Cubs Masochist

1. Ted Lilly has a little Ryan Dempster in him.  He’ll look good for a few innings, give you a heart attack in one (Polish sausage, Polish sausage, Polish sausage) but end up getting the job done.  Lately anyway.
2. There has been a lot of talk about the number of times Kosuke Fukudome has walked.  Don’t look now, but Aramis Ramirez is tied with him for the team lead.  Yep, that’s right, that Aramis Ramirez.  He’s already halfway to his career high.
3. Three consecutive night games at Wrigley Field is more than a little silly.
4. Derrek Lee has quietly cooled off.
5. Ryan Theriot has quietly raised his average to .331.
6. Two or three weeks worth of poor hitting is the price one has to pay for Alfonso Soriano, and this little Chipper Jones-esque run reminds you that it might be worth it.  It’d still be nice if he’d be a little more consistent.
7. Carlos Marmol is a stud.  That is all.
8. So is Geovany Soto.
9. Kerry Wood has a little Ryan Dempster in him.  That’ll teach me to start writing a post before the game is in the books.
10. I heard a caller on The Score mention the name of Greg Maddux to help solidify the rotation.  I figured that talk wouldn’t start until at least June 1st.
11. I have never liked Jim Edmonds.  I don’t like how he struts to the plate, how he watches his home runs or how he plays a shallow center to make spectacular grabs to get himself on ESPN.  Add that to the fact he did it for the Cardinals for so long and he’s borderline criminal.  Here’s the deal: all that goes out the window if he helps the Cubs win.

So Jason Marquis usually pitches okay except for one inning, and that one inning typically costs him a win. I’m tiring of Marquis press conferences where he describes what he did wrong, how he’s been working on it, what he needs to do, blah, blah, blah.

He gave up the game tying home run to Khalil Greene and allowed Shawn Estes to score the winning run.

On this night it doesn’t matter that the offense had its chances and didn’t come through.  The offense isn’t going to score 13 runs every night.  The Cubs need to figure out a way to win games when they only score 3 runs.  How about having the starting pitcher give up fewer than three runs?  Would that work?

To be clear, this isn’t overreacting to one loss while on the baseball roller coaster from Hell, living and dying with each pitch and each game.  It has nothing to do with a little four-game winning streak in the middle of May.  It has to do with something that is a problem.  The back end of the rotation is a problem.

Jason Marquis is part of that problem.

The Padres.

The guy lost to the Padres.

Do they even still have uniforms?

It doesn’t break my heart to see the other team having problems from time to time.

In the bottom of the sixth, with the bases loaded and two down, Chicago’s Mark DeRosa hit a ball down the line towards third.  Rather than throw over to first to get the non-gazelle DeRosa, the Padres third baseman, Kevin Kouzmanoff, tried to race Aramis Ramirez to third.  Even a known loafer like Ramirez is going to win that foot race when he’s moving with the pitch.  Duh.

So Kouzmanoff decided to throw late to first, only Adrian Gonzalez wasn’t covering.  Not only was he not covering, he didn’t try to make a play on the ball.  Not only did he not try to make a play on the ball, but he watched it go to the tarp.  And continued to stand there, watching it at the tarp.  Cubs runners kept running, and what should have been 5-3 end of the inning play with minimal damage turned into three runs scored.

To any Cubs Masochist readers in the San Diego area, first, why are you reading this, and second, if you want to know why your Padres are 14-25, just take a look at the bottom of the sixth from Monday’s game.

And while I’m very well aware that the Cubs have been making plays like that for about 100 years, I am also pretty excited that it hasn’t been happening as often this year.

And maybe anyone can sweep the Pirates twice in one month. But only a few teams will sweep the Diamondbacks even when they dodge the Diamondback ace.

The series losses to Washington, Milwaukee, St. Louis and Cincinnati look even worse through the lens of three consecutive wins against one of the best teams in baseball.

That ended up being a really good baseball game, and you got just about all you could want from Ted Lilly.

He’s looked much better recently and has allowed only 5 walks against 21 strike outs in his last three starts.

That’s progress.

If baseball movies have taught us anything, and they haven’t, it’s that bringing in a high-priced free agent will immediately cause huge chemistry problems, the team will start to lose and the team will continue to lose until said free agent is shipped out and replaced by a misunderstood homegrown talent or killed by a lunatic fan.

Perhaps they are cautionary tales; what baseball general managers shouldn’t do.

A suggestion for Cubs general manager Jim Hendry: go ahead and risk disrupting the chemistry.

Get another starter.

The fourth and fifth starters for the Cubs are so bad it’s more accurate to say the Cubs don’t have fourth and fifth starters. The two and three starters are hardly Sandy Koufax and Don Drysdale. The trouble here, beyond having a crappy rotation, is that the crappy rotation is going to destroy the bullpen as it gets overworked to pick up the slack.

Hendry should take stock of what he has now before he goes out shopping. Sean Gallagher and Sean Marshall should each get at least one turn. Jeff Samardzija, bad hair, bad strike out-to-walk ratio and all, should get a start. Anyone else AA or above that hasn’t pulled a Rich Hill, well, come on down! Take a look at what the farm system has to see if someone might catch on and be a surprise. The two weeks after the Diamonback series are as good a time as any since the schedule favors the Cubs with series against San Diego, Pittsburgh, Houston (I don’t buy it), Indiana Jones and Pittsburgh again.

It’s doubtful that many teams are going to be ready to deal yet, and even more doubtful that Hendry is going to turn up someone who can pull a Rick Sutcliffe and go 16-0 after a midseason trade.

What is beyond doubt is that the rotation needs to be fixed.

Immediately.

I would imagine that a good, old-fashioned Lou Piniella freak out isn’t too far off.

You will bow down before Carlos Zambrano, Dusty Baker.

You, and one day, Joe Morgan!

There are very few times Mike Fontenot will make a bad baseball decision. He might not have the talent to execute what he wants to do, but he isn’t going to make many bonehead errors on the field, at the plate or on the bases. Of course, he picked Monday night to make an error on the field in the first (allowing a three-run inning) and an error on the bases in the ninth (costing a run and an out with the bases loaded) and the Cubs go away losers. The kid’s lovable, but come on, you have to score on that play if you’re going to go. He knows that.

Did Ryan Dempster walk in a run? Yep, but it was the only walk in six innings against seven Ks, and none of the five runs were earned. They finally get a good start and they lose; Dempster has a really strong start and loses when he normally pitches borderline poorly and wins. How’s that for a Cubbie Occurrence?

Carlos Zambrano needs to win tomorrow. End of story.

Before we get to where we’re at, a word or two on broadcasting since the Cubs made the national broadcasts on both Saturday and Sunday:

• It only took Joe Buck two outs to annoy me on Saturday, which he accomplished by saying that all the ills with Soriano in the leadoff spot could be solved if only Lou took a page from Tony LaRussa’s playbook and batted the pitcher eighth.
• It only took Joe Morgan one out to annoy me on Sunday with his Pujols love fest, insightful reporting when he asked Lou if he’s thought about moving Soriano down in the order (do you think he’ stupid, Joe) and assertion that as good as Japanese baseball might be, the best of the best play here because he played here.
• Back to the Len and Bob Show tonight.  Thank God.

Todd Wellemeyer, folks.  The Cubs lost to Todd Freaking Wellemeyer.  That’s three series losses in a row, which goes back to before Soriano came back from the DL.  Soriano isn’t walking guys.  There are problems deeper than Soriano.

If you want to know how weak the Cardinals are, and how good the Cubs offense can be, think about this: if the Cubs had faced starting pitching as bad Hill and Marquis pitched, they would have put up 10 runs each game.  The division is winnable but not if they don’t start pitching better.