On the road again...

By Steven Chaitman | Jul 20, 11:03 AM

Lou Piniella said he doesn't know why this team can't hit on the road. I would like to second that statement.

How the Cubs have managed to score just 2 runs in the last two games against the Astros and spoil decent outings from Lilly and Zambrano (aside from his walks) is beyond me.

Did the Astros just have to wave their magic Wandy to make the Cubs' bats inept? It seems like every time the Cubs face a left-handed pitcher that's not Barry Zito or some member of that inept Pirates rotation, they can't do anything. It's getting real annoying.

The Cubs outhit the Astros 9 to 6 yesterday and Zambrano was the only one with an RBI. That's pretty unbelievable. Meanwhile, the Cardinals and Brewers are cleaning up the garbage Padres and Giants while the Cubs can't take care of the NL Central's trash. Teams like the Cubs don't lose series to teams like the Astros, home or away. A sweep will have Cubdom in arms this week. If they do get swept, I might suggest Piniella go with an Ozzie Guillen strategy to shake these guys up. The pitching doesn't get easier in Arizona, fellas. Now that's a team that can't hit.

I'll admit I didn't get to watch these games very closely, so it would be wrong of me to prescribe something at this point, but boy would it have been nice to have had Soriano back for this series-anything to give the Cubs a boost. Maybe a radical shake-up for one game will do something, but probably not this series-you have to give yourself the best chance to avoid the sweep.

You would think that with Ryan Dempster facing Bradon Backe this afternoon that this would be easy enough, but of course Dempster is still winless on the road and Backe has come off a good outing (a trend I'm noticing gives the Cubs some trouble). Basically all any good Cub fan can do at this point is hope this is the worst of it.

Tagged: baseball, Cubs