On his pre-game radio show Monday night, Lou Piniella said he felt the need to start cutting back on the number of appearances by his two ace relievers, Carlos Marmol and Kerry Wood, and start finding opportunities to use Jon Lieber and Chad Fox.
As you know if you watched the 7-2 win over the Astros, Lou went 2-for-4:
Wood did get to rest, and Lieber did get to pitch (1 2/3 scoreless IP in relief of starter and winner Ted Lilly). But Fox remained idle, and Marmol was forced into action in the home half of the eighth, and it was nasty duty, at that. The Cubs were up 5-2, the Astros had men at first and third, none out, and Tejada, Berkman, and Lee were due up. A pop out, a strikeout, and a ground out later, the Astros were taking the field, and the lead remained safe (even safer after Aramis Ramirez's two-run homer in the top of the ninth). Another Marmol masterpiece.
Speaking of Ramirez, he and Derrek Lee went a combined 5-for-10 with 3 RBI on Monday night. This was a big turnaround from the weekend series against the Pirates, in which R. and L. went a combined 0-for-22. In fact, over the course of the just concluded homestand, the Cubs' two big sluggers didn't do much slugging at all.
Ramirez hit .257 with no homers and 4 RBI, Lee hit .171 with an OPS of 556, and yet the Cubs won 8 of 10.
Of course, over that same 10-game stretch, Alfonso Soriano hit .524/1.150/1674 (OBP/SLG/OPS) with 7 HR and 16 RBI, and lifted his batting average from .191 to .296. And Mark DeRosa hit .514/.645/1159. Fukudome, Soto, and Theriot, while posting less spectacular numbers, all held their own, so the offensive falloff by Ramirez and Lee didn't pose much of a problem.
Depth. It's good.
Tuesday morning update: So much for Chad Fox helping to shoulder the bullpen load. Fox has been placed on the 15-Day Disabled List after developing elbow tenderness. According to the Tribune...
Fox said trainer Mark O'Neal told him "it could take a week, it could take two weeks, it could take two months. Who knows?"Fox's spot will be taken by Jose Ascanio, whom the Cubs acquired this past off-season from Atlanta in exchange for Will Ohman. Ascanio had a 2.29 ERA and 9 saves in 16 appearances for the I-Cubs.
And speaking of the I-Cubs, they've placed Rich Hill on the 7-Day DL as a result of back spasms that caused him to be pulled from a start last Friday, but Lou Piniella doesn't think the back spasms are serious, or maybe even the real issue at all. Again, from the Tribune...
“I don’t think it’s serious,” Piniella said. “Probably more of a mental break than anything, I’d assume. That’s just my assumption. [The break] may not be bad. It might be the best tonic of all. But I haven’t heard anything wrong of a serious nature, anything fundamentally wrong with his back.”
With Wednesday's one-sided loss at Cincinnati, the Cubs have dropped 9 of 13 games and have now failed to win any one of their last five series.
The dark time began two weeks ago, during the second of two games in Colorado. In the last of the eighth inning, an error by Ryan Theriot opened the door to a two-run Rockies rally, a 4-2 Cub defeat, and a split of the teams' two-game set. Since then, the Cubs have dropped two of three each to the Nationals, Brewers, Cardinals, and Reds.
As for today's mess, Jon Lieber became only the second Cub pitcher ever to serve up four home run balls in one inning. (Phil Norton was the other, back in 2000.) That's bad enough, but the fact that two of the longballs were hit by former Cubs Paul Bako and Jerry Hairston, Jr.—Bako's was a 400-foot-plus shot—really underscores how weak Lieber's performance was.
Lou Piniella was non-commital after the game regarding Lieber's possible future in the starting rotation.
"We don't need to make a decision right now. We'll think about it and see what we can do."With Scott Eyre coming off the DL this weekend, my guess is that Sean Marshall will get the ball the next time the fifth spot in the rotation rolls around.
And speaking of fifth starters, the Cubs' third-starter-turned-fifth-starter-turned-Iowa-Cubs-starter, Rich Hill, had his first minor league outing Tuesday night. As Mike Wellman reports at The Cub Reporter, it wasn't great.
As you probably know by now, Rich Hill was sent down to Triple-A Iowa in the wake of his nightmarish performance Friday night, Sean Gallagher was summoned from the I-Cubs (and pitched well in Sunday night's 5-3 loss to the Redbirds), and Jon Lieber was named the starter for the Cubs' Wednesday afternoon meeting with the Reds.
If, based on the previous post, you, too, guessed that Lieber's joining the rotation would be the first of the three events to occur, you're a winner!
Please claim your prize on the way out.
Lou Piniella pulled Rich Hill from the first inning of tonight's game at St. Louis before he had given up a hit, but after he had walked four Cardinal hitters and forced in the first run of the evening. Coupled with Jon Lieber's mostly successful relief work this year (three scoreless innings of relief tonight at this writing, lowering Lieber's ERA to 1.93), Kerry Wood's third blown save of the season on Thursday, and Piniella's blow-up at a question asked by Jesse Rogers of WSCR in the post-game press conference, I'm wondering which of the following will occur first:
- Jon Lieber takes Rich Hill's turn in the starting rotation
- Carlos Marmol is given a save opportunity ahead of Kerry Wood
- Piniella goes truly berserk at a reporter
I missed Adam Dunn's long home run Wednesday night and the ensuing reaction from dozens of Cubs fans, who took balls they had apparently corralled during batting practice and threw them onto the field. Veteran Reds broadcaster Marty Brennaman was there and found the whole thing rather quaint:
"This is the kind of thing quite honestly...that makes you want to see the Chicago Cubs team lose. Among all baseball fans--and I can't attest to the Yankees or the Red Sox because we don't see them with any degree of regularity--but far and away the most obnoxious fans in baseball...are those who follow this team right here...You simply root against them. I’ve said all winter, they talk about this team winning the division and my comment is, they won’t win it because at the end of the day, they’re still the Chicago Cubs and they will figure out a way to screw this whole thing up."I happen to agree that Cub fans are obnoxious, particularly the bleacherites, especially at a night game, when the drinking has gone on for way too long.
But how this feeds Marty's certainty that the Cubs will "screw up" their shot at winning the NL Central--a division which the Cubs managed to win just last season, Mr. Hall of Fame Announcer--I'm not at all clear.
(Longtime Cubs fans will recall that Marty's kid, Thom, called Cubs games in the early '90s, departing for the Fox Network in '94. It always struck me that whenever the subject of Lou Piniella would come up, Brennaman would refer to him--sarcastically, it seemed--as "Uncle Lou." Though I never heard any explanation, I assumed there was bad blood between Piniella and Thom's daddy. I can't help but think that bad blood or some lingering raw feelings between young Brennaman and the Cubs organization is behind Marty's outburst here.)
For now at least, there's a link to the audio clip on this page here. The other voice you'll hear belongs to former Major League reliever and current imbecile Jeff Brantley.
Ted Lilly pitched Thursday like he's interested in winning the #5 starter's job, i.e., he pitched like hell, allowing 6 hits, 3 walks, and 5 earned runs in 6 innings. The Cubs were thumped 9-2. Rich Hill, whose own poor performance already earned him the demotion to #5 man, goes Friday against the Pirates.
Some starter other other than Carlos Zambrano and Ryan Dempster needs to begin giving the Cubs some quality innings, and I'll be the first to admit that from the time Dempster was first mentioned as a candidate to join the starting rotation this winter, I never, ever thought I would be saying anything like that.
– The Chicago Tribune reports that a new investor group has announced its intention to get in on the bidding for the Cubs. Called Robinson-Greenberg and Associates (after Hall of Famers Jackie Robinson and Hank Greenberg), it "would represent the first African-American majority ownership of an MLB franchise."
Principals include: a Lutheran minister named Anthony Williams; real estate investor and catering company owner Marshall Bynum, Jr.; and entrepreneur Harold Davis.
According to the Tribune...
Bynum said the group intends to purchase both the Cubs and Wrigley Field, and is prepared for a price tag of $1 billion dollars or more. Tribune Co. has indicated it prefers to sell the stadium and team separately.The Trib story also quotes a baseball official who questions whether or not this heretofore unknown investor group could possibly be a serious bidder for the club.
– Alright, it's my fault. I dared to think that the Cubs might go through the Cactus League season and the regular schedule without losing a game, and look what happens.
On Friday afternoon in Mesa, Les Walrond was tagged for an eighth-inning grand slam by the Giants' Eddy Martinez-Esteve, as San Francisco turned a 5-4 deficit into an 8-5 lead, eventually dumping the Cubs 8-6. Carlos Zambrano and Rich Hill gave up a combined one earned run over the first four innings. Kosuke Fukudome collected two more walks and scored two of the Cub runs.
Alfonso Soriano, who sat out the Spring Training opener on Thursday, made his debut Friday and went 0-for-2. Aramis Ramirez was absent from the lineup for the second straight day owing to a "tight right shoulder."
The Cubs (Jason Marquis) will visit the Angels (Jered Weaver) in Tempe on Saturday.
– The Cubs have already sold 2.7 million tickets for the upcoming season. That's a franchise record this far out from Opening Day.
Put another way, it's more tickets than the White Sox, Mariners, Rangers, Blue Jays, Rockies, Diamondbacks, Indians, Twins, Orioles, Reds, Nationals, A's, Pirates, Royals, Devil Rays, or Marlins sold in all of 2007.
– The Wrigley Company is not reacting to Sam Zell's reported desire that they pony up for the naming rights to Wrigley Field and, in the words of the Sun-Times, start to "pay for what the chewing gum company has been getting for free," i.e., the promotional value of having their name on one of the world's most famous sports venues.
The Sun-Times says that Zell would prefer to peddle those rights to Wrigley since that would allow him to put many millions of dollars in the Trib's corporate pocket and spare Cub fans the trauma of having to attend games at Boeing Park or McDonald's Field.
Always thinking about the fans--Sam seems to be really great that way.
mir·a·cle [mir-uh-kuhl]
an effect or extraordinary event in the physical world that surpasses all known human or natural powers and is ascribed to a supernatural cause.
əPaul Sullivan points out correctly that just three teams have won Division Series after going down 0-2: the '01 Yanks (beat Oakland); the '03 Red Sox (beat Oakland); and the '95 Mariners (over the Yankees).
Nonetheless, I think that these Cubs are sufficiently talented that they could come back in this series if their big hitters will simply hit, their money pitchers pitch, and if everyone wearing Cubbie blue would quit coming unglued at the first pop-up they hit with men in scoring position or the first gopher ball they throw to an Arizona hitter.
I think the Diamondbacks are beatable; what I'm wondering about just now is if the Cubs have the composure to defeat them.
Ted Lilly's hissy fit, which I wrote about earlier today at The Cub Reporter, was a textbook example of the art form. ("I've never seen a pitcher throw a glove like that on the mound," Cub manager Lou Piniella said.) It also had to let the Arizona bench know that there was Cub blood in the water. Same thing with all of the bat-flinging. Could A-Ram possibly have a bat-flinging incentive written into that big, new contract?
In any case, it's time to knock off the histrionics and show some focus.
Rich Hill goes Saturday night; the reasonably rested Zambrano will go Sunday afternoon if there is still a series to play.
Please, no tantrums.
I hope I have ongoing Cub baseball to write about on Monday.
