t think you’re in the race.

Either way, they need to go at least 3-1 in Chicago to get close enough where help is actually help. Lose the series or even split, and they’re going to need a couple teams to collapse.

I think FLA vs SFG is equally big. If the Giants leave town with a six game lead on the Marlins, Florida’s done. They’ve got six games left with the Cubs, which would give them enough room to bootstrap them up leaderboard if they were still close by then, but if you’re losing series against one Wild Card leader, you can’t really expect to be winning future series against other Wild Card leaders.

It’s also Brett Tomko vs Josh Beckett. Gotta win that.

Yesterday’s Cubs game? They got so lucky. No one has any faith in any one in the bullpen at this point. Bako made a great double play that’ll be too overlooked. Corey rules and you wonder if the expectations were just too high for him to immediately to return to form after racing back from a major injury.

For what it’s worth, there’s word the Cubs tried to get Jose Mesa, had a deal worked out, and a third team blocked the waiver claim. Even as bad as it’s been (and it well be), I think I don’t mind. If they’re blocking Jose Mesa, though, no Urbina or any other close is going to get thru, so we’ve got to go with what have. I’ll save my psychotic “Let’s put Glendon in the rotation and move Wood to closer” thoughts for a day we actually lose.

pending elimination: Arizona will be the first team out of any race, if they lose or the LAD win. They’ve got a couple more days of life in the wild card.

I’ll try to do other stuff today. We’ll see if I actually have the time.

CHC --- 37 (Maddux v MIL Davis)
SFG 1.0 35 (Lowry @ FLA Willis)
SDP 2.0 37 (Lawrence @ NYM Leiter)
FLA 5.0 39 (Willis v SFG Lowry)

I’ve seen this somewhere before. The rookie pitching sure didn’t work out for the Giants last night.

Rumor has it, the Cubs are actually done with the Brewers after this game. They’ve played them 14 times after the all star break. This year’s schedule has sucked.

I could not believe they let the rain delay go for an hour and then came back after it last night. It was a 12-4 game in the bottom of the 7th, no realistic chance of the Brewers coming back and a day game the next day. I don’t know understand the point of hanging around that long to finish it.

The upside was Rusch got a save in 13-4 game. Kinda surprised me that he’d be okay to go after a rain delay and that Dusty wouldn’t try to get more people in rather than letting Glendon get the three inning save, but yay for pointless stats.

When they’re behind, the Brewers bullpen hasn’t been very good. I figure they’ll use Kolb and Viscano today regardless of the score, because they may not work again this month if Yost waits for a lead to use them.

In fact, because of Rusch’s work, the Cubs bullpen is pretty rested for no off days.

Rusch: 0 days off
Mercker: 1 day off
Dempster: 1 day off
Leicester: 2 days off
Farnsworth: 2 days off
Hawkins: 3 days off
Remlinger: 3 days off

We were having a discussion about who would’ve been better if both had a full season, A-Ram or Adrian Beltre. Looking at the numbers, it’s not as close as we thought. And third base is packed.

              AVG  OBP  SLG VORP/G

Mora    BAL  .348 .425 .594 0.633

Beltre  LAD  .333 .380 .643 0.599

Rolen   STL  .329 .414 .623 0.598

A-Ram   CHC  .314 .362 .571 0.426

Chavez  OAK  .275 .400 .524 0.426

A-Rod   NYA  .280 .366 .512 0.380

Wasn’t this a dead position a few years ago? That’s pretty funny, A-Rod goes from being the best SS to the sixth best 3B. I guess we know which is the real position of real people. (Sorry Nomar.)

CHC --- 38 (Clement v MIL Capuano)
SFG --- 36 (Franklin @ FLA Burnett)
SDP 2.0 38 (Wells @ NYM Benson)
FLA 5.0 40 (Burnett v SFG Franklin)

I’ve got nothing today. Thankfully, same applies to the Giants. Cubs are technically ahead on winning percentage.

Carlos was pretty good last night, until midnight (midnight being 6 1/3) struck and it all fell apart. He wasn’t hit hard, but he was hit as much as guy who was just throwing a no-hitter could be. Nice that the bullpen settled things down.

Top 10 VORP for Pitchers

Schmidt     SFG 58.4
Santana     MIN 58.0
Johnson     ARZ 51.9
Schilling   BOS 50.7
Pavano      FLA 49.1
Zambrano    CHN 48.7
Clemens     HOU 48.0
Radke       MIN 47.3
Mulder      OAK 46.7
Hernandez   MON 45.2

Capuano/Clement was a game the Cubs should’ve won last time out, and now you wonder if the Brewers will figure out Matt the second time around. It’d be neat to see another 13Ks. Capuano excuses his bad performance to having too much time off between starts.

Obviously, this three game series is a turning point for the Marlins. It’s going to be tough to catch up to the lead pack if they don’t win 2 out of 3. They don’t have to worry about Schmidt, so they should be able to pull something off. Burnett has eh numbers on the season, but he’s 3-0/3.08 ERA at home.

Yankees are now back up by 6.5. So the story only existed for a day.

I like to see the Mets, who made stupid trades at the deadline, are now tied in the Wild Card at 8.5 games with the Reds, who just had everyone get hurt at the deadline. That didn’t quite work out.

SFG --- 36 OFF
CHC 0.5 39 Zambrano vs MIL Sheets
SDP 2.5 39 Peavy @ NYM Heilman
FLA 5.0 40 OFF

Yay collective NL West on the East Coast scheduling. It’s nice when the Cubs are the late game.

Okay road trip, nothing much accomplished. Should’ve won at least one more game, but at least the Cubs have got the chance to tie it back up tonight.

The Saturday game is now the second game LaTroy benefited from losing the game, although it wasn’t as blatant as the Philadelphia one. Hawkins gets incentives based on GFs in an ill-thought out way around using Saves, and the only way he was going to get the GF after the error was to lose the game. I don’t believe he did it on purpose (and anyone who did is nuts), but it’s a strange way of earning am award someone. See if the 2 games mean something at the end of the season. The appearance did cause him to reach is first Games Appeared In incentive, making him $50K.

I didn’t see Kerry hit Kent, so I assumed he was so impressed with Glendon’s start on Friday, he had to get him another one. Now, after hearing more about it, I’m not sure he gets suspended, but I think it’s a possibility given what they’ve been doing this year.

When writing the history of this season, people will give Kerry a win for that game, but I think it would’ve been one he’d been lucky to get. His breaking stuff was not breaking where he wanted all day, and he was very much assisted by the big lead Oswalt gave up before punking out.

The Cubs got pretty luck this didn’t completely mess up their bullpen. Leister’s not used all that much and I don’t know they’d put Kyle in a close game right now, so all you lose is having only one lefty till Mercker or Rusch are ready.

Carlos actually wanted to start on three days rest in Houston to fill in for Kerry, but they talked him out of it. Probably a good move, and I think that also means they’re planning on using him as a starter in the playoffs, or they wouldn’t be concerned with burning his arm out getting there.

What’s kinda sad is how desperate portions of the media are for a Boston/New York divisional race and how much they’re showcasing it today despite it being illogical and irrelevant. There’s no race – Boston and NY would both be in it today, and they’d probably both be in if Boston did get closer, because NY would have to fall really far not to get the Wild Card. It’s not the best race – that’s obviously the AL West, with 3 teams within a half game each other and 2 going home if it ended right now. And it’s not even the previously dead but now come back to life race; that’s the NL West, where the Giants have creeped 4.5 games. A full game closer than BOS/NYY. Get out of here with that stuff.

Ben Sheets vs the Cubs
2001: 3 G, 3-0, 2.50 ERA
2002: 2 G, 2-0, 2.57 ERA
2003: 5 G, 1-2, 3.53 ERA
2004: 4 G, 1-2, 3.54 ERA

I guess that’s the power of Dusty.

(300)

SFG --- 39 (Lowry v NYM Trachsel)
CHC 0.5 42 (Rusch @ HOU Munro)
SDP 1.5 42 (Lawrence v FLA Willis)
FLA 5.0 43 (Willis @ SDP Lawrence)

That’s not exactly how I thought yesterday would go but I’ll take the result. At least in the baseball game.

This series with the Astros was supposed to be galactical important for both teams, and now you’ve got the Astros basically just trying to stay over .500.

Shocking prediction: Wrigley will not be shut down Monday.

They can’t actually expect me to root for Trachsel? That seems unfair.

I don’t feel like typing much right now, so I guess I’ll do a chart instead.

Continue reading “slightly longer than 140 minutes”

ATTENTION BOSTON RED SOX MANAGEMENT

The Cubs have signed Neifi Perez (who’s good on defense!) and will be willing to trade to you in the usual manner whenever you are ready to pick up a medicore Iowa Cub. Please have your midlevel single A prepared to go.

Thank you.

SFG --- 39 (OFF)
CHC 1.0 43 (Maddux @ MIL Capuano)
SDP 1.5 42 (OFF)
FLA 5.0 43 (OFF)

No scoreboard watching tonight. Which is fine. I wish we were going up against NL East teams, just so I wouldn’t have to wait to Midnight to find out how we did.

This is one of those Thursdays where many who had to play Monday gets today of, and those who played Monday get Thursday off. That includes the Giants and the Expos, which makes me wonder why the bothered to do a doubleheader instead of just using the offday. Maybe Felipe Alou had plans today.

I was pretty sure, as sure as one can be about these things, that the Giants would sweep the doubleheader yesterday, seeing as they only had one starting pitcher for two games and he got blown out last time.

I’m sure I’ll not think the same later, but Good Job Braves. Way to Wendell Kim it, Padres.

I *think* this might be the last game in Miller Park for the Cubs this year. Thank goodness. It’s a day game, it’s a get away day, and it’s a Maddux start; bet heavily on a game under 140 minutes.

Sports radio is already trying to respin Sammy moving to 5 in the order as a mystery: “Did Sammy REALLY ask to move down? Or is this elaborate cover up?!?!?” The best insane conspiracy theories are the ones that require a lot of effort for absolute no gain.

I’m pretty sure Sabermetric belief is batting order is largely irrelevant unless you start doing completely moronic stuff like batting your worst hitter first, your second worst hitter second and so on. I think Neyer has an ESPN.com Insider article about that and Sammy this week, actually. And I agree with the broad point that it doesn’t mean much over the course of a season, but in a short period of time and a close race, I believe you’ve got do those things of small significance in hopes to get a couple extra runs. A small sample doesn’t give time for things to even out.

Despite the lead being blown by the bullpen yet again (it wasn’t even Kyle! Notice they haven’t used him so far this series), it was nice to see Dempster and Mercker through excellent in there appearances. And, after I go out of my way to down play him, of course Clement’s gonna be awesome and strike out 13 (though I dug only 1 BB just as much.)

I don’t believe an announce team can campaign harder for someone to be resigned than Chip and Stone do for Matt. I hope they get a cut.

I didn’t realize Nomar would hit so many doubles. He does have two 50+ years, but I guess when you’re hitting .372 it just doesn’t come up as much. It’s cool.

It’s not proper to steal from those who’ve passed away, but someone needs to reset the Days:Hours:Minutes:Seconds till Bud Selig Leaves Office countdown.

SFG --- (G1: Hennessey vs MON Biddle)
(G2: Franklin vs MON TBA)
SDP 1.0 (Wells vs ATL Byrd)
CHC 1.5 (Clement vs MIL Sheets)

Giants have now won six in a row. Combined with Florida and Philadelphia (and the whole NL East!) losing, it’s down to three teams close for the day. They can put some nice sized room on everyone else if Montreal lays down and dies today.

Monteal’s only announced one starter and Biddle may start either half of the DH. I would expect wackyness.

I got confused yesterday – yesterday was Alou’s day off. Macias started instead and I still don’t think it was a good move. If there’s a starting pitcher you can afford to skip on the outfield defense for a night, it’s Carlos, so you might as well have tried Walker in LF.

I went out to dinner and came back in time to have missed all the scoring, but plenty of time to watch the Cubs make a lot of outs.

I’d like to stump again for the Cubs to pick up Ricky Henderson. I know he can only walk and steal at this point, but Macias can’t do either of those things and Goodwin can’t get on to steal. Maybe not right now – if Hollandsworth can’t come back, that’ll leave a spot on the 40 man in September – but before the end of the season, we might as well take a chance. It’s not going to cost money and I don’t think he’d be a disruption. Once again (and for the fourth time in five years!), this is going to go down to the final weekend for the Cubs, and they need every little advantage they can get.

Plus, if Corey doesn’t learn how to steal by hanging around Vince Coleman and Ricky Henderson, we know he’s never going to learn that way.

The last three games of the Cubs season are against Atlanta, which is going to make it quite interesting. They’ll surely have locked up the division by then, but I doubt they’d have clinched their seed. They’ll be determing if they play the wild card and who the wild card in at the same time.

Matt’s support neutral record is 9-7, as opposed to his 8-10 real life one. That doesn’t crack the top 10 unluckiest (though not far away) and isn’t as much a difference as announcers have suggested. The gulf is due to his flakiness:

Clement Starts
4 or more runs: 8
2-3 runs:       6
0-1 runs:      10

Two of the those 4 run starts featured unearned starts, and I think the brilliance of the really good starts with little help dulls people’s memories to the bad ones. Clement’s had a good season, but it’s probably being overstated.

Cubs.com’s preview gives the run support numbers:

        For
Today's  On
Starter  Average  Difference
CHC       3.66    4.63       -0.97
MIL       3.18    3.97       -0.79

If Matt’s going to do good today, he’s got to cut down his walks – he’s nearly averaging one an inning his last two times out – and hope that Sheets doesn’t pitch as well as he has often against the Cubs.

SFG 42 --- Schmidt @ MON Kim
CHC 45 0.5 Carlos @ MIL Santos
SDP 44 1.0 Peavy @ ATL Wright
FLA 45 4.5 Burnett @ LAD Alvarez
PHI 44 5.0 Wolf v HOU Oswalt

(new column is Games Left)

Could’ve been worse. I have a feeling we won’t be making up ground tonight on the Giants, but we could at least put some distance on the rest.

Florida passing the Phillies is the least surprising thing ever. Houston could pull themselves back in and end Philadelphia in this series.

I’m completely surprised Kerry’s suspension wasn’t dropped down a game. This means we’ve got a “shorthanded” bullpen (though since they’re carrying 12 pitchers, they still should be fine) for this extended trip through the rotation.

TUE 08/17 Carlos @ MIL Santos
WED 08/18 Clement @ MIL Sheets
THU 08/19 Maddux @ MIL Capuano
FRI 08/20 Rusch @ HOU
SAT 08/21 Prior @ HOU
SUN 08/22 Wood @ HOU

It’s an unnoted wise move to give Prior an extra day here. And actually, not a horrible thing for Kerry to get an extra day after throwing 120+ pitches last time out.

The timing of the schedule and the six man rotation means everyone’s getting back to back starts against the same team; Carlos, Matt and Greg will pitch against Houston when they come here, and Prior and Wood will have the first two games of the followup Astros series.

Cubs really need to win at least 2 of 3 here. Getting swept in Milwaukee again would be devastating. This is their last trip up there, and I imagine the stadium will be packed – but only by the third inning when everyone’s made it through the road horrors.

The good thing for them is they didn’t have many rain outs this season (cross your fingers – still haven’t been to Florida), so they’ve got 3 off days left in September to rest guys and juggle the rotation. Because of an interleague makeup with PHI, the White Sox only have one off day the rest of the season.

I like the matchup tonight. Santos has been lit up his last few starts

       IP H R ER BB K
07/31 5.0 7 4  3  0 6
08/05 3.2 6 9  6  1 1
08/11 4.2 8 7  5  3 5

and Carlos was awesome coming back from suspension. Against Milwaukee, he’s had one bad game (5.2, 4ER) and one great game (8.0, 0R) in Miller Park this season. The great game was the last one, so maybe he figured them out.

Out of Carlos’s 22 starts this season, 19 have been for over 100 pitches. I’m surprised, but that doesn’t even make him the top Zambrano in PAP (though he is 5th over all.)

I do agree with tCR’s thought about Carlos needing a cool nickname of some sort (meaning we shouldn’t let Eric Neel near it), but Dr. Z? When Carlos goes nuts after a inning ending strikeout, I’m not sure he’s the guy I want operating on me.

Maybe I’m pigeonholing him because he’s Latin, but I see him needed a nickname akin to a fiery boxer, with his strong groundball jabs and powerful cross strikeouts.

Carlos “Lights Out” Zambrano?
Carlos “the Crusher!” Zambrano?
I don’t know.

Ram’s out for tonight. I’m not sure if they’re going with thecubsfan.com personal scorn Jose Macias or Ramon. I do know there will be at least 20 phone calls to sports radio complaining it isn’t Todd Walker.

              OPS/AB
vR      vMIL  vSantos
Macias   .672/90  .798/23 3/1.400
Martinez .660/167 .255/23 1/.900
Walker   .890/254 .886/20 none
RAM      .939/327 .771/16 4/1.500

Walker last played 3B in 1997.

NL Wild Card Standings: A Daily (weekday) Service of TheCubsFan.Com until the season is over or the season drives me mad

CHC --- (OFF)
SDP --- (Hitchcock v ATL Hampton)
SFG --- (Rueter @ MON Patterson
PHI 4.5 (OFF)
FLA 4.5 (Pavano @ LAD Weaver)

Oh great. Just who I really wanted to see on the edge of this race again.

That also means it’s unlikely the Cubs are still in the lead at the end of the night. It’s two weeks more killed off the season – they were last tied on August 3rd – with the added bonus of everyone else being back in this.

Yesterday was really LaTroy Hawkins’ shining moment, wasn’t it? I don’t know if we win the game with him around – mostly because I don’t know if they go to him instead of Kyle – but it sure did make him look better by not being there when they need him to be. (Strange how there’s not going to be remembered it’s his fault he wasn’t there when they need him to be there.)

Developing Dusty Trend: Sticking with cold/struggling reliever far after everyone else has given up on him.

Kyle The Farns by month

MON  G  IP   ERA  WHIP
APR 12 10.0  5.40 1.30
MAY 14 12.0  2.25 1.58
JUN 16 15.0  3.60 1.07
JUL 12 14.0  1.93 1.43
AUG  7  3.0 24.00 5.00

You don’t even really need the ERA for August; only getting 9 outs in 7 apperances is a clue enough that something’s wrong. It actually started slightly before August.

Game Log

DATE       IP H BB R evaluation
07/27 MIL 1.0 0  0 0 great
07/29 MIL 1.0 1  1 0 below average
07/30 PHI 1.0 0  3 0 bad
08/01 PHI 0.1 2  0 0 bad
08/04 COL 0.1 2  0 2 bad (but he gets the W!)
08/07 SFG 1.0 1  1 0 below average
08/08 SFG 0.0 1  1 2 horrible
08/12 SDP 1.0 2  0 1 below average
08/13 LAD 0.0 3  0 3 horrible
08/15 LAD 0.1 0  1 2 bad (L)

He looked even worse than the line yesterday shows, getting just 3 of 10 pitches for strikes, but he really shouldn’t have been put in that situation after having trouble for the last two weeks. Even though the other bullpen guys didn’t have any more luck, it was the wrong guy to put in the situation given his last two weeks.

I have a feeling that Kyle might be put on the DL, for a real injury or imagined, just to give him a break and allow them to call back up Todd W. I don’t think the Big Reliever Ace is coming, and I’m pretty sure I’d rather keep Todd around rather than get most of them.

For all the misdirection about not using Rusch in case Wood was suspended Saturday, it did occur to me that the suspensions were promised not to be concurrent, so Wood couldn’t have missed his start while Hawkins was out. The problem now is they still haven’t ruled on the appeal. If they announce it today or tomorrow and it’s shortened to 4 games, the rotation can use today’s off day to stay on their days and Kerry won’t miss a spot. After that, with no offdays for a few weeks, it’s going to be quite a crunch to accommodate a suspension unless it falls on the right day.

Besides being 2 games played ahead and playing Monday, the Giants are also making up a rained up San Juan date with Montreal Wednesday (extra game at SF), which means there’ll be quite an artificial gulf for a while.

I think the Pavano/Weaver game might be the pitching matchup of the night. Scary.