Not likely I'll have time to write later this evening, so a preview today instead:
The Cubs meet the Astros Friday in the Cubs' final game of August, a month that has seen the team win 12 games and lose 15, yet climb from second place, a game behind the Brewers, to first place, 2 1/2 games up.
Sean Marshall, who was hit hard the last time he pitched against Houston, is matched today against Wandy Rodriguez, who has had one strong outing against the Cubs and one not-so-strong outing.
Three things I see working against the Cubs this afternoon:
1. A possible emotional letdown after the playoff-type intensity of the Brewers series.
2. The difficulty of coming back to play a day game right after a night game. (The Astros played the Cardinals in a Thursday matinee, so, even with the flight to Chicago, one would have to assume they're more well-rested than the Cubs, who must have had a perfectly good reason for not scheduling that game yesterday in the afternoon, right?)
3. Having to face a lefthanded pitcher. The Cubs have struggled against lefties all season long; I have a hard time imagining them surviving two lefties in a row.
Soriano and Kendall are not in today's starting lineup, being replaced by Monroe and Blanco.
Breaking reaction to possible breaking news: A poster over at The Cub Reporter just wrote that according to WSCR in Chicago, the Cubs have acquired Steve Trachsel in exchange for Scott Moore and two--that's t-w-o--other minor leaguers. If it's true, I don't understand why.
And if it's not true, it's a nasty, unfunny joke for someone to play on a bunch of his fellow Cub fans.
Breaking update on the possible breaking news above, which, it turns out, is true: Cubs get Trachsel from the Orioles for Rocky Cherry and Scott Moore. Per the Cubs' official press release, Trachsel has thrown four quality starts in a row and has the fourth lowest ERA in the American League in the month of August.
More sarcastic comments on this move later.
High Drama Ends In Cub Victory, And God Finally Gets Around To Punishing The Mets
Posted by Cubnut at 8/30/2007If the Cubs go on to win the NL Central title, I imagine Thursday night's game will be one of those deemed significant in all of the end-of-the-season retrospectives. It began on an ominous note, turned in the Cubs' favor, settled into a tense stand-off, turned back in the Cubs' favor thanks to the heroics of a guy off the bench and then very nearly slipped away.
If the Cubs don't win the NL Central title, this could end up being the high point, from which the slippage began.
All I know for sure is, it feels awfully satisfying right now.
Also on the subject of satisfaction and cosmic justice, the Mets lost their fourth game in as many days to the Phillies, this one an agonizing 11-10 loss that sliced New York's NL East lead over the Phils to just two games.
If you're thinking the Mets had this coming to them after what they did to the Cubs and Ryan Dempster back on May 17th, I'm right there with you, brother.
Thanks, Chase Utley, Tad Iguchi and Jimmy Rollins! It will be an honor to meet you in the National League playoffs.
Ryan Theriot made a critical error and Carlos Zambrano was clearly outpitched by returning Milwaukee ace Ben Sheets, but in his press conference following the Cubs' 6-1 loss Wednesday night at Wrigley Field, Lou Piniella focused on the failings of the Cub offense.
"You've got to put five or six runs up on the board consistently if you're going to win up here," Piniella just said on Comcast Sportsnet's post-game report. "In three of our last four defeats, we scored one run. That's not getting it done."
Piniella applauded Sheets's performance but pointed out correctly that the Cubs still had chances to put runs on the board against him and came up mostly empty.
Lou did acknowledge that Zambrano was no match for Sheets on this evening and that the Cubs have to get Z "back to pitching like he was." As cubs.com reports, Zambrano, who was tagged for six runs and nine hits over 6 1/3 innings Wednesday night, was winless in the month of August, with four defeats and an ERA of 7.06. In July, he went 5-1. 1.38.
The best thing to happen tonight was the Cardinals losing to the Astros, 7-0 in Houston, a game that saw Roy Oswalt beat Kip Wells, something that should only happen, oh, 998 times out of a thousand.
The Cubs are now 1 1/2 games ahead of the second-place Brewers and 2 games better than the Cardinals. The Cubs' magic number over the Brewers is 30; versus the Cards, who've played two fewer games than the Cubs and three fewer than Milwaukee, it's 31.
Something tells me there is a good deal of drama yet to unfold.
AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast
First, over at The Cub Reporter, I just posted a wrap-up of sorts following Tuesday night's 5-3 Cub victory over the Brewers. Always nice to win; especially nice to win with a late-inning comeback against your closest pursuers.
Earlier today, I stumbled on this Tom Verducci interview with Arizona General Manager Josh Byrnes. Byrnes muses on how his Diamondbacks have been able to exceed by 12 wins the victory total predicted by their run differential (an actual 74 wins vs. a predicted 62) so far this season.
Byrnes believes in statistical analysis as much as any GM, but his explanations for why his team defies its run differential sound very old school. Byrnes listed five reasons why Arizona has exceeded expectations: 1) in-game decisions by manager Bob Melvin; 2) a reliable bullpen; 3) a lineup with production spread throughout, rather than one that waits for one or two spots to come up; 4) a good bench, and 5) excellent defense. Those qualities, Byrnes said, have served Arizona well in close games. The D-Backs are playing .644 baseball in one-run games (29-16).
As a Cub fan, I was drawn to this article because the Cubs have underperformed relative to their run differential all year long. (As of yesterday, the Cubs had won four fewer games than might be expected. Also, the Cubs' record in one-run games is just 16-20.) If Byrnes is right about his D-Backs, wouldn't it make sense that the exact inverse of Byrnes's Five Truths applies to the Cubbies?
In answer to the question, "Why have the Cubs failed to win as many games as their run differential would predict?" we have:
1.) In-game decisions by the manager.
Nope. Doesn't apply. Piniella can be faulted or at least questioned on a few counts, including the new-lineup-a-day approach, maybe not effectively nurturing some of the young guys (Murton? Fontenot?), and delivering a lot of uninteresting, post-game press conferences, but I think his in-game decisions have generally fallen in a range between reasonable and inspired.
2.) Unreliable bullpen.
The Cub bullpen ranks 8th in ERA and OPS Against and 6th in Save Percentage, but is among the league leaders in stranding inherited runners. (Carlos Marmol and Michael Wuertz are #1 and #2). Reliable? I'll say pretty reliable, most of the time and lately, very much so.
3.) A lineup with production concentrated in just a couple spots.
Don't think so.Without going into my actual calculations--which could only have the effect of making me look like I must have flunked Mr. Filliman's math class my junior year in high school, which I nearly did--I will simply say I verified that the productivity of the Cub batting order is almost exactly as evenly distributed as that of the Diamondbacks.
4.) Lousy bench
Cub pinch-hitters have a composite .192 batting average, tied for 2nd worst in the NL. Lousy, definitely. Plus Bob Brenly pointed out on Saturday's broadcast that Daryle Ward looks fat. So let's agree the Cub bench is both lousy and chubby.
5.) Porous defense
Nope. Per the numbers I cited yesterday from The Hardball Times, the Cubs have turned 56 more batted balls into outs than the average National League team would have, the highest such figure in the NL. Those numbers just confirm what my eyes have suspected this season--the Cub defense is solid, particularly with regard to its range.
Other than #4, it looks like the inverse of Brynes's Five Truths doesn't explain why the Cubs have won fewer games than they should have.
Maybe they'll just have to run off with the NL Central title and charge right through the playoffs to a World Series win. Then I can finally put the whole issue to rest.
Watching the Cubs offense sputter yet again this past weekend in Phoenix, scoring just one run Saturday and just one run Sunday over the final eight innings, when they really needed to continue putting runs on the board, I was thinking that the team is lucky the starting pitching has been so solid for most of the season. That is, solid at least by Cub standards.
Then this evening, I came across this note in Matthew Carruth's most recent Dartboard column at The Hardball Times:
If the Cubs outlast everyone else in the Central, they'll have their defense to thank which has gone strides all year to make their pitching staff look way better than it actually is.
Immediately following was this comment about second-place Milwaukee:
As much as the Cubs can thank their defense, the Brewers can curse it. According to THT's stats, the defensive spread between the Brewers and the Cubs stands at 81 plays.I might be misreading THT's fielding charts, but to my eye, it appears that the spread between the Cubs and Brewers is actually 93 plays. In other words, the Cubs have turned 56 more plays into outs than an average team would have, while the Brewers have converted 37 fewer plays into outs than one could expect.
81 or 93--in either case, the Cubs appear to be catching a lot of balls the Brewers aren't. Here's a position-by-position comparison of Brewer and Cub Zone Ratings (the percentage of plays hit into a fielder's normal "fielding zone" that he turns into outs.)
1st base
Fielder .673
Lee .692
2nd base
Weeks .776
DeRosa .892
Fontenot .825
Shortstop
Hardy .808
Theriot .865
Third base
Braun .576
Ramirez .726
Left field
Jenkins .886
Soriano .886
Center field
Hall .847
Jones .913
Right field
Hart .869
Floyd .820
For those of you keeping score at home, that's five positions where the Cubs have an edge, one for the Brewers (rightfield, assuming Floyd is playing for the Cubs), and one tie. In short, defense represents a whopping advantage for the Cubs this week.
As long as the Brewers don't start hitting a whole bunch of balls out of the park.
While waiting for Micah Owings to throw his first pitch against the Cubs Friday night at 8:40, I thought it would be fun to obsess over yesterday's defeat and the unlikely San Francisco hitting hero.
How improbable was it that Giants pitcher Matt Cain would be in the center of BOTH San Francisco rallies yesterday? As you must have figured at the time, pretty damn improbable.
Coming into yesterday's game at Sprint Nextel Cingular U.S. Cellular 3-Com Illinois Bell AT&T Park, Cain had a lifetime average of .103 with 12 hits in 116 AB, including 1 HR and 3 doubles. He had walked twice and struck out 60 times. He had 3 Major League runs batted in.
That means yesterday he doubled his lifetime home run total, walked for the third time in 135 lifetime plate appearances, and with two RBI, nearly matched his previous lifetime RBI total. Thursday's contest also marked the first time in Cain's 63 big league games that he has been on base more than once in the same game.
(In the interest of full disclosure, the home run was Cain's second this month, the other coming August 8th against Tim Redding of the Nationals. Maybe Cain is becoming a fearsome power threat as he gains experience. I've heard that can happen.)
Finally, I think it's interesting to note that two of Cain's five lifetime extra-base hits, two of his five lifetime RBI and three of his 13 lifetime hits are now against the same team; a team against whom he now has a .300 career average. Can you guess which team I'm talking about?
Can you?
The sting of seeing the Cubs blow a chance to sweep the Giants this afternoon was lessened tonight, when the Marlins thumped the Cardinals, leaving St. Louis three games in back of the Cubs, and Milwaukee, idle tonight, a half-game out.
The Cubs Player Transaction Of The Day, as you probably know by now, was the team's acquisition of Craig Monroe from the Tigers in exchange for a player to be named later. I pulled a few of Monroe's career and '07 numbers along with assorted comments about his play and posted them at The Cub Reporter.
Having looked at Monroe's stats for the last half hour, I can't say I'm much moved by the trade. At the same time, if Monroe's coming aboard means less playing time for Matt Murton, who is slumping and rapped into a rally-killing double play today, and to some extent Jacque Jones, who, resurgence or not, just plain stinks, we could be looking at a net gain.
The Cubs move on now to Arizona, where Milwaukee just took two of three and where, owing once again to my terminally bad attitude, I have a feeling the Cubs are going to struggle to do as well.
One entire syllable shorter than the competition and unencumbered by contractions or colloquialisms, Ryan’s Cubby rally cry has yet to find its way onto t-shirts.
Owing to events on Tuesday, however, the ex-governor may soon be in a position to press his catchphrase into state-issued license plates.
The Cubs are up against the hottest last-place team in baseball, trailing the Giants 1-0 in the seventh inning as I write this.
Tonight's matchup, with Jason Marquis facing off against star-in-the-making Tim Lincecum, looked problematic from the moment it first graced the Probable Pitchers list. Wednesday night, the Cubs and Rich Hill draw Barry Zito, coming off seven, one-hit innings against the Marlins; Thursday it's Zambrano against Matt Cain, who may be the game's most talented 5-13 starter. All in all, it could be a challenging series. (As opposed to next weekend's visit to Arizona to play the Diamondbacks, which will most certainly be a trial.)
Speaking of Rich Hill, John Dewan of Baseball Info Solutions appeared on this afternoon's Mike Murphy Show on WSCR, pointing out that if Hill had received the same run support as his fellow Cub starters, his record might easily be 10-4 instead of 7-7. (The numbers I turned up at Baseball Prospectus were less dazzling; BP puts Hill's "expected win-loss record" at 10-7.)
In any case, hearing Dewan talk made me feel a little bit better about Hill's season, just as seeing that the Cubs continue to have the division's best Pythagorean Record--a full six games better than the Milwaukees--makes me feel like it's only a matter of time before they seize control of the NL Central for good.
I sure wish somebody would point that out to the Brewers and Cardinals.
Carlos Zambrano and the Cubs finally agreed on a new contract.
Jacque Jones received a standing ovation--sincere, not sarcastic--from the Wrigley Field fans.
And the Chicago Cubs assumed first place in the National League Central.
All on the same day.
Not a bad day.
AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast
Two of the three ugly girls competing for the title of Miss National League Central are about to meet face-to-face at Wrigley Field.
Pessimist that I am, I’m looking at the worst possible scenario, which I don’t think will happen, but still...
If the Cards were to sweep four games from the Cubs in while the Brewers swept three from the Reds, the Cubs would sit in third, two games from the second-place Cardinals (ugh!) and four games behind the division-leading Brewers with 38 left to play.
Would that be insurmountable?
I’m inclined to say yes, not because of the sheer amount of the climb so much as the difficulty of having to pass two teams. What’s more, I think the mental scar tissue left by the scenario outlined above would hinder the mission.
That said, the Cubs would still have three home games left with the Brewers and a four-game set yet to play in St. Louis, so even in the blackest of futures, the Cubs would appear to emerge with at least a sliver of hope.
Interesing that 5-Hit Mark DeRosa is not in the starting lineup for this afternoon’s series opener. Like others on the roster, DeRosa has been bearing a heavy load as the team was trying to survive injuries to Ramirez and Soriano, appearing in each of the last 20 games dating back to July 27th against the Reds. But as I noted last night, D-Lee’s burden has been even heavier. Maybe DeRosa will see duty at first base at some point in this series while Lee gets to sit.
Or could it be that Lou Piniella is looking at DeRosa’s lifetime numbers against Friday's Cardinal starter, Braden Looper—1-for-9 with two strikeouts—and thinking that, small sample size or not, this might be a good day for DeRosa to rest?
A Cub manager looking at past performance data and making a lineup decision based thereon?
Almost unfathomable.
Nate Silver has written about how hitters commonly take more pitches as they get older, not because batting eyes improve with age, but because there are more and more pitches the hitters realize they can't handle. Rather than flail away, they simply keep the bats on their shoulders and hope for the best.
I have been wondering if that's also the case with tired hitters as well; Derrek Lee is the tired-looking hitter I have in mind.
Lee has played in all but two innings of the Cubs' last 22 games, a period during which the team enjoyed only one day off. It occurred to me that he was dragging a bit during last weekend's series in Denver, keeping the bat on his shoulder even on hitter's counts and generally not contributing much to the offense. It really occurred to me today, when Lee went 0-for-5 while Theriot, DeRosa, Ramirez, Murton, and Jones were going a combined 18-for-24 with 10 RBI and 9 runs scored in the Cubs' 12-4 undressing of the Reds.
I can't say I've actually done the math to confirm Derrek is watching more pitches and maybe it's not worth worrying about anyway: with Soriano out and Ramirez missing from the Cub lineup until earlier this week, Lou Piniella couldn't afford to keep Lee next to him on the bench. And with the Cardinals coming to town Friday, there wouldn't seem to be any chance of Lee sitting until at least next Tuesday, when the Cubs are done with the Cards and off to the West Coast.
AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast
Odds and ends that occurred to me while listening to the Cubs struggle against the Reds late on a Wednesday night, when odds and ends are the best I can come up with...
The Cubs are in the middle of one of those high-scoring, Wrigley Field free-for-alls, which, while enormously entertaining, the Cubs seem to almost always lose. (I don't have any actual numbers to back me up on that; my feeling is no doubt affected by specific memories of this fiasco, in which Dave Kingman's three home runs went for naught, and also this mess, when the Cubs found a way to squander a 12-1, third-inning lead. And I always had such high hopes for Mike Garman...)
Earlier this evening, the Cardinals humbled the Brewers for the second game in a row, and whether or not the Cubs manage to win this slugfest against the Reds--tied 9-9 in the seventh inning at this writing--the Cards now appear to be in the NL Central race to stay. As for the Brutal Crew, Yovani Gallardo, who I wrote glowingly about when he first assumed injured Ben Sheets's spot in the starting rotation, has now gone 1-2 with a 10.35 ERA (no joke) in his last four starts.
The Brewers are playing like hell, yet they're still 1 1/2 games up on the Cubs...which, I'm afraid, says a whole bunch about the Cubs.
Len Kasper just reported that the Cubs signed their first round pick and the third pick overall in the June amateur players draft, third baseman Josh Vitters from Cypress High School in Anaheim. Rich Lederer at Baseball Analysts called Vitters "the best high school hitter in the draft this year." He has also been called "a future middle of the order hitter with 30-plus home run power and a .290-.300 hitter."
Oh, look at that: Tom Dressen is tonight's seventh-inning-stretch singer. Adrian Zmed must have been booked.
Catching up on slightly old news...
The Up in the Rockies blog at Most Valuable Network has some not so nice things to say about Cub fans, who had the audacity to show up at Coors Field for last weekend's four-game series and bloat the home team's attendance numbers to positively un-Rockies-like proportions.
Before the Cubs hit town last Thursday, the Rockies--currently 18th in the Major Leagues in average home attendance--were drawing 28,017 fans per game. The Cubs/Rox series drew a whopping 169,291 fans, an average of 42,323 for each of the four games. That means the gate was up 14,306 per game. At an average ticket price of $15, the Rockies raked in an extra $214,590 per game; an additional $858,360 for the four-game series NOT INCLUDING parking and concessions.
Up in the Rockies may indeed feel that "the farther you get from Chicago, the more obnoxious Cub fans get," but as the author of the Cub fan-hating post himself acknowledged, Rockies management surely didn't mind the revenue injection.
Tuesday's roster moves (and there seem to be a few every couple days, don't there?): Paul Sullivan is reporting that the Cubs will have lefty Carmen Pignatiello and righthanded-hitting Jake Fox, who was up with the big club a few weeks ago, in uniform for tonight's game with the Reds. Opposing batters are hitting just .193 against Pignatiello this season; Fox is hitting .290 with a .336/.526/862 line and mashed 3 HRs in a game on Saturday.
No definitive word on who is being sent out to make room for the newcomers from Iowa, but Sullivan theorizes it will be seldom-used Eric Patterson and pitcher Sean Gallagher. Sullivan also points out that with the Reds planning to throw two southpaws against the Cubs this week (Phil Dumatrait and Bobby Livingston), Fox's bat could come in handy, just as Pignatiello might be of use against Cincy's Ken Griffey, Jr. and Adam Dunn.
In his two most recent columns at Baseball Prospectus, Will Carroll offers positive perspectives on injured Cub stars Soriano and Ramirez.
On Friday, Carroll said, "(Soriano) isn't likely to miss much beyond the minimum...probably the best possible scenario aside from Soriano not being hurt at all." Carroll reports that Soriano's quadriceps muscle is healing well and suggests--correctly, I think--that even at less than his full-fledged self, Soriano could make a contribution to the team.
As for A-Ram, Carroll writes today that his Cub sources are not "terribly concerned" about Aramis Ramirez's recovery from the achy wrist that sidelined him during the recent road trip. He suggests "watching for bat control problems" to gauge whether or not A-Ram is suffering.
Paul Sullivan reports that Lou Piniella is going to use multiple pitchers in the role of closer, with Dempster, Howry and Marmol in the mix.
Dempster sounds understanding; Howry sounds surprised.
Depending on your point of view, the saturation coverage of Major League Baseball on cable tv and the Web these days has: a.) shed light on fascinating, heretofore under-covered aspects of the sport, like the June amateur draft, and/or b.) created controversy around a lot of stuff that really even isn't worth the tv time or pixels now expended in talking about them.
To me, one area that falls squarely in the latter category is the "news" about which teams have put in claims for which players in the post-July 31st, i.e., after-the-trade deadline, part of the season.
Given the Cubs' injury problems and some of the talent gaps in their minor league system, it would make sense that Jim Hendry is combing the waiver list looking for someone--anyone--who might help his team climb over the Brewers. But to me, the breathless hysteria around whether the Cubs really did put in a claim for Scott Podsednik or Shannon Stewart has gotten old really fast.
As you know if you've read or heard any of the THOUSANDS of explanations of the Major League waiver system going out over the air waves or passing through the ether, making a claim is way short of actually acquiring the player. The player's current team can withdraw the waivers, the claiming team and the old team can fail to agree on terms of a trade, the claiming team can simply...well, there I am getting into the whole mess. The main point is, in this particular instance concerning the Cubs, and I can't state this strongly enough...
WE'RE TALKING ABOUT SCOTT PODSEDNIK AND SHANNON STEWART FOR GOD'S SAKE!
And turning your attention to tonight's events in Colorado, our heroes proved they're so good, they have absolutely no need for their formerly most lethal hitter and their most dynamic player, let alone the White Sox' broken-down leftfielder or the Athletics' Stewart, who is at least three years removed from when he was at the top of his game.
Other thoughts:
That was a terrific and much needed effort from Jason Marquis, who threw great until he dropped Jeff Baker; Bob Howry was n-a-s-t-y, and it is hard for me to recall a pitcher who looked so completely feeble early in the season looking so dominant later in the same year; and Jacque Jones, 7-for-10 over the last two nights in Denver with 7 RBI and a home run, has clearly sold his soul to the devil, though unlike ingesting anabolic steroids, I don't believe that is outlawed by the current Collective Bargaining Agreement, so I'm completely okay with it.
(Note: if you haven't come across any of those explanations of the MLB waiver system, you'll find one here.)
On their regular sports wrapup show late Thursday night, Comcast Sportsnet Chicago reported that Aramis Ramirez has "fluid on the wrist," due, according to the Cubs training staff, to "the violence of his swing." Comcast says Ramirez will not be going on the DL, but will also not be back in the lineup until next Tuesday, when the Cubs return home to play the Reds.
No matter. Based on tonight's result, it's patently clear the Cubs have no need for A-Ram whatsoever.
In a shocking repudiation of baseball humidor science and an eye-raising reversal of their own, recent offensive impotence, the Cubs beat the Rockies with vigor and enthusiasm. Jacque Jones and Jason Kendall went a combined 7-for-10 with 6 RBI.
In addition, Colorado reliever and former Cub LaTroy Hawkins pitched a spotless ninth inning, which, taken together with the plate heroics of Jones and Kendall, elevated the evening from the ranks of the unlikely to the preposterous.
I'm officially sorry for underestimating the Rockies' ability to overcome a 3-0 deficit on Tuesday night, which they, in fact, accomplished in an 11-4 victory over Milwaukee. Then, to really make me feel like an ass, they drubbed the Brewers 19-4 earlier this afternoon, opening the door for the Cubs to pull even tonight, assuming, of course, Carlos Zambrano can shut out the Astros while the Cub offense scores its usual one run.
(Statistical recap: the Milwaukee Brewers, the team Cubs just can't seem to stay ahead of, were outscored in the last three days, 36-10.)
Anyway, Felix Pie is back with the big club as of Wednesday night, so at the very least, I'll have one more Cub to be mad at for striking out with men in scoring position.
At first glance, Lou Piniella’s decision to bring Kerry Wood into Tuesday night’s game when he did was at odds with Lou’s stated intention to ease Wood back into the big leagues.
The score was already 3-1 in Houston’s favor, the Astros had men at first and second with just one out, and notorious Cub-abuser Carlos Lee was striding to the plate.
Thing is, on a night when a team can do no more against the likes of Woody Williams than the Cubs did in six innings Tuesday—four hits and one run which only scored because Williams walked Cliff Floyd with the bases loaded and nobody out in the first inning—you have to figure that team really isn’t capable of overcoming a 3-1 deficit against Major League pitching.
In other words, given the Cub lineup and given the way that lineup was hitting Tuesday night, the decision was already sealed and Wood couldn’t have hurt the cause. That’s what you call a low-leverage relief situation.
For his part, Wood threw 31 pitches, giving up two hits and no runs, though the hits he allowed were to the first two men he faced, Lee and Ty Wigginton, and those hits plated the two runners Wood inherited.
As I write this, the game has moved to the top of the 9th inning and the Cubs are trailing 5-2 while the Brewers lead at Colorado, 2-0, in the fifth inning. This was a night when the Cubs deserved to lose and to lose ground to the division leaders, and unless things change dramatically after I shut down my computer for the night, both of those things will happen.
I was pretty sure I had seen this movie before. Turns out I had, not just once or twice, but three times before. I think after tonight, that's enough, and I'm pretty sure Rich Hill feels that way, too.
In Hill's 22 starts this season, the Cubs have scored three or fewer runs 16 times.
From Will Carroll at Baseball Prospectus:
"Soriano has a Grade II strain of his right quad, apparent from the second he stopped hopping and grabbed it. He grabbed it hard, right in the belly of the muscle, which tells you it was sore immediately, but wasn't so sore that he couldn't touch it, and that the damage wasn't at the ends or the muscle, where there's not as much fiber...At this stage the best guess is that he'll miss between two and four weeks, given what we know and his response to his strained left hamstring."And from BP 2007 on Soriano's replacement on the 25-man roster, Eric Patterson:
"Eric Patterson was initially known as Corey's slower, weaker little brother...Eric does have a little less power, although he still has good sock for a second baseman. The biggest difference is that Eric takes about 30 of Corey's strikeouts and turns them into walks, giving him a 40-point edge in (on-base percentage) and putting him in position to steal more bases than his faster sibling."
