CubsChic

My three weeks in Europe went by quickly. As WiFi access has yet to catch on in many small French villages, I was not able to follow the day-to-day actions of my beloved Cubs. I was having too good a time to worry about the Bradley mess anyway, and was glad that it had been resolved before my return. Needless to say, I won’t be paying for playoff tickets this season. My Visa card is happy to hear that.

After a successful final roadtrip to Milwaukee and San Fran, the Cubs are at least guaranteed an above .500 season. I know it’s nothing to crow about after the last two seasons, but at least I don’t write a Pirate’s blog. Now we just have to finish with a strong homestand to make our second-place standing a little more respectable. I look forward to seeing some young players get some playing time during my last few trips to Wrigley, but I hope Lou doesn’t sit all the starters. They need to finish what they started and get their heads on right for spring training.

One exciting bit of news that helps numb the pain of this frustrating season; My S.O. proposed to me while we were in one of those charming French villages. CubsChic is engaged! Needless to say, any potential fall wedding dates will take next year’s playoffs into account.

Greetings from Europe! I meant to post before I left that I’d be out of the country for three weeks in September, but things got busy. I’m currently in Madrid for the opening of my S.O.’s play. Previews have been wonderful and tonight is the official opening. You can tell it’s a good play when I enjoy it and I don’t understand Spanish. My S.O. has been doing a lot of PR for the play since we landed on Monday. He’s worn his Cubs hat for many newspaper and radio interviews and even for a web video interview. A piece of the Cubs has been with us daily. Next we head to France and Belgium.

Doesn’t look like I’ll have to be checking the Cubs’ site daily to see where they are in the pennant race. I was hoping that my absence might give them the kick they needed to turn things around, but it doesn’t look like anything is going to get them into the playoffs this season. The Cards aren’t going to collapse and the wildcard is just too crowded. At least I can shop more comfortably in Europe knowing that I don’t need to pay for playoff tickets.

By the way, to anyone trolling the site and thinking about breaking into my home while I”m gone, I have a house sitter staying at my place. That and my two attack cats should give you pause. I just wanted to post and let my readers know why I won’t be posting until the end of September. I haven’t giving up on my Cubs, at least as far as writing my blog goes. What is it they say about next year?

Losing to the defending World Series Champion Phillies I can handle. Losing two straight to the lowly Padres is really depressing. Getting beat when you only have one out left to get, as happened on Monday night, is getting unbearable. My only solace as a Cubs fan is that this club is likely to get swept by the Padres and then go to LA and win three of four from one of the best teams in baseball. OK, maybe not three of four, but you get the idea. This team hasn’t been consistent all year.

Well, one way they had been consistent lately was beating bad teams. That seems to have faded on the west coast, as it often does. What is it about the west coast road trips that just kills Cubs teams? Are other teams so bad out there?

It’s bad enough that the Cubs are playing so poorly, but these 9 o’clock starts are killing me. It wouldn’t be so bad if they won and could send me off to sleep with pleasant dreams. These last few games have been nothing but nightmares.

So Blanco goes down and Miles comes up. Soto is just about ready to come back, so maybe Theriot’s bruised arm will now necessitate a trip to the DL. It seems like the Cubs just can’t keep everyone healthy this year. They’ve put 14 different guys on the DL so far this season. Yet they’re hanging around first place, in fact in first place by just a smidgen over the Cardinals.

Last night it looked like the Cubs saw that St. Louis had already lost so they didn’t care that much about winning. They looked like they were phoning it in. That wasn’t good enough against the sad Reds and certainly won’t be enough against the Rockies, who have been coming on strong. At least the Cubs have a travel day today, so they can get to Denver and relax while the Rockies just lost another game in Philly today and now have to fly home.

I didn’t post about the new lefty pitchers we got from Pittsburgh because I didn’t know much about them (and was too busy to write an intelligent post). Looks so far to be a good deal, even if we had to give away Hart in the deal. Good lefties are hard to find. Gorzelanny was the big question mark in that deal and he just threw a wonderful game the other night to get the win in his first start in years. Let’s just hope Lilly comes back good as new and we don’t have to lean on Gorzelanny for too long.

We’re coming to the home stretch of the season so I’ll try to get better about my daily posts. Many of us are scoreboard watching so there’s lots to talk about. Comments are always welcome. I encourage discussion between my readers in the comments section.

Of course, I’m happy to see Reed Johnson and Angel Guzman return as well, but my titles can only be so long. The sad part of seeing these guys return is that, to make room for them, three current Cubs will have to return to Iowa. I really think Fox has earned a longer stint, but he’s definitely going to have to give up third base. I say stick him in left while Soriano rehabs his sore legs, maybe on the DL. Bradley has upped his game as of late, so I’m for keeping him in left.

It seems that Jeff Baker, who the Cubs got rather quietly last week from the Rockies for a minor league pitcher, is out of options, meaning the Cubs risk losing him for nothing if they send him down. I hate that such a mediocre player gets to stay while inspiring players like Fuld, Hoffpauir or even a Fontenot have a chance of being sent down.

Let’s keep up the good homestand (I’ll take 3-4 even if it means having games like Saturday). Wells deserves to be over .500, so the bats better show up tonight.

Oh, and congratulations to Ted Lilly for making the NL All-Star team. He’s been our ace so far this season. I’m even happier that Soriano didn’t make the team. That would have been embarrassing for the Cubs and major league baseball.

The Cubs have to be happy that June is over. They had a losing record in June (11-14), the first month they’ve had a losing record since August 2007. At least they started off July with a victory, giving Wells his third win in a row. Sam Fuld got his first two major league hits, going 2-4 with a walk. He batted lead-off and played in place of Soriano in left. He also had a great night in the field, including throwing out a runner at the plate. I say play him until the novelty wears off.

Lou finally got himself tossed out of a game. Whether it was for show or not, (I didn’t see the play or the performance), at least the reporters can now shut up about Lou being devoid of fire in his belly. Maybe this will be the spark the Cubs need to go on a long winning streak. Coming home should help, but this home series won’t be an easy one. Win these games, especially against the Brewers (4) and Cardinals (4), and we can make up some serious ground in the NLC. Lose them, and we dig ourselves a very large hole going into the All-Star break.

I wish everyone a safe and fun holiday. Hopefully the Cubs will give us some fireworks of their own this weekend. 

The Cubs continue to struggle on the road, if you can consider the south side a roadtrip. I missed the game, so can only read about Zambrano’s histrionics, but I’m not sure it was enough to warrant the ‘dump him’ comments of a certain Chicago sportswriter. Big Z has never been one of my favorites, and not just because he chooses to wear those awful blue jerseys, but I don’t think it’s wise to dump him now for nothing. Make him earn that contract. This is where Lou and his staff should earn their money. Same with Bradley. Getting the most out of these men is the job of the coaches. Sure, you’ve got to play coach, mentor, child psychologist, anger management specialist, all rolled into one, but do whatever it takes to get these men to perform like we all know they can.

Don’t want to even discuss the DeRosa to St. Louis trade. How am I going to root for my boy when he’s playing for the dreaded Cardinals? Well, I guess I hope he performs well in their many defeats.

Sam Fuld got the big call-up to replace Miles while he does a stint on the DL. Does anyone check the doctor’s records or can we just put any under-performing player on the DL and call up someone, anyone, to give us a spark?

Who said these Cubs/Sox games were getting stale. I saw some silly headline to that effect the other day and didn’t bother to read the article. You’re not a true fan if you don’t enjoy these games, especially when they’ve for the most part been very competitive. Yesterday’s was no exception. I’m hoping today’s game isn’t nearly as exciting. I could handle a huge Cubs win. It would certainly help Ronnie’s blood pressure.

It’s a beautiful day for baseball. Sorry Ernie, but they won’t be playing two.

Well, that will teach me to walk away from the TV. After Hoffpauir’s go-ahead homer in the 8th, I thought the Cubs might actually get away with squandering numerous scoring opportunities yet again. (They were 0-8 with runners in scoring position.) When they returned from the commercial break, I guess I wasn’t all that surprised to see that the Tigers had won the game. Gregg says that the ball slipped out of his hand and that he could have hit that pitch out of the park. Hey, the guy’s human. It’s the walk before that ill-fated pitch that bothers me more.

D Lee had two more hits, extending his hitting streak to 20 games. But he can’t carry this team all alone. Ramirez has been traveling and working out with the team, but he probably won’t be back until the All-Star break. Speaking of which, who will get the honor of representing the Cubs at the All-Star game this year? My bet is on Lilly, as he’s been the ace of the staff in my opinion. If Soriano gets voted in it will only be from fans from other cities that haven’t seen him play lately, or maybe Cub fans who’ll only vote for Cubs, regardless of stats. I’m in favor of the players picking the teams and leaving the fans out of it. Especially since Selig has stupidly made the results of the game such a huge impact on post-season play.

The hits were there Monday night in Atlanta, but just not at the right time. The Cubs stranded base runners in seven innings and the Cubs managed no run support for Dempster at all. Let’s hope the better bats were shipped to Detroit ahead of the team and this was just a one-game reversion to the frustrating ball the Cubs have played the last month or so. Too bad they couldn’t add to their win streak, which ended at four games, tying their longest of the season. Now that the weather’s finally heating up, it’s time for the Cubs to get hot, as well.

So now it’s Big Z’s turn to right the ship. Lou has a lot of options for DH, so it will be interesting to see what line-up he puts together. Zambrano isn’t going to be happy about not hitting, but I can’t see Lou not using Fox or Hoffpauir in this situation. They need the at-bats more than Zambrano.

As thrilled as most Cub fans are about the latest two exciting victories over the Indians, I think most are a little sad that they had to come at the expense of Kerry Wood. He’ll always be a Cub at heart. I’m sure some of his current teammates are giving him a hard time about throwing two victories our way. That being said, we’ll take them any way we can get them.

D Lee has woken up. That makes four homers in the last three games. Everyone has gotten into the act with clutch hits and good fundamental ball. They executed a hit and run. Soriano even stolen a base. Now if we could just get him on base more often. One of the keys the last few days is that the Cubs are taking walks, something that wasn’t happening during this latest funk.

With the Sox beating the Reds last night, the Cubs crept into third place, only 2.5 behind the Cards. Let’s see the Cubs go on a June surge instead of the typical June swoon.

Could yesterday’s come-from-behind victory over the White Sox be the turn-around game of the season for the Cubs? With their lack of timely hitting, especially late in games, I think very few fans thought they had a shot of winning that game, especially once Marmol gave up a few runs. What a pleasant surprise.

I’m just glad we split the two games and got back to .500. I hate being under, but being even isn’t much better. With as poorly as we’ve been playing, we’re lucky to be treading water. Once the bats get out of this funk, which you have to think will eventually happen, then it’s time to go on a tear. Kinda like the Rockies just did, winning 11 in a row (luckily for us, seven of those were against the Cardinals and Brewers).

Now we just need to roll these good vibes over to today’s game against the Indians. It will be nice to welcome back DeRosa and Wood. I’m sure they’ll get a warm reception from the fans, although I hope we don’t have the occasion to face Wood. I’ll be at Sunday’s game, barring yet another rainout. I’ve been rained out of two games so far this season (Cards and Sox). I’m ready for a little warmth and sunshine at the old ballpark, especially since my seats are in the shade. But if I have to trade conditions for wins, I’ll take the wins any day.

Sixty games into the season and we’re right where we started (.500). Lucky for us no one else in the NLC seems to want to run away with it. If the Cubs’ bats ever wake up and the pitching stays this consistent, it could be an interesting season yet.

My apologies to my readers for a lack of posts so far this season. I plan on correcting that, hopefully with five to six posts per week from here on out. One major difference between this season and the last two has been my lack of posting. Hopefully, if I get back to doing my job, the Cubs will get back to doing theirs and we’ll all end up in the playoffs again. (Oh, if it were only so easy.)

I’m off to tonight’s Cubs/Sox game. It’s going to be a wet one, but I think they’ll squeeze it in between storm clusters. My S.O. will be with me and he’s 6-1 so far this season, so hopefully that bodes well for the Cubs.

Plenty more to catch up on in later posts…

Better buckle up your seat belts, because I have a feeling this season’s going to be a bumpy ride. After finishing the preseason with an 18-16-2 record (they do allow ties during the preseason), the Cubs got clobbered in their two exhibition games in NYC. I know that they’ll be going into tonight’s season opener aware that these games actually count, but I hated to see our starting pitching get pounded so badly by the Yankees.

Lou waited until the last minute to finalize his bullpen. I like the fact that he let the guys win or lose their spots on the mound; even if it means that Samardzija got sent down to Triple A. Rule 5 pick-up David Patton and Angel Guzman made the opening day bullpen roster and Chad Gaudin was released. (More on what Rule 5 is in a later post.)

Kudos to MLB for allowing the Cubs to play the first two series in domed ballparks. It will be cold enough next week for our own opening day at Wrigley. The Cubs should be honored that they get to play in three home openers this season (Houston, Milwaukee and Wrigley), four if you count the first games ever played at the new Yankee Stadium last weekend.

So now we sit back and see if this line-up is really as good as it looks on paper, because these boys really hit the ball in the pre-season. Can they stay healthy? How much will we miss DeRosa and Wood? Can Soto avoid the sophomore slump? For answers to these questions and more, stay tuned…

The Cubs are playing a split-squad game against Cleveland right now. (I’ve got Pat and Ron on in the background.) Lots of strange names, as most of the regulars went to Vegas for the split-squad game against the White Sox this evening. (That game will be on WGN TV tonight.)

Although we’re facing the Tribe today, we won’t be seeing Woody or DeRosa. The former isn’t scheduled to pitch today and the latter is with Team USA playing in the WBC.

So enjoy your double serving of Cubs baseball today. With the sun out in Chicago today and a warm-up on the way, can spring be far behind? Opening day is only 33 days away.

The first spring training game of the season starts in about an hour. How fitting is it that the Cubs are facing the Dodgers? No time like the present to wipe the slate clean and start a new season full of possibilities. I know, I’m the eternal optimist when it comes to my baseball.

I’m just excited to be able to listen to Pat and Ron this afternoon. It’s in the low 40s outside, so I can almost imagine spring is around the corner, too. I’m one of the few people who internally cringe when we get a freakishly warm day in February, as I want the weather gods to hold those days for early April, when I’m freezing my butt off at Wrigley.

Samardzija gets the start today, so it looks like Lou is going to give him a shot at winning the fifth starter position. Not many other positions up for grabs, but there will be some jostling for bullpen and bench positions. Let’s just hope nobody gets hurt.

I don’t think the Cubs have replaced Corey Provus yet, who left to cover the Brewers games. I’ll miss him, but not as much as Ronnie will. That position is as much being Ronnie’s right-hand man as it is part-time broadcaster. It’s Ronnie’s birthday today, so I hope they’ve found a good temporary replacement for Corey in the short-term.

Music to my ears. Although it’s not the full team yet, at least some Cubs arrive today to officially turn the page on a new season. Although picked to win the NLC by almost all sources, the Cubs also made an awful lot of changes to a team that won 97 games last season. Wood and DeRosa will be missed, both on the field and in the clubhouse.

Only so many questions will be answered by the end of spring training, mainly who the closer will be (Marmol or Gregg). It looks like center field and second base will be platoon projects. How will Fukudome react to this new situation? How will Soto’s continued maturation be impacted by Blanco’s departure? Will Soriano, Bradley and Harden be able to stay healthy? Of course, I only listed those three because they’re already fragile. Anyone could go down, leaving a huge hole now that DeRosa isn’t there to play Mr. Versatility. (Can you tell I’m still disappointed in that trade?)

I haven’t even talked about the potential new ownership of the Cubs on this blog yet. I’ve been waiting for the deal to be final; but of all the people in the bidding, I think a young guy who met his wife in the bleachers at Wrigley won’t be messing the place up too much. Much more on this later, especially as the bankruptcy court and baseball’s owners start weighing in on the deal.

Only 12 days until the first spring training game! 

Today Hendry continued his bullpen house-cleaning, unloading Rich Hill to Baltimore and Michael Wuertz to Oakland. We get a player to be named later for Hill and two minor-leaguers for Wuertz. It won’t be hard to wish Rich Hill all the best, especially since he’ll be in the AL. Who the Cubs eventually get for him will probably depend on how well Hill pitches. He seemed like a good kid who just couldn’t get out of his head the last few years. Lou doesn’t have lots of patience for walks and Hill continued to walk batters in winter ball.

Regarding Wuertz, I’m sure my significant other is heartbroken about this. He’s going to have to pick a new least-favorite Cub. Hopefully that won’t be an easy task, and not because there will be too many from whom to choose. For Wuertz at least the Cubs got a former first-round draft pick in Richie Robnett. The left-handed outfielder has spent the last five seasons in the A’s minor league system. It seems to me that any left-handed bat has a shot at making the Cubs’ team this season, so he’s got to be psyched about this trade. The other pick-up was Justin Sellers, a young infielder who is supposed to be above-average defense-wise. Maybe a future Ronny Cedeno replacement?

Some people think he wasn’t given enough time to prove himself, but the simple fact is that Felix Pie was out of options, and with the addition of Bradley and Gathright, the outfield is now too crowded. The Cubs couldn’t send him back to the minors for yet more development without potentially losing him on wires. Sorry for getting a little too technical, but it means that another team could grab him for nothing. At least Hendry got something for him.

What the Cubs got was two pitching prospects. Left-hander Garrett Olson was 9-10 over 26 starts with the Orioles last season, with an ERA of 6.65. Righty Henry Williamson comes from Class A. So after the DeRosa and Pie trades, the Cubs now have five new young pitchers. How soon until the Peavy trade talks rekindle? Olson was supposedly one of the pitchers that the Padres were coveting in earlier discussions…

I won’t miss Pie and I hope Soriano doesn’t miss him too much. Those two seemed to have a fun chemistry and enjoy playing together. Maybe Gathright and Soriano will bond. I’d love to see Gathright jump over Soriano in the outfield, just as he’s jumped over cars in the past, but I’m sure there’s something about no extreme jumping in Gathright’s contract.

This guy’s got game, and I’m not talking board games. If he can stay healthy, he could be a huge upgrade in right field. He’s a switch-hitting All-Star who led the AL in on-base percentage (.436) last season as a DH. He hit .321, with 22 home runs and 77 RBIs. He has had health problems in the past, but a season of primarily DHing has rested his surgically repaired right knee.

I know, he’s had a problem with his temper, including getting thrown out of four games last season. He sustained the previously mentioned knee injury when he was being restrained from a confrontation with an ump, although the ump was later suspending for instigating the incident. Now Lou can earn his money by showing Bradley who’s the boss. I’ve read that past teammates have enjoyed playing with him and he hasn’t been a clubhouse problem. It will be interesting to see if he and Zambrano can co-exist in a locker room, but if Bradley performs I think that will go a long way to him fitting in well.

I think it’s pretty funny that he’ll be wearing #21, previously worn by Sosa. Bradley has worn that number since a rookie, so he wasn’t trying to make any statement. Let’s hope the return of the number brings back the offensive production without half the drama.