Month: May 2010

Baker and Z to the Hospital=Perspective

Dailies

Are we sitting exactly where we’d like to be coming up on the final weekend of May?  No.

But we’re not in horrible shape either.  Have to keep at it.  The Reds have a great young pitching staff and they’ve set themselves apart from the rest of the Central atop the division accompanied by really only the Cardinals so far this year.  Most of our injuries have found themselves in the rotation as we were without Lilly to start the season and we’ve already had a wild start with the Zambrano to the bullpen move, Colvin’s contribution to the team, moving Soriano in the order to help his bat (now he leads the team in nearly every major hitting stat) and a slow start by Lee and Rami (although according to ESPN: During the home stand against the Dodgers, Lee was 7-for-9. In his last 14 home games, Lee’s hitting .400 (22-for-55), with one homer, six doubles and 9 RBIs.)

The Spring is getting old but the Summer has yet to rear it’s head yet and we’ve got a ton of baseball left to play in 2010. I’m not getting worried about our place in the standings as long as we continue to hover within six games or less throughout the Summer and then get hot through August and September and make a move on the division.  I am concerned about Zambrano and Baker though.

Zambrano was in the hospital with appendicitis type symptoms and let me tell you, that can be extremely painful.  Hopefully he’s ok.  He’s due back against Pittsburgh, who we could use him against considering they are all of a sudden playing us in 2010 unlike the reliably lousy Pirates team of recent years justifying my fun Pitt slogan of “We’ll always have Pittsburgh”.  They are playing us tough this year and we need Z and all guns firing on all cylinders to even compete with the Pirates.  This division is going to be tougher than I thought overall this year and we need guys healthy.

However, more important than being on the field, is being able to simply get around and live a happy, healthy lifestyle.  Baker had a scare where he couldn’t see at all out of his right eye and got pulled from a game when he didn’t even make a move on a liner that came right by his left side.  That is some scary stuff right there. We need our guys performing but more importantly, we simply need them healthy.  Let’s hope this weekend provides some entertaining baseball with W’s against the Cards, but more so, let’s get some good news on Z and Baker.

Go Cubs Go!

I’ll Take Some Blame for This Streak

Dailies

You just need to keep your mouth shut in this great game.  You can’t mention anything about anything going great because as soon as you do…BOOM, gone.

My last post was about Lou loving his decision to move Z to the bullpen and all the great winning that went on afterwards.  Were we on a streak to end all streaks?  No.  We weren’t even in first place.  But the team had found it’s offense for a few games, it had a new fire lit under itself with Z gone to the bullpen and we looked to be headed in the right direction.  Then I posted all about how please Lou must be with himself and it was all down hill from there.  Now we’ve been swept by the Pirates, lost two games in a row after exchanging blow outs with the Reds and have to suffer a series against a strong NL East team in the Florida Marlins (who as I write this, we are currently losing to 4-2 in the ninth.

We are six games out of first place in the Central, five games behind the wild card leading Giants and have a miserable record of 14-18, looking up at the Cards who sit pretty at 20-12 and are only three and half games above the lowly Astros at the bottom of the division.  Castro has even been called up to the bigs and after one huge, record breaking outing of a home run and six RBI in his major league debut, our team seems to have forgotten how to string hits along for offense again and have even found more ways to struggle at home at Wrigley.

Z to the bullpen.  Castro up to the bigs.  Theriot to second.  Flip flop Ramirez and Soriano in the line up.  I’ve been watching a lot of NBA playoff basketball lately and just like in those games where every team will have it’s run if given enough time, the same has gone for Lou lately.  A hot streak, a cold streak….a cold streak, a very cold streak. Hopefully he finds the right mix and the right words to light a fire under this team soon.  If wanting to win, if being paid millions isn’t enough then something else must be wrong.  We need Lou to figure it out because Hendry can only call up so many hot hitting prospects to try and make a difference.

I think Keith Hernandez would fall into a coma if he called Cubs games.  The Mets are 17-14 and two games out of first place behind the Phillies and even with all of that, here’s a clip of Keith calling a Mets game.  Go Cubs Go…let’s turn this thing around QUICKLY!