Game Twenty-One - Cubs 2 Marlins 8 - 10 innings
WP - Renyel Pinto (2-0) LP - Aaron Heilman (2-1) Save - None
Lou Piniella's crew finished the first month of the season with a 10-11 record and dropped below the .500 mark for the first time since April 5, 2008. For a team that was expected to run away with the Central Division they have not played anywhere near expectations.
Ron Santo summed up the Cubs first twenty-one games during the top of the tenth inning, "When you look at this team, it's not one thing. It's several things." And when the eternal optimist says that about his team....
The Cubs bullpen wasted one of the best outings by a starter all season. Sean Marshall turned in an excellent performance. He held the Marlins to one run on six hits, his biggest mistake...a solo home run by Jorge Cantu in the seventh inning. The Cubs' defense turned a pair of double plays behind Marshall, which helped bail him out of some trouble...but the Cubs' fifth starter walked only two and struck out six. He more than earned the victory.
While Koyie Hill and Alfonso Soriano turned in outstanding defensive plays, the Cubs committed three errors on the night, two by Ryan Theriot and one by Carlos Marmol in the eighth that allowed the Marlins to tie the game. Both the tying and winning runs were scored on errors.
The Cubs had a chance to win the game in the bottom of the ninth. Ryan Theriot led off the inning with a single to center. Kosuke Fukudome struck out on a 3-2 pitch but Theriot stole second with Derrek Lee at the plate. Lee struck out swinging for the second time in the game with a runner in scoring position. Milton Bradley was intentionally walked and Fredi Gonzalez brought in Renyel Pinto to face Mike Fontenot.
Lou Piniella went to his bench for Reed Johnson. Johnson quickly fell behind in the count 0-2 before taking a ball. Johnson then hit a hard grounder up the middle, just to the left of second base. Alfredo Amezaga, filling in for the injured Hanley Ramirez, made a diving stop and forced Milton Bradley at second to end the inning. Why wasn't Joey Gathright running for Milton Bradley?
The Marlins came out swinging in the tenth against Aaron Heilman and before the Cubs could record three outs, the Marlins scored six runs. For his part, Heilman struggled with his command but Kosuke Fukudome misplayed a ball in center that led to a bloop double by Amezaga to start the inning. Ryan Theriot could not handle a throw from Derrek Lee that allowed the winning run to score. After a squeeze play gave the Marlins a two-run lead, Heilman walked the bases loaded and Jorge Cantu put the game out of reach with a bases clearing double.
Chris Volstad held the Cubs anemic offense in check and on the night they managed just five hits, one walk and five total base runners. Milton Bradley gave the Cubs a 1-0 lead with his first career home run at Wrigley in the fifth. Mike Fontenot followed with his third home run in four games, fourth on the year, and the Cubs hit back-to-back home runs for the first time this season. The Cubs managed only three other hits all night and finished the game 0-for-5 with runners in scoring position.
Following the game Lou Piniella said, "It has nothing to do with patience. It's about getting hits and scoring runs. What am I supposed to do play my bench?" Maybe it is time for Piniella to try something new to spark this team, if he doesn't then who will? The Cubs were embarrassed for the fourth time in the last seven games, it seems ego and pride would have already kicked in by now.
After putting together one of their better games in a while, through the first seven innings, it turned bad in the eighth and was just plain ugly in the tenth. It did not even look like the same team that had played a solid game defensively behind Sean Marshall.
Carlos Marmol replaced Sean Marshall in the eighth after Brett Carroll was announced as the pinch hitter for Chris Volstad. Fredi Gonzalez sent up Ross Gload instead and Marmol walked him on five pitches.
Marmol continued to struggle with his command and walked Emilio Bonifacio on a 3-2 pitch. With runners on first and second with no outs and the Cubs up 2-1, Cameron Maybin bunted down the third baseline. Marmol picked up the ball, rushed his throw due to Maybin's speed and hit him near the first base bag. The ball got away from Aaron Miles and Gload scored the tying run on the throwing error.
Jeremy Hermida was called out on a check swing and Marmol got out of the inning by inducing a 6-4-3 double play off the bat of Jorge Cantu.
Kevin Gregg was bailed out of a 3-0 hole by Dan Uggla to start the ninth, settled down and retired the Marlins in order to give his team a chance in the bottom of the inning.
The top of the tenth was one of those innings that will hopefully wake a team up. It was beyond ugly and embarrassing.
After the bloop double by Amezaga, Aaron Heilman walked pinch-hitter Wes Helms. Bonifacio followed with a grounder to Derrek Lee in the hole at second. Lee made a good pick and threw to second. Ryan Theriot, instead of making sure of one and keeping the go ahead run at third, appeared to want to turn a double play and the ball went off the top of his glove into left. Gload scored and the Marlins had runners on first and third with no outs.
Cameron Maybin dropped a perfect bunt past Aaron Heilman that brought in Helms with the Marlins' fourth run. Heilman then walked Jeremy Hermida to load the bases. After jumping ahead of Jorge Cantu 1-2, Cantu worked the count to 3-2 then lined a double to the wall in left center that cleared the bases...7-2 Marlins.
Larry Rothschild made the switch and brought in Angel Guzman to face Dan Uggla. Uggla doubled in Cantu for the eighth and final run. Guzman retired the last three batters he faced but the damage had been done.
Aaron Heilman allowed six runs, five earned, on three hits with two walks and did not record an out....in the tenth inning of a tied game.
Lou Piniella said it is too early to make speeches to his team...well, when will it become to late?
Rich Harden will try to get the Cubs back to .500 on Friday afternoon. The Marlins will send rookie southpaw Graham Taylor to the mound. Taylor will be making his second big league start.
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Tough night Neil. I love Piniella but he looks as defeated as D-Lee, Bradley, SOTO and Marmol. I thought Milton B was going to spark this team but I'm still waiting...he is becoming a Dennis Rodmanlike kind of distraction but without "the rebounds".
It looks like a chemistry problem all around to me. Oh well let's try and do better in May.
Yeah..fuck MB's HR...-_-; *dies of sarcasm*
Agustin, as usual I agree with you.
Aaron, I have taken issue in the past with the delivery and tone of your messages, but rarely the content.
Listen I'm as optimistic as anyone about most things in life (politics aside), but in this instance I agree 100% with what Aaron, Boseph and others have been saying with regards to the (lack of) managerial moves this year and the overall sense of mediocrity coming from just about everyone on the team.
When Fonzie is the only one who is being real and calling out the rest of the team you *know* it's bad. The problem is that with the expectations that all Cubs fans have now it's only going to get worse in terms of clubhouse pressure and stress....MUCH worse. I swear it seems as if Lou has just thrown his hands in the air with a "WTF" attitude. His comments after the game say as much.
None of us are managers, and we aren't privy to all the information that Lou and JH are, I'll admit that. But there comes a time when Capt. Obvious needs to make a major appearance, and that time is now. If we don't win this series, there had better be a major shakeup of this team, or you might as well have the fire sale.
It's not too early guys. Not in my opinion.
In business, as many of you probably know, continuous improvement is the lifeblood of success. You never accept that there aren't improvements that can be made, you constantly set up metrics, measure them, and the react accordingly. Mediocrity, or "that's the way we've always done it" or "they're the guys with the contract, so we let 'em play" sorts of attitudes will GUARANTEE failure. I live this every single day. If I have an employee who has that type of attitude, they are warned and given time to get with the program. If they don't, they are granted an early release so they can find someone else to listen to it.
Success is about adapting. In my opinion, Lou and JH don't adapt well at all, and we are seeing the results of it.
Here's to change. And success.
GOD!!! This happens all the f-ing time. Marshall pitches a gem and we couldn't get the win for him. Add Marshall to the list in with Harden,and MANY others... even Marquis. This has been happening for 20 years! Penants are won in April, RIGHT? Well, this is pathetic!! I think we are in trouble. Lee is killing us, Badley is a joke. We are in trouble.
Scott,
I have to agree with that. "tone"...I guess you might be referring to redundancy, because I am the king of redundancy. I keep saying it like it is. It's rubbed some people wrong, but one thing I've learned in life is that if you're right, and people don't hold the same opinion, then they'll be upset with you---it's human nature.
I also agree with your "employee" take on the whole matter. No way would the kind of production we've received from Lee, Soto, and Bradley be tolerated in the real world. They'd be asked to leave. Excuse me Lee, we're paying you $13 million. Excuse me Soto....oh, you won the ROY, so I guess we should give you a pass on production for the next 10 years. What, Bradley, you average less than 100 games played, and make $10 million? What the hell are Hendry and Piniella thinking.
I have great in-house candidates for both Lee and Bradley...Hoffpauir and Jake Fox, respectively. Ditto Soto...with Koyie Hill doing an excellent job with the staff (btw---has anyone else noticed that Soto sucks this year calling a game...every big inning we've had this year has come with him calling the shots behind the plate), Chris Robinson and Steve Clevenger (who is also versatile and can play the field) at AAA and AA respectively, we have options to allow a DL assignment with Soto so he can finally see a hand and shoulder specialist, and get with Jenny Craig to lose the caboose he's carrying around this year.
I just don't understand the management this year. Hendry and Piniella both said they weren't far off last year, and there wouldn't be many off-season moves. Yet, we traded/released/didn't sign half our team. What?!?!?!
I think we all agreed that RF would have to be fixed with Fukudome's bad season. I also think we all felt that we needed a lefty in the pen we could count on. And a good portion of us felt Lee was on the downside of his career, and we needed to find Hoffpauir AB's.
I guess DeRosa, Wood, and Edmonds must've been the problems for us last year....Miles, Gregg, and Gathright must be the answers then, right? That's laughable. Maybe Hendry overplayed his hand and thought he could pry Teahen away from the Royals to fill DeRosa's spot (which would've been close)...who knows? But Miles? You gotta be kidding me! Gathright? Unbelievable!!!!!!!!
I just outlined some easy steps. DFA Gathright, and bring up Jake Fox. Bench Lee in favor of Hoffpauir with right-handed starters. DL Soto, and bring up Robinson or Clevenger (preference would be Clevenger b/c he's more versatile). There, that solves our bat problem off the bench. We have Clevenger who can play almost all IF positions, Fox who can play all corners in IF and OF, and we got perhaps, our two most anemic bats out of the lineup.
Problem solved without even trading/releasing a big salary.
Aaron, I agree..
You know the other thing that gets lost in all the scrutiny of the moves Hendry made ?
When you move Fuku to CF to make room for Bradley, you now have what may be the slowest OF in baseball. While Fuku is a terrific RF, he is not a CF. He's just not fast enough to cover the ground. Case in point last night was the 10th inning. First guy hits a popup into short CF and it drops in for a double and next thing you know they have 6 runs. That ball should have been caught, but the box score doesn't show that. A slow OF makes a HUGE difference.
And DP Lee is basically an automatic out. I just cannot believe how bad he has become. It will be interesting to see if Lou has the stones to sit him in favor of Hoffy. We all know it shouldn't matter what a guy makes in terms of whether or not he plays, but if you think it doesn't matter, you're living in fantasy land. That's the fact. It does matter, even with Lou. Case in point - Why does he refuse to take Soriano out in late innings for defensive replacement?
And Miles and Gathright are COMPLETELY useless. They trade Derosa for a bag of balls and then sign Miles to replace him. Did they really think that was an upgrade ? Holy cow. But obviously they did it to save money so they could get MB. Just terrible.
I think we're looking at 80-85 wins - Tops !! and that may be optimistic.
Aaron, I haven't finished reading your post yet, but thank goodness you mentioned Soto's play calling. I thought of that the other night. Hill did admit that there was one game where he called the wrong pitch and we ended up losing. I figured he'd be benched for eternity after that one. But Soto does not look the same behind the plate that he did last year. He doesn't go out to the mound nearly as much and should at any point if the count is 3-0. I think his play calling is following his bat...while Hill just continues to impress me.
However, I think I may be the cause of all of this. the last two games I was able to watch on tv, we scored 10 or more runs and held the opposition to 3 or less. I guess I need to get MLB tv and start missing work more often!
I wonder if the Nationals would do a Bradley for Dunn trade. Dunn is hitting .310 with 6 hrs, 15 Rbi and an OBP of .467. All that while on a terrible team, still wish they would have gotten him.
THE RIOT!!!!! With a GRAND SLAM!!!!
Wow, who would have thought!