Phillies Series Preview

PROBABLE PITCHING MATCHUPS

Courtesy of MLB.com

Wednesday at 8:05pm – Matt Garza vs. Kyle Kendrick

In his first start since being sidelined with the flu, Garza lasted five innings against the Brewers. That matched his shortest outing of the season. Garza had a tough time finding his rhythm because of the layoff. Kendrick gets the spot start, replacing Vance Worley. Worley did not make the team’s trip to Chicago on Tuesday and will miss Wednesday’s start against the Cubs at Wrigley Field because of soreness in his elbow.

Thursday at 8:05pm – Chris Volstad vs. Roy Halladay

Volstad cruised through five scoreless innings against the Brewers, then everything fell apart in the sixth. Again. He’s had trouble with one inning in each of his starts and is winless in his last 18 starts, dating back to July. Halladay twirled seven innings of two-run ball, scattering seven hits with one walk and 10 strikeouts in Saturday’s tough-luck loss to the Padres.

NOTES FROM THE ENEMY

www.crashburnalley.com

This two-game tilt will almost certainly come down to starting pitching, or at least I hope it does, because the Phillies’ offense has been about as reliable as a used Lada this season, and Charlie Manuel hasn’t exactly been a good steward of his bullpen resources. So if this series doesn’t come down to starting pitching, the Phillies are probably screwed. So let’s just assume it comes down to starting pitching. The Cubs catch a break on Wednesday, as Vance Worley has been scrubbed from his start with arm soreness. So instead of Worley (3-2, 3.07 ERA, 45 K, 15 BB) and his two-seamer of doom, the Cubs will face Kyle Kendrick (0-3, 7.32 ERA, 12 K, 9 BB). While Worley isn’t Halladay, Lee, or Hamels, he’s much better than Kendrick, whose non-sinking sinker should go over FANTASTIC in Wrigley.

Speaking of Halladay, he’s slated to take the mound exactly one month from the last time the Phillies won one of his starts, a streak of bad luck that includes a disastrous 8-run outing in Atlanta.

On the Cubs’ side, Chris Volstad has a celebrated history with the Phillies. Volstad has faced the Phillies 13 times in his career, by far the most of any team—probably owing to his years with the Marlins, who, it seems, play the Phillies every other weekend—and has been terrible in those 13 starts. The Phillies have hit for a combined .898 OPS off Volstad, who allowed eight hits, three walks, and four earned runs in six innings when the two teams met in Philadelphia last month. Of course, Volstad has not registered a positive WPA in any of his seven starts this season, so take that for what it’s worth. Matt Garza doesn’t have as checkered a history with the Phillies, apart from losing Game 3 of the 2008 World Series, so I probably wouldn’t be telling you anything about him you don’t already know.

Just in case this doesn’t just come down to starting pitching, here’s something you might not know: Phillies fans, for whatever reason, really don’t like Tony Campana. I’m not sure why, but he was rather unpopular during the first go-round among Phillies fans. It might be because he’s got the kind of awkward gait to him that makes it look like he was following Hunter Pence around, mocking him all weekend. Plus he was supremely irritating on the bases. But for whatever reason, be advised that whenever Campana does well, Philadelphia cringes.

Good luck, and tell Patrick Kane to save some beer for me.

OUR TAKE

Missing Worley is a big help.  Hopefully Garza is back to his old self after shaking the rust off from his long layoff with the flu.  I’m not real familiar with Kyle Kendrick (in fact, if you had just told me his name, I would have guessed that he’s a NASCAR driver), but if he’s as bad as advertised above, the Cubs ought to make the most out of it tonight.  Especially because tomorrow looks like it can be penciled in as a loss right now.  Halladay has struggled a couple times in the past against the Cubs and he’s had some trouble lately, so I’m optimistic it won’t be an offensive no-show.  But my hope for Volstad is an at all-time low, and I doubt very much that he’ll get through tomorrow without his patented One Bad Inning.  I’m hopeful we can split the two-game series on the way to the first round of riveting BP Cup action this weekend.

Enjoy what you read here? Follow us using the following tools:

Posted in Featured, General | 6 Comments »

Top 20 Prospects Update

We are well over a month into the baseball season and most full time players have at least 100 plate appearances under their belts. With the Cubs in a rebuilding year, I was pretty excited to watch the development of the young players in the farm system. While preparing this post and seeing the performances of VFTB’s pre-season Top 20, all I can say is “Thank God for Anthony Rizzo.”

It’s not pretty. First, the hitters (all stats through games of 5/14/12):

Ugly. Ugly ugly UGLY!

Rizzo is the only prospect that looks like he can handle the level he is at. Welington Castillo was doing pretty good in AAA before Steve Clevenger’s injury, but not a lot to be excited about down on the farm.

Except, maybe….Junior Lake. He  just came back from an injury, and is honestly, shocking me, with his patience at the plate. Last year he drew 19 walks all year long…this year he’s already at 8 in only 8 games. I was one of his biggest detractors, but this extremely small sample is a complete 180 from his 2011 approach, and outside of Rizzo, is now the most exciting guy that I follow.

It isn’t any better on the pitching side:

Trey McNutt has been successful when he’s pitched, but has only gotten through the 4th inning one time.

Gerardo Concepcion had a good outing on Tuesday that does not show up in these stats, and has his ERA under 10.00. YAY! He’s going to need some time to learn how to pitch.

Rafael Dolis has had the best season so far, but that’s not going to continue if he keeps on walking more than he strikes out.

Overall, a very disappointing 2012 so far for at least 11 of the 16 prospects that have played in a full season league. Next week I’ll dig a little deeper in the minors and see if we can find a few more players to get excited about.

Enjoy what you read here? Follow us using the following tools:

Posted in Featured, Minor League | 26 Comments »

Game 36: Wave Goodbye to Another Winnable Game

Cubs 6 @ Cardinals 7

Box Score / Highlights / Condensed Game

Tuesday’s afternoon matchup between the Cubs and Cardinals was a rollercoaster of joy and pain–in short, it was a Cubs game.  Here’s a look at some of the key Ups and Downs.  And we’ll try to have some Fun With Stats along the way.

• Up  The Cubs looked pretty strong in the first inning.  DeJesus, Campana, and Castro led off the game with three straight singles, and Soriano would also hit a double and come in to score the third run of the inning.  Altogether seven Cubs came up to bat in the first inning.  It looked like a strong start, but it wouldn’t last.  FWS:  The Cubs’ starters have posted a startling .683 IHL (Inability to Hold a Lead) so far this season.
• Down  Sadly the top of the first had to come to an end, and with it the Cubs’ most productive stretch of the day.  Paul Maholm took the mound with a three-run lead in the bank, and promptly gave back two of them in the bottom of the first.  By the end of the second inning, the game was all tied up again.  Maholm didn’t exactly return to his sketchy performances from the beginning of the season, but he didn’t have his best stuff either.
• Up  Still, after the second inning, he managed to hold the Cards to only two hits and two walks.
• Down  Unfortunately, over that same period, the Cubs’ lineup was also unable to produce anything.  In fact, from the end of the first to the top of the fifth, Kyle Lohse sat down ten straight Cubs.
• Down  Also, one of the hits Maholm gave up was Matt Holliday’s solo bomb to give the Cards the lead in the bottom of the fifth.
• Up  Fortunately the Cardinals couldn’t hold onto the lead for long, because Bryan LaHair blasted his own solo homer to tie the game back up in the top of the sixth. FWS:  LaHair’s leading all Cubs in FCCP (Favorable Comparisons to Carlos Pena) with a .508.
•  Up  Since Blake DeWitt was DFA’d (again), Reed Johnson has become the Cubs’ primary pinch hitter.  The other day in Milwaukee, he hit a homerun.  Today he shot a single back to center to give the Cubs the lead in the top of the seventh.  Between the sparkplug-ishness of Tony Campana, the surging bat of David DeJesus, and the extended ride in the wayback machine for Alfonso Soriano (more on that in a moment), there doesn’t look much playing time for Johnson in the near future.  Here’s hoping he can stay productive coming off the bench, and that he’ll keep making use of the chances he gets.
• Down  But again, the Cubs couldn’t hold the lead for long.  Kerry Wood is not pitching well right now.  It depresses me.  I don’t want to talk about it.
• Down  Unfortunately, Wood wasn’t the only underperforming Cubs reliever Tuesday.  James Russell continued the Cubs’ trend of making Matt Carpenter look like an all star, as his deep homerun gave the lead back to the Cards.  Going into the top of the ninth, this looked like yet another game that the bullpen would give away.  (They would eventually, they just weren’t done yet.)
• Up  Alfonso Soriano picked a great time to hit his first homer of the year.  I’m not sure how he’s managed to stay somewhat productive and healthy for so long to start the season.  Like a pleasant dream, I don’t know when it will end–just that it will.  Until then, I’m routinely surprised and pleased at how he’s been able to contribute.  Today he had a run-producing double and a solo homer.  That’ll do, Alfonso.  That’ll do.
• Down  Dolis came in to pitch the bottom of the ninth, and decided that since all the other pitchers had been sketchy, he would be too.  He gave up a leadoff single to Holliday, then got a strikeout and a groundout to get the Cubs to the doorstep of extra innings.  With Holliday on second, Yadier Molina came up to bat.  FWS:  I’d like to point out here that Molina’s WAMPaHRO (Will Absolutely Make You Pay With Runners On) is through the roof against the Cubs, and this would have been a good time to walk him, increase the chances of a force-out, and ease the frazzled nerves of Cubs fans who rightly don’t want to ever face Molina in such a situation.  Instead and inevitably, the neck tattoo enthusiast smacked a to right field to grab the walk-off win and snap the Cardinals’ four-game losing streak.

Enjoy what you read here? Follow us using the following tools:

Posted in Featured, General | 8 Comments »

The Post I Didn’t Write

As most of you know, View From the Bleachers is affiliated with ESPN as part of their SweetSpot blog network.  Joe can speak more thoroughly and accurately on all the broad benefits of that affiliation, but in practical terms, it’s at least part of the reason many of you read our work every day (thanks).  It’s a gracious, beneficial partnership that neither I nor any of the other VFTB writers take lightly.

So when ESPN asks us to not do something, we listen.  And prior to the start of this season, David Schoenfield–the excellent head writer for the main SweetSpot blog–suggested to the blog network that we be cautious in the area of media criticism.  He outlined some broad guidelines, and indicated that restraint on our part is encouraged and appreciated.

Therefore, in light of his request, I won’t submit the lengthy article I intended to write about Chicago Tribune beat reporter Paul Sullivan, and his role in the recent controversy surrounding Kerry Wood and his now infamous glove toss.  (This isn’t the first time Wood has turned his glove into a souvenir, but launching it 10+ rows deep drew much more attention to it than past occurrences.)

I won’t point out that the controversy didn’t really have anything to do with the glove toss, but that it centered on Wood’s response–or lack of response–to a question Paul Sullivan asked about Wood’s dissatisfied display after the game.  Rather than answer his question, Wood said, “Irrelevant, dude.  Why the (expletive) would you even bring that up?” and walked away from the interview.

I won’t point out that the controversy didn’t seem to matter much to fans, or that it was mainly others in the media who thought Wood’s response was unprofessional.  Most of us only care about Wood rediscovering how to consistently throw strikes and miss bats.

I won’t point out how no one in the media seems to mind Sullivan’s own brand of unprofessionalism.  I won’t cite examples like his Twitter feed, where he routinely mocks the Cubs, their front office, and their fans.  I also won’t remind you of the consistently jaded, irritated way he writes about the Cubs–VFTB readers are well-read enough to know what his daily articles are like, and how flippant his responses can be to Cubs fans in his periodic mailbags.

I won’t refer to Sullivan as a more passive-aggressive version of Jay Mariotti.

And I certainly won’t bring up Sullivan’s endless and largely one-sided grudge match with former Cub pitcher Carlos Zambrano.  Frankly we’re all tired of that nonsense.

I will point out that Sullivan has a job most of us dream about–a job some of us would gladly do for little or no pay at all.  But I won’t mention the pity that it’s a job he seems to loathe.

When my love for the Cubs finally moved past the casual fan-hood (fan-ship? fan-ness? whatever) of my youth, Paul Sullivan was one of the first Cubs beat writers I began to read every day.  I was instantly jealous of his access to the team, and absorbed what he wrote about every win and loss.  Over time though, I got tired of the negative attitude that laced many of his articles, and how every story eventually came back to the same few talking points.  How virtually everything that was wrong with the team could be somehow traced back to Zambrano.

I don’t want or need him to be a fan of the Cubs–to turn every story into a positive, to offer little-to-no criticism, or to be an indirect mouthpiece for the team.  We have Carrie Muskat for that.

Put simply, Sullivan’s exasperation with the Cubs is exasperating.  Who wants or needs to read that every day, over and over?  (I’m sure he’s got a huge following in St. Louis.)  I suppose in that regard I can thank Sullivan for helping me find other, better writers who didn’t seem totally burnt out on the team or sport they’re covering.  I think he might have even inadvertently helped me find View From the Bleachers years ago.

I can’t tell you why Kerry Wood didn’t want to answer Sullivan’s question last week.  I can theorize several answers, but none of them are better than guesses.  What I can tell you is that Sullivan loves to be at the center of the story, and that he loves having more negative stuff to say and write  about the Cubs, and another running joke he won’t let die.

So instead all I’ll say is that Wood’s response–”Irrelevant, dude”–is a good way to describe Paul Sullivan.

P.S.  Seymour’s comment below alerted me to something I didn’t make clear above.  ESPN asked us not to lean heavily on media criticism–they did not forbid it altogether.  There was a blog they had to remove from the SweetSpot network because a couple writers went WAY overboard with their attacks of their team’s beat writer, making all kinds of accusations and trying to get the writer fired.  To my knowledge, ESPN won’t take issue with anything I’ve said above.  If they do, I’ll let you know.

Enjoy what you read here? Follow us using the following tools:

Posted in Featured, General | 13 Comments »

Interview with Anthony Rizzo

On Saturday, Iowa Cubs first baseman Anthony Rizzo was kind enough to take time out of his day to speak with me. Last season with the Padres organization, Rizzo destroyed the Pacific Coast League but struggled upon a call up to the Majors. Returning to the PCL, this time with the Iowa Cubs, Rizzo is having similar success. The Cubs traded right handed pitcher Andrew Cashner for Rizzo over the offseason, and Rizzo is the first baseman of the future on the North Side.

At the beginning of the season, we rated Rizzo as the Cubs’ second best prospect, behind Brett Jackson. While Rizzo is and was the more complete hitter, Jackson’s speed and ability to play an above average center field gave him the edge coming into the season. But Jackson has struggled somewhat this season, while Rizzo has been one of the best hitters in Triple A. As a result, I don’t think Joe, Norm or myself would be surprised if Rizzo would be named the Cubs’ top prospect if we voted again now.  You can listen to my discussion with him right here:

Download the MP3 (4.6 mb)

MAY 14 FARM SYSTEM RESULTS

View the Box Scores Courtesy of First Inning

Top Performers

Iowa
The I- Cubs game was too late to declare top performers, but we can say that Anthony Rizzo hit his twelfth home run of the season.

Tennessee
Junior Lake (3B)-  3-6, 2B, HR, RBI, 4 R, 3 BB, 1K, SB, CS
Jae-Hoon Ha (CF)- 4-8, 2 2B, 1 RBI, 3 R,

Daytona
Nelson Perez (LF)- 2-4, 2 RBI, 2 K, SB
Austin Kirk (SP)- 7 IP, 1 R, 1 ER, 6 H, 5 K, 2 BB

Peoria
Kyler Burke (SP)- 6 IP, 1R, 1 ER, 4 H, 4K, 2 BB
Zeke DeVoss (2B)- 1-2, BB, Sac Bunt, SB

Enjoy what you read here? Follow us using the following tools:

Posted in Featured, Minor League | 2 Comments »

Game 35: Dempster shuns support; Cubs win anyway

Cubs 6 @ Cardinals 4

Box Score / Highlights / Condensed Game

Ryan Dempster: The Cubs finally got him a lead, but Dempster responded by impersonating Chris Volstad. In the blink of an eye Dempster had Cardinals on 1st and 3rd with no outs. Before the 6th inning was up, the game was tied at 4 and Dempster’s night was over. Apparently he fancies close games.

Tony Campana: Somehow he manages to get on base, and often it causes all kinds of trouble for the opponent. He started the 5th inning rally with an infield single – a play on which 99% of major leaguers would routinely be retired. After swiping second base on a pitchout, he scored on Castro’s bloop single because he instantly, and correctly identified that the ball would fall between Furcal and Holiday in short LF. He also scored the go-ahead run in the 8th.

Nailed At The Plate: The turning point of the game seemed to be Molina’s game-tying double. With Campana shaded towards right, Molina hit what should’ve been a bases-clearing 2B to left-center. Campana fielded the ball, turned and fired to Castro in short LF. Castro whipped a strike to the plate from about 180 feet, Scoscia Soto blocked and tagged David Freese. Molina would eventually score on Schumaker’s single, but that inning could’ve been a lot worse if Freese makes it in ahead of the throw.

LOB: I’m hesitant to applaud the offense because we were only 3-for-17 with RISP and we left them loaded in two different innings, a total of 14 runners LOB. It felt all night like neither team would really seize the victory – and in the end it took some terrible pitching and equally bad infield defense late in the game from the Cards for the Cubs to seal the deal.

Bullpen: Camp and Dolis looked really good – 30 pitches, 3 innings, 1 hit.

The Cubs sit only 5 games out of first place – enjoy it while it lasts!

Enjoy what you read here? Follow us using the following tools:

Posted in Featured, General | 19 Comments »

Cardinals Series Preview

PROBABLE PITCHING MATCHUPS

Courtesy of MLB.com

Monday at 7:05pm EDT – Ryan Dempster vs. Jake Westbrook

It’s only natural for Dempster to face the Brewers. He’s 15-6 with a 2.75 ERA against them. However, he’ll take a “W” against anybody. He has not won since Aug. 16, a span of 14 starts. All five of his starts this year have been quality starts. Westbrook has won all four starts he’s made against teams not from Pittsburgh and has pitched into the seventh in each of his six starts. He continues to thrive with his sinker and has received more run support than any other National League pitcher.

Tuesday at 1:45p EDT – Paul Maholm vs. Kyle Lohse

Maholm is on a roll. He’s won four straight, and given up three earned runs over 25 1/3 innings in that stretch. He’s also holding teams to a .167 average. He lost to the Cardinals on April 15 right before starting his streak. Lohse lasted only five innings on Wednesday, largely due to suffering a left hamstring strain while running the bases. He is hopeful the injury won’t cause him to miss a start. Lohse became the third National League pitcher to win five games.

Notes From the Enemy

www.fungoes.net

Tonight’s starter, Jake Westbrook, has been enjoying a career year so far, posting bests in FIP (2.79) and xFIP (3.20). He has been getting the job done by inducing groundballs (a career-high 62.8% rate) and getting a bit lucky (better than normal strand rate and home-run rate per flyball rate). In the second of the two-game set, Kyle Lohse takes the ball, hoping to recover from a pair of so-so outings in which he struck out only three each time and fell prey to the vagaries of line-drives hit into play. Even with those starts, Lohse has been a reliable back-end starter, with a 3.33 FIP and 4.10 xFIP.

On the batting side, Lance Berkman has returned from the DL just in time to face Ryan Dempster, off whom he feasts (a .423 OBP and .581 SLG in 78 PAs). He may get a rest against Paul Maholm, with the recently activated right-hander Allen Craig, who has five home runs in 46 plate appearance, a team-high 10.9% home-run rate. Speaking of home runs, Carlos Beltran leads the league in circuit clouts with 13, hitting eight over his last 11 games … The Cardinals released lefty JC Romero and recalled righty Eduardo Sanchez. That leaves the staff with only one LOOGy, Marc Rzepczynski, who is less a one-out guy than a multiple-batter reliever.

Our Take

The Cubs limp out of Milwaukee with one win from a series where we could have taken all three games.  But after the marathon of pain on Friday night, the depleted bullpen couldn’t provide the relief Chris Volstad needed, forcing Dale to trot him out there for one inning too long.  By Sunday the Cubs had turned it around and managed to board the charter flight to St. Louis with some dignity still in tact.

The weekend wasn’t all bad news though.  During that same time, the Cardinals were being swept by the Braves–yes, the same Braves we just took two of three from at Wrigley.  And while we won’t have the pleasure of facing the hurried-back-too-soon-from-Tommy-John-surgery Adam Wainwright, we’ll have our two best pitchers on the mound.  If we can give Dempster and Maholm any kind of run support, they can keep us in the game.  But if our bats freeze up, we won’t have much hope of catching up to the potent St. Louis offense, led by Rafael Furcal and Carlos Beltran.

I believe we should have won two of those Milwaukee games, and could have won Volstad’s start if we had gotten him out after the fifth and turned the game over to a rested bullpen.  I believe we can go down to St. Louis and shock the Cardinals.  I also believe a lot of our success will rest on the quality of pitching we get from our bullpen.

And now I believe I’m going to be sick.

Enjoy what you read here? Follow us using the following tools:

Posted in Featured, General | 6 Comments »

The Minor League Melting Pot

Welcome to the new format. It’s my goal for the Monday posts to bring you the highlights around the web from the previous week related to the Cubs minor league team. There are a host of people around the web writing quality minor league content and we want Monday to be the best resource for you when it comes to having that content all in one spot.

BASEBALL PROSPECTUS

“The Cubs rocked the scouting world when they signed Concepcion to a $6 million big league deal that included a $3 million bonus, and the 20-year-old Cuban has not exactly gotten off to a rollicking start. After allowing seven runs in one inning on Saturday, he now has an 18.90 ERA in three starts and the Midwest League is batting .514 (19-for-37) against him. That said, it’s not time to panic, as the money involved was the creation of end-of-market inflation, and not Concepcion’s talent. He throws strikes with an upper-80s fastball and has the potential for good secondaries, but as a command-and-control pitcher and not a stuff guy, it’s going to take time to figure out how to pitch, as well as to adjust to his new life in the United States. Patience, for now.” ~ Kevin Goldstein

FAN GRAPHS

“It’s hard to keep a good man down, although current Cubs first baseman Bryan LaHair is doing is darndest to keep [Anthony] Rizzo’s sizzling bat in triple-A. The former Red Sox prospect is currently hitting .357 with 15 extra base hits – including nine home runs – and 31 RBI in 30 games. Strikeouts continue to be an issue with Rizzo as he’s K’d 26 times. The left-handed hitter does still have some work to do against southpaws with an OPS split of .725 LHP/1.198 RHP. Lahair and his .500 BABIP (and 30% K rate) is going to come crashing down to earth at some point and the organization has a very good option waiting in the wings.” ~ Marc Hulet

MINOR LEAGUE BALL

“The Chicago Cubs have high hopes for High-A outfielder Matt “Scrabble” Szczur, one of the best pure athletes in baseball. He made a lot of noise by hitting .314/.366/.431 with 17 steals in 66 games in the Midwest League last year, but his hitting tailed off after being promoted to High-A, with a .260/.283/.410 mark. Returning to Daytona this year, he’s still not showing a lot of pop with an overall line of .250/.353/.348, although his plate discipline has improved a great deal (17/22 BB/K in 132 AB, compared to 5/20 BB/K in 173 last year). He’s stolen 16 bases in 21 attempts and has the kind of defensive ability you’d expect with those wheels, but he’s got to do more with the stick. Szczur has now played 76 games in High-A with a .256/.315/.384 mark, and that won’t cut it at higher levels.” ~ John Sickels

PROSPECT VIDEO OF THE WEEK

Enjoy what you read here? Follow us using the following tools:

Posted in Featured, General | 5 Comments »

Game 34: The Shark Strikes Again

Cubs 8 @ Brewers 2

Box Score / Highlights / Condensed Game

First of all I’d like to wish a happy belated Mother’s Day to all you Cubs lovin’ moms out there. I hope your day was well spent with the people that love you the most.

Second of all I’d like to thank the Cubs for winning for the first time this season in a game that I am recapping. For that I am eternally grateful, especially when it means not getting swept by the Brew Crew.

Now let’s get down to the nitty-gritty details of today’s game.

Hot Off the Starting Block

The 1-2-3 hitters in the Cubs’ lineup combined for over 50% of the hits accumulated by the team today. DeJesus and Castro each had two hits in five at-bats, while Campana added three singles of his own. Each of them started out with a few line outs, but all three were a major part of the run parade in the final half of the game. Campana’s speed continues to be a major asset for the team, as he’s almost always guaranteed to be in scoring position after a bunt single. It’s a great weapon to have and one that we haven’t had consistently for some time. His ability to leg out infield hits is going to continue to prove fruitful as long as he keeps getting playing time.  For Castro it was just another day at the office, knocking in his twentieth RBI of the season. DeJesus also continued his impressive series, raising his average fourteen points with five hits and five RBI over the weekend.

Shark Attack

Mr. Samardzija was probably the one pitcher in the rotation who everyone was skeptical about entering the season. The body of work he had put in as a reliever was nothing to marvel at and some rocky starts at the minor league level didn’t exactly inspire confidence that he could be a big league starter either. However the Cubs are now 6-1 in Jeff’s seven starts. Digest that for a moment. He is now tied for the lead in wins on the team with uber consistent Paul Maholm. I like to refer to Samardzija as the anti-Dempster, because as long as he puts in a quality start the team comes through with the win. Maybe Dempster should try the matted hair tornado hair-style as well. I didn’t agree (at the time) with Sveum taking him out after the fifth, but I understand it. He was due up first and had thrown 91 pitches to the point, but with the way the bullpen has been throwing, I’d have been terrified to pull him that early. Obviously it worked out because Reed Johnson came in to pinch hit and immediately hit it out to right center. Also the bullpen wasn’t terrible, so there’s that.

Returning the Favor

One day after losing 8-2 in another Volstad bomb job, it was nice to reciprocate on the final day of the series. The Brewers have been the toughest team on the Cubs this season, having taken 5 of 7 games thus far into the season. The Cubs have only been swept in a series once this season, by the Marlins in middle of April, but the Brewers have threatened to do so in both series this year. The Cubs have managed to outscore the Brewers 16-2 in the final games of each series to avoid the brooms. They won’t see the Brew-makers again until the second week of June, when hopefully they can return the favor by tying up the season series at 5.

Closing Statements

Bob couldn’t stop laughing all game about the poor Italian Sausage’s misfortune on Saturday. I hope that guy/gal had some ibuprofen on hand because that had to hurt. Somehow it didn’t come in last, which leads me to believe that the beer brat was running backwards.

The Cubs have a weird week ahead with 2 two game series in St. Louis and at home against the Phillies before their first matchup with the South-siders. Dempster will likely have two chances to get his first win of the season this week, but tomorrow will be his tougher test with the Cards playing good ball.  That game gets under way at 7:05 ET.

Enjoy what you read here? Follow us using the following tools:

Posted in Featured, General | 20 Comments »

Game 33: Not Enough Recovery Time

Cubs 2 @ Brewers 8

Box Score / Highlights / Condensed Game

Today’s game was tough to watch. There was a glimmer of hope in my heart that there would be some fight left in the Cubbies after how close the game was last night. But alas, those hopes were dashed as we were beat 8-2 by Chris Volstad and Starlin Castro. Here’s the rap:

Offense: Mr. DeJesus picked up right where he left off, smacking a double to lead off the game. Then Tony Campana got a bunt single and moved him to third. These first two at-bats were really great, and I had a very positive outlook for the game. But then Castro GIDP to score DeJesus (no RBI, though) and LaHair struck out, leaving him hitless in his last 7 at-bats. After that, the Cubs bats were pretty quiet; Campana was our leading hitter today, going 2-4 with an RBI double. The Brewers’ TV broadcaster complimented him as “a pesky offensive presence.” My mom has adopted him as her third child, fanatically cheering for him every time he steps up to the plate. If he can’t win over the tough, stats-crazy man portion of the Cubs’ fan base by his hitting, he has a good chance of winning over the motherly, female portion of it by his boyish features.

Defense: The defense was less than good.  When Braun was caught in a sloppy rundown, Nyger Morgan was able to tie the game because nobody was paying attention to him. In the fifth inning, Castro misplayed a grounder to short because he wasn’t even looking at the ball. The replay showed him looking into left field rather than at the ball. That miscue opened the door for a horrendous sixth inning: Barney started off the inning with an error on a double play that the Cubs just could not recover from. Other than that, nothing was extraordinarily bad.

Pitching: Chris Volstad was his normal, terrible self. He was alright for the first 5 innings, allowing only one run, but after that it went down the tubes. He intentionally Ishikawa to load the bases, then gave up a grand slam to Edwin Maysonet. Word has it that Sveum wanted to get Volstad to 100 pitches. My question is: What on Earth was Dale thinking? When a pitcher  is struggling like Volstad is, why punish the rest of the team? There was no way our offense could have dug its way out of that hole. I shake my head at you, Dale.

Closing Thoughts: Overall, quite a disappointing game. Leading into the game, LaHair was 0 for his last 6 at-bats, and only had one hit today. Is this the beginning of a slump? Let’s hope not. But if the rest of the guys on the team can pick up some slack like DeJesus did last night, it might not be totally devastating.

Enjoy what you read here? Follow us using the following tools:

Posted in Featured, General | 13 Comments »

Game 32: David DeJesus Delivers Late, but the Bullpen Can’t Hold Water.

Cubs 7 @ Brewers 8

Box Score / Highlights / Condensed Game

If the fan graph is not a good representation of how back and forth this game was, especially late then then I’m not sure what is. After the game ended, I went to bed wondering how I was going to write about this game. I’ll be honest, under normal situations, if you had told me before the game that the game I was about to watch was going to begin at 8pm EDT, last 5 hours and 4 minutes, and NOT include a rain delay, I’d have told you I’m not watching and went to bed. For some reason I just couldn’t turn this one off despite several instances where it was all but over. I would encourage you, if you didn’t see this one, to watch the condensed game as it was a wild one that I’ll do my best to comment on.

Matt Garza got the start, the first in 11 days due to the flu. He didn’t look right at all, in fact it’s the worst I’ve seen him since he came over to the Cubs, in the first inning. He couldn’t find the strike zone and continually looked at his hand as if he was nursing a blister or a cut or something on one of his fingers. It had me thinking we were in for a long night of bullpen pitching. While that was the case after all, it wasn’t because Garza left his start early. He actually settled down quite nicely after really doing a nice job to get out of the first inning jam he pitched himself into. A double play allowed him to limit the damage to just one run and that was all he would allow the rest of the night. The only downside was pitch efficiency as his 93 pitches only got him through five innings.

Bryan LaHair got a start against a lefty, something he’s not seen much this year, and didn’t quite deliver. He did manage to keep his on base streak going in a cheap way late as he was issued an intentional walk. Other than that, a big 0-for-6 dotted the scorebook. Some will take this game and say that it’s continued proof that he can’t hit lefties well and so he shouldn’t be in there. I would argue and ask two questions. 1) Does this mean that because he’s not hitting them to this point that he can’t get better? I think you have to look deeper and watch the at bats. He didn’t look totally lost up there. He just didn’t look as good as when he’s facing a righty. The only way you get better at something is to continue to work at it. 2) Do we really have anything to lose if we stick him out there against the lefties. His attitude about trying new things has always been one of openness. He welcomes the challenge and continually comments about how he wants to be up there in clutch situations because he understands he has nothing to lose. No one has believed in him his entire career so there is no pressure. The same should apply with hitting the lefties. There is no pressure. Just go out and try to get better.

The Bullpen saw more action than the starter last night, which is never a good thing. What’s most frustrating about that is that we win this game if we have anyone at all that we can halfway rely on to get some outs. I’m actually starting to believe that this team can actually be somewhat respectable this season, but only as respectable as our makeshift bullpen will allow us to be. I look at the guys in that pen and I can’t figure out a way to make it work. Carlos Marmol was wild again, and may be headed to the DL with a hamstring issue. Even if he does, he’s still coming back and probably isn’t tradeable at this point other than as a project for someone. Kerry Wood is not getting better and it’s beginning to break my heart to see how my favorite Cub gets run out there night after night only to struggle. He’s that aging veteran that can’t quite figure out that his time passed and he’s just hanging on too long. I can’t see him stepping down mid-season, so our only hope is he pitches enough to not embarrass himself going forward and is receptive to a talk from people close to him as they try to convince him to hang up the cleats. The rest of the pen is basically made up of spare parts. Michael Bowden was drafted with high expectations but never gets into a game and when he does, he’s so out of sync because of lack of use that he can’t get anyone out. The same is true for Rule 5 guy, Lendy Castillo. If you’re not going to give these guys regular work to keep them sharp, why are they on this team? Rafael Dolis has the makings of a guy that can be very effective in the late inning role IF he can command his pitches better and stop putting guys on base. He can get ground balls, which can help get people out of jams in the late innings. That really just leaves James Russell and Shawn Camp. Camp has been decent, but he’s old and not in the long term plans. Russell is the only guy I feel somewhat comfortable to see in the game. The situation is a mess at this point, and the scary thing is that I don’t know how you fix it on the cheap immediately. When you lose three arms from the projected pen in Andrew Cashner, Sean Marshall, and Jeff Samardzija, it’s hard to do.

Dale Svuem took a lot of heat of Twitter last night, which by the way, if you’re not on Twitter you’re missing out. Even if you don’t tweet, just follow people. The majority of Svuem tweets I read was that he was being out managed or that he looked in over his head. Personally, I didn’t see it and I’m curious to hear the arguments in more than 140 characters if you feel he was. The only time I really felt he made a really questionable move was pinch hitting after Soriano singled in the top of the 8th. At that point you have a man on and no one out. He brought in Campana to lay down a bunt. Why not pinch run for Soriano with Campana and use his speed to get the extra base. That can be done without giving away an out and allows a faster runner to be on second in the event of a single. Instead, and you really can’t predict this beforehand, Campana popped the bunt up for an out. It looked as if he was trying to get a base hit instead of sacrificing. Overall, I don’t know that I would fault Svuem for this loss. I pin it on the bullpen. When you can’t hold a lead you’re given, you don’t deserve to win. It’s a shame because there were some other good things that happened that got wasted, whether it be breaking John Axford’s consecutive save streak or David DeJesus entering the game with full beast mode enabled and hitting a pinch hit grand slam on the first pitch he saw.

Overall, this was probably the best game I’ve watched all year from a sheer entertaining baseball standpoint, but it’s a tough loss. It’s not to be dwelt upon. Let’s talk about it, get it out of our system now, and get ready for the game this afternoon.

Enjoy what you read here? Follow us using the following tools:

Posted in Featured, General | 14 Comments »

Brewers Preview

With a superb 4-2 homestand in the rearview mirror, can the Cubs take that same success out on the road starting tonight with the Brewers?  How will Matt Garza bounce back from his bout with the flu?  Can Chris Volstad fight off the one bad inning that’s plagued all of his previous starts this season?  Will Jeff Samardzija continue to be stingy with opposing hitters?  How many bases will Tony Campana and Starlin Castro steal?  Can Bryan LaHair  keep his on-base streak alive?  Who will win the apparently up-for-grabs starting role at second base?  And can the Cubs compete against their divisional rivals and climb out of the NL Central basement?  We’ll find out in  few hours–for now, enjoy this look ahead at the weekend’s action.  Go, Cubs, go!

PROBABLE PITCHING MATCHUPS

Courtesy of MLB.com

Friday at 7:10pm CT – Matt Garza vs. Randy Wolf

Garza is slated to return to the rotation after being skipped because of the flu. In his last game April 29 against the Phillies, he gave up one hit over seven scoreless innings, striking out 10. Hopefully, he can duplicate that. Wolf missed the Cubs when the teams played last month, so this is his first chance to improve on a 6-11 career record against Chicago. He has a respectable 4.22 ERA in those 23 starts, including two shutouts.

Saturday at 12:05 pm CT – Chris Volstad vs. Shaun Marcum

Volstad was given a couple extra days rest after his last start, a loss to the Dodgers in which he gave up five runs on four hits over five innings. He’s had one inning when he struggles. He’s looking for his first win since July 10. Marcum has met the definition of “quality start” — six or more innings, three earned runs or fewer — in five of his six outings, and allowed three earned runs in five innings in the other game.

Sunday at 1:10pm CT – Jeff Samardzija vs. Marco Estrada

Samardzija is on a roll. He’s given up two earned runs over 21 1/3 innings in his past three starts, picking up the win in his last outing vs. the Braves. In that stretch, he’s struck out 23 and walked six. That’s a good ratio. Estrada was done in by one poor inning on Monday, when he allowed five consecutive hits and five runs to open the fourth. In his six other innings of work, he limited the Reds to three hits and no runs.

NOTES FROM THE ENEMY

Courtesy of Kyle Lobner of Brew Crew Ball

If you had told any Brewer fan before the season that they’d be tied for fifth place with the Cubs at this point, they would have been resoundingly disappointed. This is still largely the same Brewer team that won 96 games last season, but they’ve played more like the team that started 13-19 in 2011. Last season’s dramatic turnaround leaves a fair amount of reason for hope, but expecting to win roughly two thirds of their games the rest of the way like they did last year probably isn’t reasonable.

Furthermore, the Brewers have had some real struggles with injuries that have left them with a collection of holes to fill going forward. First, they lost #5 starter Chris Narveson to a torn rotator cuff. Marco Estrada slotted into his spot in the rotation pretty seamlessly, but left a hole in middle relief that has yet to be filled. Then Mat Gamel tore his ACL. The Brewers have several candidates to fill this vacancy in the long term, but some are more appealing than others. The most damaging injury of the three was shortstop Alex Gonzalez, who is also out for the rest of 2012 with a torn ACL. Gonzalez had been pretty productive in his first month as a Brewer both offensively and defensively, and the Brewers’ internal candidates to replace him range from bad to awful. There’s a strong chance they’ll need to improve this position via the trade market if they’re going to contend.

Blaming the injuries for this team’s struggles really ignores some of the other glaring issues, though. This team has gotten very little production in 2012 from 2011 All Star second baseman Rickie Weeks, who is hitting just .164/.302/.302 through 31 games and has been bumped from the leadoff spot. Aramis Ramirez also got off to a very slow start and is still dragging a .266 OBP. He’s hitting .280/.321/.507 in his last 20 games, though.

Finally, inexplicably, this team is awful in day games. They’re 3-12 while the sun is shining this season, compared to 10-6 at night. This series has day games on Saturday and Sunday.

On paper this team is much better than they’ve played to this point, and almost certainly a better team than the Cubs. They’re running out of time to turn this ship around, though, and anything less than winning two out of three this weekend would have to be seen as another in an increasing number of disappointments.

OUR TAKE

This is a broken and battered Brewers team.  Their hitters are mostly off to slow starts, and they haven’t really found their groove as a team thus far.  Translation: this is a perfect time for a hot (or at least warm) Cubs team to take advantage and leapfrog them in the standings.  If any of these games comes down to trading runs with the potent Milwaukee lineup, I don’t like our chances.  But if our starters can keep it the scores low, we’ve shown the ability to create enough runs to win.  I’ll be watching to see how Garza bounces back from his illness–hopefully he doesn’t have too much rust to shake off.  And I’m curious to see what Volstad can do Saturday.  It’s hard to say he’s shown any improvement, but I do think he’s on the verge of putting together a quality start–let’s just hope he gets some run support whenever he finally does it.  And I’m looking forward to seeing if Adrian Cardenas can be an improvement over Darwin Barney at second base–right now I’m not comfortable with any of the possible answers to that nagging question.

What about you–what will you be watching for as the Cubs head back to Wrigley North?

Enjoy what you read here? Follow us using the following tools:

Posted in Featured, General | 5 Comments »

The Inbox: Projecting the Lineup

Last night I sat down to write the latest edition of the Inbox and pulled up the mailbag posts for both Carrie Muskat and Paul Sullivan. The questions asked this time around were complete garbage. Basically just the usual “when can we send Carlos Marmol to Burmuda?” and “Why can’t we put Anthony Rizzo in the bullpen to get him in the lineup?” I kid, but in a way I’m sort of serious. People will come up with any sort of question and post them to the beat writers. So, seeing that those were not going to make for a very good post this morning, I took to twitter and asked for questions there. We got a couple pretty good ones, so we’ll talk through them.

I see the top 5 of the line up com August being something similar to campana, Castro, lahair, Rizzo, soriano…what are your thoughts? – @Jeremy_Thomas32

Jeremy, I like this question because it gives me a chance to get on my soapbox about the batting order. We’ve seen, to this point, Svuem going with DeJesus as the leadoff man. I’m not sure if he’s in your projected lineup come August, but he most certainly will be if he’s on the team. DeJesus fits the type of guy that Jed and Theo like. If we point to Jonah Hill, he’s simply say “He gets on base”. He also plays a good outfield. Because of that, there is no way to make your lineup work unless LaHair is shifted to another infield position, which I could not possibly see. If Soriano is in your lineup then your OF has to be Soriano in left, Campana in center and DeJesus in right, which is what we’ve seen to this point. The only way to make it work is if Soriano is moved, which is ideal, but unlikely.

Now, from a batting order standpoint, I like your thinking, though I’d swap Rizzo and LaHair in the order. I believe Rizzo is a better hitter than LaHair, which means I’d want him hitting third for two reasons. First, it gets him more at bats over the long haul, and it gives him better protection behind him, which would be key as he would not have seen as much time in the Majors at that point compared to LaHair.

What’s the future at 3rd base. No offense but Ian Stewart doesn’t look like the answer. – @Jro_Chicago

I think the future, at least for now, is Ian Stewart. Sorry to dissappoint, but Jed and Theo believe he can be better. I don’t want to rain on your parade, but I sort of believe in him too, though I’m still trying to figure out if I believe in the concept of him or if I’m just hoping based on the ceiling that should be there. He’s a former 1st round pick so there has to have been talent there at some point.

A quick scouting report on him back in 2005, when he was in the Baseball America top 10 reveals ““He’s athletic and he’s got some juice in his bat, and I like his haircut.”. Seriously, how can you argue with that? It takes balls for another man to come out and say he likes a dude’s haircut. We’ve got a winner here. In all seriousness, I think the Cubs are fine with rolling the dice to see if we get the power on the cheap. If not, we didn’t spend anything in the long term to try. Since the team is not a world series contender at this point they’re simply trying to continue to wait on Josh Vitters and hope he’s the guy.

That will do it for this edition. Got a question for next time? E-mail it to me – joe@viewfromthebleachers.com or tweet to us: @vftb

Enjoy what you read here? Follow us using the following tools:

Posted in Featured, General | 9 Comments »