Game Twenty-Nine - Cubs 2 Brewers 3
WP - Mitch Stetter (2-0) LP - Aaron Heilman (2-2, BS 2) Save - Trevor Hoffman (5)
On a night the Cubs saw their third baseman lie on the ground writhing in pain in the third inning, the offense failed to take advantage of an error and an intentional walk that loaded the bases with one-out in the eighth. Aaron Heilman took the hill in the bottom of the inning. After a four-pitch walk to Corey Hart and a wild pitch, Ryan Braun launched a two-run shot to right and the Brewers won a big game on a night the Cubs suffered a big loss.
Depending on how the team responds over the next couple of days, Friday night in Milwaukee could serve as a turning point for the entire season. The one player the Cubs could not afford to lose for any amount of time had to be helped off the field after laying in pain near the third baseline for several minutes.
Aramis Ramirez made an excellent diving stop on a ball hit down the third baseline by Ryan Braun but as soon as he landed it was apparent something was wrong. Ramirez first grabbed his wrist, then his shoulder. Mark O'Neal helped him off the field and down into the clubhouse and Ramirez was obviously in excruciating pain.
WGN Radio first reported during the game Aramis Ramirez dislocated his left shoulder and would have x-rays and a MRI to determine the severity. Reports surfaced following the loss that Ramirez could be lost from anywhere to four to eight weeks.
Randy Wells somehow pitched five shutout innings in his first Major League start. Wells left the game for pinch-hitter Bobby Scales in the top of the sixth after five innings of five-hit ball with two walks and five strikeouts. The Brewers worked the count against Wells all night and put two runners on base in the first three innings...but Wells made the big pitch when he needed it.
Angel Guzman made just one mistake in an otherwise excellent two innings of relief. J.J. Hardy hit a solo home run off Guzman with two outs in the sixth that cut the Cubs lead to 2-1....two pitches earlier, Koyie Hill dropped a foul tip that would have been strike three.
Aaron Heilman was 'the Aaron Heilman that pitched out of the Mets' pen for the last two seasons' on Friday night. Carlos Marmol cannot be used everyday, he has already appeared in 16 of the Cubs first 29 games, and someone else in Piniella's pen has to start doing their job.
With the Cubs up 2-1, Heilman walked Corey Hart on four pitches. His first pitch to Ryan Braun was in the dirt and skipped past Koyie Hill. Braun was sitting on a fastball and he cranked his seventh of the year over the wall in right. Braun admired his work then circled the bases.
What had been the Brewers' Achilles' Heal for the past two seasons has turned into one of their strengths in recent weeks. Trevor Hoffman retired the Cubs in order in the ninth for his fifth save of the year. While Hoffman is not the pitcher he once was, his reputation alone effects the hitter's approach....two of the three outs were Aaron Miles and Micah Hoffpauir looking at strike three.
Every loss is a tough one. Every blown save by a bullpen that refuses to throw strikes is aggravating but Friday night's losses were a lot more.
It is time for several players to step up and start doing their job. The Cubs have been inconsistent and have underachieved over the first six weeks. A few of the players are carrying the team while most have yet to perform anywhere near expectations. With the loss of Aramis Ramirez it is time for them to relax and play the game the way they are capable.
Milton Bradley broke up the scoreless tie in the top of the fifth with his third home run of the season. Bradley really turned on the ball and lined it into the second deck....and this was after he made a fine diving catch in the bottom of the fourth.
The Cubs tacked on in the sixth after Bobby Scales pinch-hit for Randy Wells and tripled down the right field line. Scales hustled around the bases and belly-flopped into the bag...a la Pete Rose. His desire and passion for the game is refreshing to see. While Scales might not be as physically gifted as many of his teammates, he has shown a desire in two games that he wants to play...some on the Cubs current roster should pay attention to the 'veteran-rookie'.
Alfonso Soriano stepped in and hit a sacrifice fly into center that plated Scales with the Cubs' second run.
The Cubs offense blew a chance in the eighth to tack on and opened the door for Ryan Braun's shot in the bottom of the inning.
Koyie Hill reached on a one-out double to right. Reed Johnson pinch-hit for Angel Guzman. Bill Hall made a nice backhanded stop on a ball hit down the third baseline...but threw the ball away. Hill ended up at third and Johnson at second with one out. The Brewers intentionally walked Alfonso Soriano to load the bases.
For some reason, Ryan Theriot swung at the first pitch from Carlos Villanueva and tapped out softly to Villanueva on the first base side of the mound. Hill was forced out at home for the second out.
Ken Macha brought in Mitch Stetter to face Kosuke Fukudome with the bases loaded. Piniella countered with Geovany Soto against the southpaw but the struggling Soto grounded out weakly to short on his second pitch. The at-bats by Theriot and Soto changed the momentum of the game.
Saturday is a new day...
Ryan Dempster will face Yovani Gallardo on Saturday night in game two of the series with the newest Cub, Ryan Freel likely at third base.
The Cubs have 1 guy in the bullpen to rely on in the clutch....
so -- the 'work' Hendry did on the bullpen was jettisoning Howry and Eyre, and picking up Gregg and Heilman....
Though Erratic, Angel Guzman seems to have far more moxy than Heilmann! The pecking order should be
Marmol(whichever situation is most dicey), Gregg, Guzman, Cotts, Heilmann...
Heilmann has great stuff, but is the quintessential mental midget. He is ideally suited to pitch 2 innings when the team has a 2-3 run lead....
I'd like to see the Cubs pick up Pedro Martinez and make him a relief pitcher.... talk about a guy with precision control and moxie (without 1/5th the stuff he once had)...
Pedro for 1 inning would be sensational...
Baron,
I would love to see them go after Pedro, but he is a total "ME" guy. He's a lot like Manny and Sammy Sosa. He thinks he's bigger than the team, and I doubt he would accept a role in the pen because of his ego. Hell, he still thinks he should be paid like $7 million/year at this point, when he's worth nothing more than $2 million + incentives.
I think the more pressing issue right now, as I've said all along, has got to be the offense.
We flat out suck...there's no sugarcoating our offense.
Let's put this into perspective with ARAM out:
Soriano-maybe 30 hr potential
Theriot-no extra base power
Fukudome-about 10-15 hr potential
Lee-about 10-15 hr potential
Bradley-about 10-15 hr potential
Soto-about 5 hr potential at this point
Fontenot-about 10-15 hr potential
Freel-about 5 hr potential
Fact is, NONE of those guys will have more than 80 RBI this year. Soriano does all his damage with no runners on base. Bradley is the same way this year. Soto has what, 4 RBI? Fontenot and Soriano are our 2 biggest power threats, and one of them is pint sized, and really only has about 1/2 a year of data to go off of in terms of projections.
Outside of those 2, Hoffpauir is our only other true power threat, and he probably won't see the field much with Lee and Bradley in the lineup.
Our lineup strikes fear in NOBODY. Seriously, as a pitcher, when you can go into a game with that much confidence that a lineup can't hurt you, more times than not, you'll dominate. ARAM was the glue that held this lineup together. Every pitcher had to worry about his clutch hits, power, and RBI threat every time he walked to the plate.
That's gone now, and I feel bad saying it fellas, but our season is over. It makes it less painful when I was able to accept that fact, and look forward to football season. I'll still watch games and what not, and root on guys like Scales, Randy Wells, and Hoffpauir, but this team is finished.
Hendry so royally screwed over this team in the offseason, not just with the DeRosa trade, but with not going after a PROVEN talent in Dunn, Ibanez, or Abreu. Bradley is one of the WORST signings in the history of this organization, and that's saying a lot. He might not be the worst free agent that we've signed, but was the worst signing, period, end of story. Let's see, we had a guy with an average of about 22 hr, 100 RBI and 150 games played (Ibanez), a guy with about 20 hr, 100 RBI and 155 games played average (Abreu), and a guy with 40 hr, 100 RBI, 100 walk, 155 games played average (Dunn)....
but, no, Hendry decided to go the route of about 10-15 hr, 60 RBI, 90 games played average (Bradley).
And, yet, there are still Hendry supporters out there. Why?!?!?!?!?!?!? I will never understand you Hendry supporters. He has done NOTHING recently for this team to improve it. He's made splashes in the FA market for the sake of making news (Soriano, Bradley, etc.), but none of his "major" moves have made that much of an impact on the team. He's hand-cuffed the team for years to come with no-trade clauses, and he's still living off his reputation of Trader Jim with the ARAM and Lee trades.
Many seem to forget the ill-fated Juan Pierre deal, all the former top prospects for a small percentage of what he could've gotten if he "sold high" on Corey Patterson, Rich Hill, Felix Pie, and Ronny Cedeno, along with countless others.
He is not a very smart GM, and if you look at his history in the draft, it gets even worse. So please stop apologizing for the guy.
He destroyed this team after saying it only needed minor tweaks. He overturned over half of the team from last year that won 97 games. That's not "minor tweaking"
I sure hope Ryan Freel is not at 3B. All we need is another stick with no power and no speed.
Game 30 today. The season is almost 20% gone. Time to face it: Soto is not going to perform in 2009. I don't know what Lou is doing about it, but I'd be playing Hill and telling Soto to lose the weight and get in shape. If he shapes up, he might perform in the second half. But we cannot go on with a catcher hitting half his weight . . ..
WOW!!! i am shocked to hear what you guys are saying. Two people ready to give up on the season after 30 games. This is crazy. First to start with Aaron, your projections are very pessimistic. at the moment Soriano projects to 45 homeruns, Fukudome to 20, and fontenoet to 25. Now they may not hit these marks but those are the projected numbers. Plus numbers usually go up in the summer time at wrigely. This team will score plenty of runs. By the way quit pushing Hoffpauir, he is in the perfect position for him.
Now you want to declare the season over in the beginning of May because Ramirez goes down for a month or two. kinda drastic don't you think? Who exactly is going to run away with this division before Ramirez comes back? Cardinals? Brewers? i don't think so. All this means is that it will be more difficult than initially thought.
Finally you decide to rip Jim Hendry, the guy who built the 97 win team you say "he overturned over half of the team from last year that won 97 games." Really? same at 1st, SS, 3rd, catcher, LF, and the RF moved to CF. Thats 2 new position players. 4 of the 5 starters are back with the one lose being the #5 starter, Marquis. The players that play 85% of the games are almost exactly the same. Has he made the best deals? NO, but you can not judge this years deals until the year is over. Fontenoet has roughly the same numbers as Derosa so that is basically a wash and Bradley deserves at least a season before he is called a terrible signing.
Now you want to talk about selling high on prospects. First, the reasons those players were not traded when their value was high was because they were projected to be on this team. When they didn't work out, you want to put that on Hendry. i don't, at least not fully, it goes on the players, the scouts, and the coaches as well. Second, when Hendry looked to be "selling high" with a prospect this year in Vitters, people gave him flack for it. Hard to have it both ways.
Now Ripsnort, you are ready to give up on Soto after 30 games? come on. this guy may not be playing well at the moment, but people go through slumps. 30 games, does not a season make.
The basic point is you guys need to relax. The season is long and this team IS good. They will be in contention most of if not the whole year. They have an excellent chance of being in the playoffs again, even with missing key players for parts of the season already. Relax.