Exile in goatville

It was hard not to laugh last night when Lou Piniella finally got himself ejected from a game. Weeks after being questioned about his "fire," Lou picks a two-out scenario with runners in scoring position when Randy Wells was called out at first after he had definitely beat out a bobbled ground ball from Pirate pitcher Virgil Velasquez. Lou jogged out of the dugout for probably the first time all season (good thing the Cubs were in the first-base dugout) and screamed in the umpire's face, then threw down his hat.

So what was it? Lou actually mad that an ump cost them a run or that fact that yet again last night, against a bogus young Pirates pitcher, that his team continued to be completely ineffective with runner's in scoring position? Does it even matter? Lou's too late to see if his anger can spark this club. Right now, it just adds to the ever-growing list of ideas as sports media outlets across the country bash the daylights out of baseball's most disappointing team.

I thought about addressing the absurdity of the stat that the Cubs had the best ERA in the NL in the month of June and...more

Very little could make things worse for the Cubs right now. They are 1-6 on this road trip after winning four straight at home, Lou Piniella is now receiving heat for his "lack of fire" on a national scale, the Cubs' attitude problems have shattered their image in the MLB, ESPN won't let up on Milton Bradley being a loud-mouthed disappointment and Geovany Soto is a 'criminal' because he takes kindly to weed.

Oh yeah, and Mark DeRosa just got traded to the St. Louis Cardinals. If I'm Jim Hendry, I just hired a body guard and got a prescription for Ambien because I won't be able to sleep at night.

Find one good story line for the Cubs right now. Derrek Lee? His streak ended in Detroit, hardly news at the moment. Jake Fox? He cooled off the last two games. Alfonso Soriano hitting .346 on this road trip? Hasn't made a difference. And now the Cubs are actually closer to falling into last place in the NL Central than climbing up to first. Three games against the Pirates, should they go sour, could destroy them.

So there's only one good headline and you can find it on the...more

Well, a would-be season-changing sweep at home is followed by three offensive choke jobs on the road. Ladies and gents, your 2009 Chicago Cubs.

1-for-15 with runners in scoring position last night? 3 runs on 11 hits? 2 of those runs scored on outs? Abominable. Now the Cubs are actually giving themselves a surplus of opportunities and still shooting themselves in the foot -- nay, jabbing themselves in the foot with a pocket knife -- or something that would definitely imply there was no accident or coincidence. You should never have 29 hits in a three-game span and score just 7 runs.

Sure, we could keep pointing at the same old culprits: Alfonso Soriano, Kosuke Fukudome, etc. But the truth of the matter is, they're either a bad team under pressure or just really inconsistent on offense. Because truthfully, they're playing better baseball on offense than they were before the brief winning streak. 

In honor the Cubs winning three and losing three in a row, I figure another 3 up, 3 down is in order.

3 Up

• Geovany Soto's power. Sure, the consistency isn't there yet (his average still sits at .228) but tacking on another home run...more

It's funny how baseball works. One day you're convinced a team is no good and the next it's won four straight, three in rallying walk-off fashion. Nearly everything you criticize suddenly gets put on hold until things are bad enough that you can criticize them again. 

The Cubs sweep of the Cleveland Indians this weekend was nothing short of remarkable, even if you take into account the Indians' horrendous bullpen. Teams don't come back from 7-0 deficits much and not usually teams who up until the 4th inning Thursday afternoon were still stranding runners in scoring position as if the point of baseball was to leave more men on base than the other team.

Still, it's my job to sift through the remarkable and figure out just what turned the Cubs' fortunes around for the time being. It would be just as naive to start calling the Cubs the best of the NL Central right now as it was to assume they'd never hit like they were supposed to ever again.

It might have everything or nothing to do with new hitting coach Von Joshua. According to Cubs.com, Joshua has been pushing patience and not trying to do too much...more

Ok, so this time the Cubs rallied from behind and beat the White Sox in the 9th on an Alfonso Soriano opposite-field base hit against a pitcher with an ERA under 2.00. Now that's way more of an accomplishment on at least three levels. This is the kind of game that you can look back at in September and say "see that win, that's when they really turned it around."

But let's not get ahead of ourselves. For true Cub fans, the idea of "cautious optimism" is as widely accepted as high beer prices in Wrigleyville -- that's just the way it goes around here.

The Cubs have an opportunity against the Cleveland Indians this weekend to finish with a winning record both on the home stand and overall. Anything less will be dissatisfactory. I don't give the Cubs a prayer against 2008 AL Cy Young winner Cliff Lee today, especially after Lee nearly threw a no-hitter against the Cardinals last Sunday, but the other two match-ups favor the Cubs with Ted Lilly and Randy Wells expected to start.

Who knows, maybe the media will inundate the Cubs with questions about the returns of Mark DeRosa and Kerry Wood to Wrigley...more

As if something out of a fairy tale, the Cubs fire their destructive hitting coach Gerald Perry and that very day in a tie game with the bases loaded in the ninth, Ryan Theriot delivers an opposite field strike and dismantles the Twins' mighty Jesse Crain and his 7.79 ERA causing the field to erupt with Cubs jumping for joy.

Please.

The Cubs' middle-infield celebration of mediocrity yesterday afternoon like they'd just won the pennant was a testament to just how bad things are/have been on the North Side. Nobody should rush the field after getting a clutch hit off the pitcher ranked #390 out of 400 on CBSSports.com's reliever rankings. 

Then again, if rushing the field like middle-aged women let out of the tunnel to see Prince at the Super Bowl halftime show is what the Cubs need to correct their deteriorating mental state in the batter's box than by all means, Cubbies, rush.

It could be perfect timing. If the heat coming from the South Side starting tomorrow night is enough to light another small fire under the players now that they have some semblance of dignity (albeit not much), maybe they can turn around the hitting like...more

No, wait. I've got a better one: Really Irritated Starting Pitchers.

No matter your acronym of choice, this Cubs team is showing consistent inability to produce runs. We've been moaning about this for nearly a month now, arguing that this is just a slump and they'll wake up, but the two pitiful one-run losses in Houston should be all the proof you need. This team is offensively weak. Period.

The Cubs are only competative because of their starting pitching. They've kept them in nearly every game and depending on what the offense is doing, the Cubs win or lose, or occasionally the bullpen squanders late leads. Cubs starters average 6.1 innings per start, third most in the NL, despite the fact that Lou Piniella pulls guys too early most of the time, and yet the Cubs are barely over .500. In fact, I should rephrase to say the Cubs are over .500 because of that.

Where to point the fingers? This offense is full of disappointment. It's only hope is that when Aramis Ramirez comes back that he's magically the messiah and keeps up his .364 batting average and drives in 20 in his first month back. I mentioned the...more

I think I need to start a local support group in Chicago -- for Randy Wells. It would be a place where Randy could come and Cub fans could express their appreciation for Wells' 6 incredible outings and their sympathies for his win-loss record of 0-2 over that time thanks to pathetic offense and relief. I'd call it "Hugs for Randy."

Seriously. Every time Wells makes a start I'm excited because the Cubs will be in the game and every time they show him in the dugout and Len Kasper says "so it'll be another no-decision for Wells..." I'm emotionally hurt inside. That poor, poor 26-year-old, pitching every game like it's his last, doing nothing but good with the baseball and getting no support for it, not a single win. Nothing to show for a 1.86 ERA with 31 Ks, 31 hits and just 8 walks in 38 innings except for two losses by scores of 3-1 and 2-1.

It was the same story in Cincinnati yesterday. After last Tuesday, when wells threw a no-no through nearly 7 and the Cubs bull pen squandered his 5-run lead, you would have thought this team would owe Randy a solid. Then yesterday,...more

For the first time in years, beating the Reds is important. Like, "dear lord, at least let us be better than the Reds" important. Since the Lou Piniella era, the Cubs are 18-18 against Cincinnati. This season, .500 won't cut it, and 1-2 is not a good start.

The Reds sit at 28-25, a game ahead of the Cubs in the Central. If the Cubs can't push them out of the way, they'll never have a chance at the Brewers and Cardinals, and sadly, it looks like the Reds will need to be pushed this season.

The Reds are a lot like the Cubs this season with just slightly better numbers offensively and slightly lesser numbers on the mound. They get a lot done by the long ball and the team alone hits just around .250. Their pitchers also average 6.1 innings per start, same as the Cubs. The difference is that despite tied for last in save opportunities with 15, Francisco Cordero has converted 14 of them. After the atrocity of Tuesday night, that stat means something.

No matter what happens this weekend, the Cubs can be thankful that they won't see two players in their first trip to...more

After a winning home stand and a respectable split against the MLB-leading Dodgers, one third of the Cubs' regular season is officially over and they're a game over .500. Last year, they were 35-21. In 2007, they were 22-29. What's my point? Exactly. 

Lou Piniella said yesterday that "the worst is over." If .500 baseball is truly "the worst" for this team, than either his expectations are high or this team will be there in September. With the law of averages on their side, the latter appears true. June is known as the month that separates the true contenders from the flukes. The Cubs appear to be in neither boat right now. I think that's perfect.

If roaring back in July like the Cubs did in 2007 or dominating May and on like they did last season both resulted in 3-0 sweeps, I'll take lurking 4.5 games back for the moment. It's enough to fight off talk of a lost season, but not enough to have inflated post-season expectations that result in national embarrassment.

Sure, this team will have to get better to compete with the three teams ahead of them in the central, but the expectation of dominance should...more

The set up for a regular season revenge story could have been a little better. I don't think anyone predicted that by the time the Los Angeles Dodgers returned to Wrigley Field at the end of May that they'd be greeted by a Cubs team clinging just above .500 and pretty locked into 4th place in its division.

Well, this is the Cubs' chance to prove it was just a slump, that they will be in the thick of the division race in the near future and that, well, they can beat the Dodgers at least once.

I personally have always viewed the regular season series against teams that handed us rough defeats in the playoffs the year before as revenge situations, especially when they're not division rivals that you see 18 or so times a season. The Marlins in 2004, the D'backs last season and now the Dodgers. For what it's worth, the Cubs have been pretty good at home in those situations. Last May, they swept the D'backs and in 2004, they split a four-game home set with Florida. Heck, even in May of '99 the Cubs took a three-game series against the Braves after getting swept in...more

Normally, at this point, I'd be saying "thank God it's the Pirates." There are few truly great opportunities to rebound quickly from a slump as pitiful as the Cubs' recent 7-game skid, and this is one of them. While the Brewers and Cardinals duke it out in Milwaukee for 3 games, the Cubs get the division's worst team and one that they absolutely love to destroy. This is their best chance to gain back some ground.

If only it were that easy.

Cub fans should have been salivating in anticipation of the first Cubs-Pirates series of the season. In 2008, the Cubs were 14-4 against the Bucs including a 4-game sweep in their first series at Wrigley. They scored 131 total runs in those 18 games. Last season, the Cubs scored 855 runs total. That's 15 percent of their runs scored in about 10 percent of their games.

Of course that was last year, when the Cubs were first in runs scored in the National League, compared to 12th of 16. Wanna know who's 11th? The Pirates. In fact, the Pirates lead the Cubs in most major offensive categories except for home runs. At this point, it's really sobering to...more

If the Cubs' batting averages were the stock market, today would be Black Friday. Kosuke Fukudome is the only active starter hitting over .300. Alfonso Soriano is hitting .265, essentially his lowest average all season. I feel like I personally cursed Mike Fontenot and Ryan Theriot because after my May 4 post singing their praises, Theriot's average has gone from .320 to .279 and Mike Fontenot has had just two hits. Milton Bradley is still busting it up, Soto is barely getting better these last few games and Derrek Lee is slowing climbing out of the crater he dug for himself with a 5-game hit streak.

I'm not excited for Carlos Zambrano to re-join the rotation tonight in San Diego, I'm excited for him to re-join the batting order. With his .279 average, Piniella should bat him 4th. I'm not kidding.

Normally, in this situation, you would see Piniella try and shake things up to get his players out of their funk, but there's a roadblock and Jim Hendry put it there. His one gamble in the off-season (other than making Milton Bradley it's centerpiece): he left a gaping hole at back-up for third base.

As I described in my...more

Please, please, please. Don't let the Cubs become "that" NL Central team. Oh, you know: the one that has no closer, who can attribute half their losses to blown saves. Last year's Brewers. Last year's Cardinals. This year's Cardinals. After watching Kevin Gregg nearly choke away Saturday's game, the fear has burrowed itself.

The Cubs have been notorious most of this decade for not having a closer. Fans have seen the likes of "Flash" Gordon, Rick Aguilera, LaTroy Hawkins, Joe Borowski and more, not appearing to improve at least until Ryan Dempster took the role. When Kerry Wood got the job and Dempster moved to the rotation last season, things looked up. Then they didn't resign Wood and brought in Gregg to compete with Carlos Marmol. If Gregg doesn't wise up, the job could be a juggling act all season long with Marmol sure to be erratic if he gets the call more often.

Gregg shows one strong attribute: poise. Nobody looks less emotional on the mound -- but the results have been erratic. He has, to his credit, converted 6 of 7 save opportunities and his 4 earned runs Saturday were his first since May 1, 5 and 2/3...more

Carlos Zambrano on the DL; Aramis Ramirez on the DL; Derrek Lee day-to-day; Milton Bradley fighting suspension; Geovanny Soto hitting .169. If you had heard back in March that was the forecast for mid-May, you'd probably not have even bothered to watch a game of Cubs' baseball this season.

Nothing seems to be going positively for the Cubs at the moment, except that they still manage to be over .500 (despite 4th place in the Central). Their ace is nursing a hamstring from (surprise) over-running the bases and their biggest run producer (at least of the season) is out two months with a separated shoulder.

The question is will these injuries sink the Cubs' ship in 2009 or will new players be there to keep it afloat? This is not the same NL Central this season with the Reds putting together a winning season so far and both the Cardinals and Brewers bringing their best. The competition is stiff and the Cubs can't hope Ramirez will be back in July and they'll still be right up there vying for the division. They need new contributors.

With Ramirez out of the clean-up spot and Lee missing time, the Cubs have had...more