"People ask me what I do in winter when there's no baseball. I'll tell you what I do, I stare out the window and wait for spring." - Rogers Hornsby

:: Saturday, August 30, 2003 ::

Shawn Estes Must Go!

Perhaps the luckiest guy in the bleachers today was the guy who got hit with a batting practice ball only about 20 minutes after the gates opened -- and it was nasty, drawing blood. Security had to call the paramedics, and he was led off in a wheelchair. I'm sure he'll be OK, as he was sitting up fine; it may require stitches, but all he got was a painful scare.

But for him, it was probably best that he didn't have to watch Shawn Estes blow up yet again, in an ugly 9-5 loss to Milwaukee.

I'm kidding, of course, about the guy's luck -- I'm sure he'd rather not have been hit in the head with a baseball -- but not about not having to watch today's fiasco.

I mean, I tried every superstition. Wore the same cap as yesterday. Got my Super Big Gulp out of the same spigot at the 7-11. Brought my son Mark, who saw Estes pitch probably his best game of the season, a 7-inning, 5-strikeout, no-run performance in Baltimore on June 9, when he got his sixth win of the season. Since then Estes has gone 1-6, with an ERA approaching the view of Mars that we are all now getting.

Dusty, give it up. Maybe Shawn Estes was a serviceable pitcher once. Yes, he won 19 games for one of your division champions. But that was six years ago, and even then, he walked 100 batters that season. Yes, he snapped off a couple of lovely curveballs for strikes today. But that's not enough. He's not any good any more. He is, by far, the worst rotation starter in the National League this year. His ERA is a homer or two short of six.

The Cubs have four good-to-dominant starters, and that may be enough to get past rough games like this. But Juan Cruz has to be in the rotation for the rest of the season; who cares if that means you have no lefties. At least you have a pitcher who might be able to get hitters out. As of the radio post-game show, the Cubs had still not announced a starter for tomorrow, but with Todd Wellemeyer throwing four innings today, they could easily option him out for one day, activate Cruz (which would make Cruz eligible for postseason play), then bring back Wellemeyer on Monday.

Speaking of Wellemeyer, he threw two outstanding innings, striking out four. Too bad that was after he threw two really BAD innings, giving up four runs. All but one of the Brewer runs scored with two out, which is really bad pitching -- inability to close the door on a team that truly has only one good hitter, and he did hit today: Richie Sexson, who homered and had four RBI.

Troy O'Leary tried to make the game close, with a pinch-hit 3-run homer in the sixth, making the score 9-5. To show you how bad the Cubs' bench is, that was O'Leary's first home run since he hit a grand slam in Toronto on June 15, which at the time tied that game, which they wound up losing in extra innings. At least O'Leary is consistent. At the end of play on June 15, he was hitting .215. At the end of play today, he is hitting ... .216.

And for once, I actually agreed with Wavin' Wendell when he sent Kenny Lofton around third on Sammy Sosa's double in the 8th -- the Cubs were having no luck scoring anyone; Lofton's a good baserunner and Milwaukee's defense isn't exactly known for being as tough as, say, the Cardinals'. It would have helped if Eric Karros could have come through with the bases loaded in the seventh. At least the Cubs had baserunners today.

What I worry about tomorrow is Dusty's penchant for platooning whether it makes sense or not, and I fear that Doug Glanville will be installed in the leadoff spot against lefty Doug Davis. Well, that's four automatic outs. Dusty, get it through your head: Glanville is done. He can't hit. Anchor him to the bench.

It felt fall-like at the ballpark today, with the temperature only around 70, clouds moving in late in the game, and the late-afternoon shadows made worse by the 3:05 start, which also added to the large number of drunks who felt they had to stand behind us and make comments about just about anything but the game.

At this writing both St. Louis and Houston are winning, though early in their games, so the Cubs may be back to 1.5 games behind tomorrow morning. We continue to hope and have faith.

:: posted by Al at 6:58 PM [+] ::
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A Month Of This?

A day after a disastrous loss, the Cubs are back to within half a game of the division lead, as both the Cardinals and Astros lost tonight.

With the Marlins and Phillies winning tonight, the Cubs remain 1.5 games off the wild card lead, and fifth (or so -- there are a couple of ties in there). Is that confusing enough?

There are twenty-nine games remaining. I'm not sure I can take much more of this!

One other note from today's game: during the road trip, the club replaced the square of sod in right field that we have all dubbed "Sammy's Spot" -- the spot where he digs his spikes into the turf and creates a nice little marker for himself, made worse during August because of the very wet weather we've had here. Opposing outfielders get booed if they dare stand on this spot. Now it's a slightly-different-colored square of grass.

I'd bet by the end of this homestand, Sammy will have gouged out a nice little spot in the new turf.

:: posted by Al at 10:14 PM [+] ::
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That's Better!

Before we talk about today's game, let me tell you a funny ticket story.

Mike gives me his weekday tickets to sell, because he rarely makes weekday games. So I had sold today's ticket to Phil. The very next day, Mike e-mails me to tell me that his company was giving everyone a bonus day off, shutting down for the weekend, and he wanted to come today. Great.

I couldn't find a ticket for him, then Howard called me yesterday and said he had an extra. I said, "Call Mike!" Which he did, and they arranged the drop-off.

Then later yesterday I looked in my ticket pouch and found a ticket for today's game -- I'd been given it by one of the other season ticket holders to sell, and had forgotten. Darn! I could have gotten that to Mike. What was I going to do with it now?

Within one hour after finding that, Phil called. Did I have an extra for his buddy? That was a fortuitous coincidence, I made the arrangements and everyone was happy. Oh, and we swapped ticket stubs so Mike had his own stub back.

Everyone was even happier after today's well-played 4-2 win over the Brewers, snapping Milwaukee's ten-game winning streak and putting the Cubs in position to get back to 1/2 game out in both the wild card and division races, pending tonight's games in various places (there are now ten teams within 1.5 games of a playoff spot -- amazing!).

Matt Clement threw a terrific ballgame without his best stuff, and especially nice was the way he fell behind a few hitters, then worked the count and got batters out -- he did this with John Vander Wal twice, in fact, falling behind 2-0, getting him to pop up once and strike out the other time. 123 pitches is kind of a lot, but with the bullpen implosions of the last two days, I think Clement took one for the team today, and the booing for Antonio Alfonseca was very loud, both times he got up in the pen. Frankly, I think releasing him would be a good thing for his own peace of mind. I doubt he'll ever have any success with the Cubs again. I was also glad to see Clement get through a game with no walks.

Sammy Sosa may be starting one of his hot streaks -- as Mike pointed out, he often starts one with a game like this, with three solid singles. But the biggest hit of the game may have been Damian Miller's two-out, 8th inning home run, giving Clement some breathing room, and perhaps even allowing him to stay in the game in the first place.

Not quite sure why Moises Alou didn't play today -- those of you who watched the game on WGN may even know more than I do about that. There was nothing in the game summary link above either.

Sight seen: ushers wearing "Andy Frain Services" caps, rather than Cub employee clothes. I suppose most of the summer hires have gone back to school, so the Cubs contracted out some of the usher services today. Frain used to run almost all the security/ushering services at all the Chicago ballparks and stadiums, but was squeezed out in the 80's when the clubs took over and ran it themselves.

Now, all of us will become huge Padres and Reds fans for the next three days.

:: posted by Al at 5:37 PM [+] ::
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It Was Fun While It Lasted

Now really, who do we think we are fooling?

Come on, a guy whose home run total equals his uniform number (zero) hits a walk-off homer?

Crushing defeats because of bullpen implosions do happen, but when they happen a second day in a row, maybe someone's trying to tell us something.

You already know about the devastating 3-2 loss to the Cardinals last night. I am trying to find some good that came out of the series, and there is some:

* Kerry Wood pitched great after throwing poorly for a month.

* Carlos Zambrano and Mark Prior established themselves as dominating starting pitchers over a team that has a tremendous offense.

* That offense, which has blown through most pitching staffs in the league (third in runs, and second among teams not playing in Denver), was held to ten runs in three games.

But contending teams can't make stupid mistakes, like the nonchalant throw Zambrano made that prolonged the sixth inning, on an easy comebacker by Matt Morris -- who has a bad ankle and can't run; Zambrano could have run over and tagged him out, and perhaps led to Zambrano throwing way too many pitches; maybe Scott Rolen wouldn't have hit his home run, and Carlos might have made it through eight innings instead of seven, and Joe Borowski would have come in to protect a 2-0 lead in the ninth.

Or maybe a bigger lead -- what the heck were Doug Glanville and Wendell Kim thinking, trying to score on a fairly shallow fly ball hit to Jim Edmonds, who's one of the top defensive outfielders in the game? That ended a potential rally, with Sammy Sosa on deck. You know, there is a place for aggressiveness in baseball, but that wasn't the time. Sosa had already homered in the game, and I keep hoping that he's going to go on one of his ten-homers-in-a-week tears, but it hasn't happened yet. Taking the Cubs out of that inning really took some of the air out of the balloon, with the game still tied.

So, here's where we stand, and intellectually, it still doesn't look that bad. One and a half games out, behind the Cardinals and Astros who are tied. St. Louis plays at Cincinnati this weekend, and though the Reds have a poor overall home record, they have a knack of scoring off shaky bullpens late in home games. The Cardinals have one of those. Houston plays San Diego at home to end their longest homestand of the season. The Cubs had a 4-5 road trip but lost only one game in the standings during the nine games.

The Cubs are also one and a half games out of the wild-card lead, though there, they are behind six other teams -- but with the closeness of that race, seven teams within that 1.5 games, leaping over several of them in one day isn't impossible. The Milwaukee series ought to be interesting; the Brewers have inexplicably won ten games in a row, and you'd figure that has to end sometime soon.

Intellectually that all makes sense. Emotionally, though, I go back to a statement that came from, of all people, Ron Santo, back in his playing days, when he said: "When you're eight games in front, it feels like eight inches. When you're eight games behind, it feels like eight miles."

Pretty much spot-on, surprising from someone who now talks like he has a sock stuck in his mouth.

:: posted by Al at 9:47 AM [+] ::
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Movie Review: "Dirty Pretty Things"

This isn't a "dirty" movie. Nor is it pretty; it shows a lot of the grit of modern-day London.

But the things it's about make you think.

Audrey Tautou, who was so great in "Amelie" a couple of years ago (and is only 25 years old), plays Senay, a Turkish immigrant who's trying to stay one step away from UK immigration authorities, who are played to almost comic effect as greasy idiots. Tautou's performance is even more compelling when you consider this is her first English-speaking role, and she's doing it affecting a Middle Eastern accent.

British-born Chiwetel Ejiofor plays Okwe, a Nigerian doctor who's in London -- well, we're not sure why at the beginning of the film, and I won't ruin the plot by telling you why, because it's central to a lot of the plot points -- working at the front desk on the midnight shift of a goofy little hotel, where the maids are all immigrants, and half the rooms seem to be rented to prostitutes, who as is typical in movies like this, have a heart of gold.

You'll think it's a murder mystery when a body part is found stuffing up a toilet in one of the rooms. But the manager is strangely uninterested in having this investigated, as Okwe and Senay find out when they begin to do so, and as they do so, realize (or at least she does), that they are falling in love, even though they have both begun simply working together, then "sharing" a flat (he sleeps on the couch, and they both wind up on the run from the greasy immigration investigators), eventually winding up sleeping at the morgue, courtesy of a doctor friend of Okwe's.

I don't want to give you the impression this is a comedy, either, though it does have its funny moments, and winks at us while it's doing it. Instead, it's a thoughtful commentary on what foreign, dark-skinned immigrants to a country like the UK (what one of the characters makes a point of telling everyone that it's "this wonderful country") have to go through, the prejudice they see on an everyday basis, and how their status in their home countries means nothing when they immigrate.

You've never seen London like this, either; the grit of the streets shows, as does the opulence of some of the landmarks we all know are London, and the attempted opulence of the silly little hotel, run by "Senor Juan", who although he is clearly supposed to be Spanish, he works very hard at being an "Englishman". This is Spanish actor Sergi Lopez, also in his first English-speaking role.

I won't ruin the plot twists at the end (and you knew there had to be some), only to say that Okwe's medical training turns out to be very important.

Stephen Frears directed this film; he's responsible for such offbeat hits as "High Fidelity" and "The Grifters", in addition to more mainstream fare like "Dangerous Liaisons". He's got another winner on his hands here. I liked this film a lot, and you can add it to the list of good summer fare that doesn't have to have explosions to sell tickets.

AYRating: *** 1/2

:: posted by Al at 7:24 PM [+] ::
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Ka-BOOM!

Last night's game was a variation of the old Zen koan about the tree falling in the forest.

If a bullpen implodes in front of 32,000 people, how loud a noise does it make?

Actually, not very loud at all, except if you count the cheers of the Cardinal fans as the Cubs blew a great performance by Kerry Wood and lost to St. Louis 4-2 last night.

OK, let's get this clear. Antonio Alfonseca should never again be allowed near a pitching mound wearing a Cubs uniform. You hear that, Dusty? Anchor him to the bullpen bench. Or better yet, Jim Hendry, just eat the one month left on his contract and release him.

What I really don't understand is who Hendry called up to replace Dave Veres, who has gone on the DL in a procedural move to (a) rest his shoulder, and (b) give the club more flexibility to put people on a postseason roster, since you can replace anyone on the DL when it comes time to submit such lists. That's how Francisco Rodriguez, who didn't even make his ML debut till Sept. 18 last year, made the Angels' playoff roster in 2002.

Jon Leicester isn't one of the Cubs' top prospects. He's not a bad prospect, but why would you want him in your bullpen during a critical series against the Cardinals? Where was Todd Wellemeyer? At least he has some major league experience. What this move does, essentially, is give the Cubs a five-man bullpen until Sunday, when Juan Cruz will be called up to start. And with all five of those pitchers throwing last night, the bullpen is stretched out yet again, so Carlos Zambrano will have to try to replicate his success of last Friday. Only Joe Borowski was able to put out the fire last night in that disastrous eighth inning, and by then it was too late. To be fair, Mark Guthrie was probably squeezed a little too much around the plate when he should have had Jim Edmonds struck out, only to have plate umpire Bruce Dreckman (one of the lesser of the younger umpires, I think) call two balls in a row, after which Edmonds singled.

All season, people have been begging Dusty not to extend his pitchers too far, and he's ignored them. The moronic Sun-Times columnist Jay Mariotti said today that Wood should have been allowed another inning, but after 125 pitches and dominating as he hasn't in over a month, I think he was spent. The problem wasn't that Wood was taken out, the problem was that the wrong pitcher was in the game. Should Kyle Farnsworth have started the inning? Probably. Should Wellemeyer have been available? Definitely.

I've written so many times this year about dramatic Cub wins that I thought would propel the team on to a long winning streak. It hasn't happened, not even once. So I suspect the converse to be true. This is just one loss. The Cubs still have the best August record of any of the three Comedy Central contenders (14-10); they trail by 1.5 games in both the division and wild card races; and they can still come home with a series win and a winning road trip with a victory tonight.

Most of you probably watched the game on ESPN; that national telecast is, of course, blacked out in Chicago so as to "protect" the FSN local advertising, so ESPN in the Chicago area got Philadelphia/Montreal, which I was sneaking peeks at between innings. Steve Stone was in rare form during the FSN telecast. They did a number of "game breaks" with studio reporter Gail Fischer, who at one point mentioned the [sarcasm] thrilling [/sarcasm] news that Tyler Arnason had re-signed with the Blackhawks.

On returning to the game, Stone said, "You just can't get enough hockey news during the pennant race." Man, did we miss Steve the two years he was gone. You can even see in your mind the smirk on his face when he's saying that.

Of course, that was before the bullpen blowup.

:: posted by Al at 7:48 AM [+] ::
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New Link!

Eric Margheim of the Cubs Usenet newsgroup suggested to me that I put something here that links to information on waivers, options, etc. -- all the things that can confuse all of us who are serious fans, and what MLB considers to be information to be guarded more than the CIA guards its HQ at Langley.

One excellent source for this type of information is Rob Neyer's "Transactions Primer" on ESPN.com.

You can click above, and I'm also adding it to the sidebar.

:: posted by Al at 4:36 PM [+] ::
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Playoff Tickets!!!!

Knew that'd get your attention.

Those of us who are season ticket holders got our playoff ticket invoices yesterday.

Money is due September 10, and as opposed to 1998 and 2001, when there were only three ticket levels (Box, Reserved [which included everything in the park except upper and lower boxes] and Standing Room), this year they are selling tickets for nine different levels (Club Box/Infield, Club Box/Outfield, Field Box/Infield, Field Box/Outfield, Terrace Box, Upper Box, Terrace Reserved, Bleachers, and Upper Reserved, same as the regular season).

Division series tickets range from $20-50, not much more than the "premium" regular season dates.

NLCS tickets range from $35-80. World Series tickets range from $60-175.

Dates are as follows:

NLDS: 9/30, 10/1, 10/3, 10/4, 10/5. Cubs would NOT have home field here as they will either be the 3rd seed division winner, or wild card (barring a total collapse by the Braves or Giants, who figure to be the #1 and #2 seeds).

NLCS: 10/7, 10/8, 10/10, 10/11, 10/12, 10/14, 10/15. Cubs could have the home field under the following scenario: they are the NL Central winner and win their series, and the wild card wins the other series.

World Series: 10/18, 10/19, 10/21, 10/22, 10/23, 10/25, 10/26 (the middle 3 would be the Cub home games)

Here's a thought which is pure speculation on my part: there will be fewer than 5,000 tickets per game available to the general public. Whatever is made available, I'd expect them to be sold in strips (you'd have to buy all ten games), possibly around September 13.

:: posted by Al at 9:17 AM [+] ::
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One Down...

... seven to go.

Well, we can think optimistically now, can't we? After the Cubs decisively beat the Cardinals 7-4 last night, we can at least think about winning the seven remaining games between the two teams. After a tough series in Houston, the Cubs have now won 3 of their last four, and...

OK, I'm dreaming, I know, especially considering the Cubs' 11-40 record in St. Louis since 1996. But as so many of the players will tell you, they weren't part of that. And the newcomers did the job again last night, with Randall Simon and Aramis Ramirez homering in a six-run third inning that was over almost before you could blink, and Mark Prior dominated for eight innings, so much so that Dusty is considering holding him back a day in the rotation so he could start again Monday against the Cardinals at home, rather than Sunday against Milwaukee, something I think would be a very good idea.

It got nervous a bit in the ninth when Kenny Lofton dropped a fly ball and Jim Edmonds homered, and frankly, I was glad I nodded off and missed that; I woke up just in time to see the final out (I have a knack of doing that -- must be all these years of training watching games like this).

Of course it would be great to sweep the Cardinals, but I would settle for splitting the remaining two games. Let us hope that Kerry Wood's back and attitude problems are behind him and he throws one of his "A" games tonight. It's on ESPN, 6 PM CT, for those of you outside of the Chicago area.

So in addition to passing the Cardinals into second place, and remaining only half a game behind the Astros, who demolished the Dodgers 18-4 (and let's hope they ran through their weekly allotment of runs last night), suddenly, with LA's loss, and Philadelphia, Florida, and Arizona also losing last night, the Cubs find themselves this morning in a virtual tie with the D'backs for 3rd place in the wild card race, 1.5 games behind, and only one behind the Marlins and Phillies in the loss column. This could be the wildest September ever, with seven teams right now within 2.5 games of the wild card lead, and therefore ten of the 16 NL teams within 2.5 games of a playoff spot. Amazing.

In other baseball news that saddened me personally, the Yankees designated Jesse Orosco for assignment yesterday, a move that probably ends the career of the 46-year-old reliever.

Orosco is five months younger than I am; I saw his major league debut at Wrigley Field on Opening Day, 1979, when he was called in to register the last out, retiring Bill Buckner in a 10-6 Mets win over the Cubs. He's the last active player who's anywhere close to my age. You could see this coming, as he hadn't pitched well for either the Padres or the Yankees this season.

And to add insult to insult, the Yankees replaced Orosco on the roster with... former Cub Felix Heredia, who they just acquired from the Reds. Oh, the shame of it all.

:: posted by Al at 7:49 AM [+] ::
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A Day Without A Post?

No way!

OK, I spent the afternoon looking at wooden Amish kitchen tables. Isn't that exciting?

Yeah, I know, don't answer that question.

Just thought I'd post something today, to let you all know I haven't disappeared, and that I'm at the moment, thoroughly enjoying the Cubs' 6-0, fourth-inning lead over the Cardinals.

If the game ends early enough -- which it doesn't appear that it will, at the current pace -- I'll post on it tonight, otherwise tomorrow morning.

Oh, and Go Dodgers! (at least for the next three days -- they're currently losing 4-3 to the Astros)

:: posted by Al at 8:12 PM [+] ::
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What's Ahead

With the off day, let's look at what the three NL Central contenders will face in the season's remaining five weeks.

The three clubs have an equal number of home and road games (16), except the Cubs, who have a 17th home game due to the makeup split doubleheader on September 2 against the Cardinals. You'd think that would give the Cardinals an extra road game, but they are the only one of the three to have a two-game series in September (at Milwaukee the final week).

Here are the three schedules, in order:

Cubs (17 home, 16 road): at STL (3); Mil (3); STL (5); at Mil (3); at Mon (Puerto Rico) (3); Cin (3); NYM (3); at Pit (3); at Cin (3); Pit (3)

Cardinals (16 home, 16 road): Cubs (3); at Cin (3); at Cubs (5); Cin (3); Col (3); at Hou (3); Mil (4); Hou (3); at Mil (2); at Arz (3)

Astros (16 home, 16 road): LA (3); SD (3); at LA (3); at SD (3); at Mil (3); STL (3); at Col (3); at STL (3); SF (3); Mil (4)

The Cubs have what appears to be the easiest schedule, playing only 11 games against teams who currently have a winning record, and 8 of those are in the next two weeks against the Cardinals. St. Louis has the toughest, with 17 games vs. winning teams, and Houston has 15 such games.

You can often throw that out the window when September comes, as some of those "losing" teams love to play spoiler. Milwaukee is riding a six-game winning streak, though I don't expect that to last. This weekend would be a great time for it to end.

Looking further, the Astros have won 7 of the first 12 head-to-head matchups with St. Louis. It'd be great for the Cubs if they'd split the six games, which seems quite possible, since both clubs play well at home and not so well on the road.

Houston's road games include three at Los Angeles, also fighting for a playoff spot, and three at Colorado, where anything can happen and often does, and where the Rockies are 44-22 so far this year. The Astros also have three games against the Giants, though they are likely to have clinched the West title by then, barring a total collapse, and as a final note, they are only 4-5 vs. Milwaukee so far this year, with eight remaining. The Brewers actually have a slightly better road record than home record.

For their part, the Cardinals are 9-15 vs. West teams so far, with the three vs. the Rockies at home in St. Louis, but then they play the final three of the season at Arizona, where the Diamondbacks may be fighting for a wild-card spot. In contrast with Houston's mark, St. Louis is 8-2 vs. the Brewers so far this year.

The Cubs are 11-13 with the NL East so far in 2003, though 4-2 vs. the teams they will be facing in the upcoming month, the Expos and Mets, and the Mets aren't the team they were when the season started, which is when the Cubs played them. The Cubs are only 3-6 vs. the Cardinals, but they are 18-14 against the Reds, Pirates and Brewers, the other Central teams they play.

What does all this boil down to? Each team has its easy and hard parts of the schedule. Despite an equal number of home and road games, the Astros have the longest road-trip, a 10-game trip that begins on Labor Day, and the Cubs have the longest homestand, eight, beginning this weekend. Houston hasn't played well on the road, but the Cubs are just .500 at home.

So, it very well may come down to the season's final weekend, when the Astros host the Brewers, the Cubs host the Pirates, and the Cardinals are at the Diamondbacks.

In 1998, when three teams, the Cubs, Giants and Mets, were fighting for the wild card, the NL had a "mini-lottery" in case of a 3-way tie. The Cubs won it, and were given the following choice:

a) play the Giants at home, and if they won, play the Mets at home; or

b) let the other two teams play, and then play the winner, but on the road.

They chose (b), and I would too. Why make your team win two games when one will do? As it turned out, of course, there was no 3-way tie, and the Cubs got home field for the tiebreaker game, which they won, and which I can tell you was perhaps the most exciting day I've ever spent at the ballpark -- it is still the only winner-take-all game ever played at Wrigley Field (the 7th game of the 1945 World Series was in Detroit).

This year's a bit more complicated because of the tightness of the wild-card race and the possibility that three or more teams might tie for that as well.

:: posted by Al at 1:42 PM [+] ::
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When You Come By, Bring My Stomach

That's an old classic Jack Brickhouse line from any game where the Cubs escaped jam after jam to win.

And that's a perfect description of today's agonizingly good (it'd have been agonizinly bad if they'd lost) 5-3 win over the Diamondbacks, winning the series 2-1 and the season series 4-2 over Arizona, and maintaining the status quo in the NL Central for another day, half a game behind the Astros and Cardinals, both of whom won their games today. With the win, the Cubs equalled their victory total -- 67 -- from the 2002 season, with 33 games to go.

So many things went wrong in today's game, I hardly know where to begin. The Cubs left a ridiculous 15 men on base, including two bases-loaded, none-out situations in which they scored a total of one run. The defense was poor, and prolonged the game in the 9th inning when Ramon Martinez decided to hot-dog what should have been a game-ending double play grounder.

But credit Matt Clement, who after a shaky first couple of innings settled down to a marvelous 7-inning-plus (and that's yet another story), nine-strikeout performance, his second win over Arizona this month.

Here's the other story: I seriously wonder if Dusty Baker has any idea how to handle his bullpen. Why did he even allow Clement to come out for the 8th inning? He was already at 105 pitches, and when Danny Bautista singled, Baker was forced to bring in Kyle Farnsworth, who then struggled through an inning where he alternately threw 100-MPH heat, or pitches way out of the strike zone. I simply don't understand why Farnsworth didn't start the eighth.

Then, after Kyle got in trouble, Dusty had Joe Borowski warming up early, and though he wasn't needed, it was clear that even in the domed stadium, it was hot -- by the time the 9th was over Joe was drenched in sweat -- and he might have been spent before he even came into the game, although to be fair, Borowski's 37-pitch inning was 18 pitches longer than it should have been, after Martinez botched the double-play ball.

Borowski's been oddly misused -- the last game he threw in was Mark Prior's gem on Wednesday, a 6-0 blowout where he wasn't really needed. Obviously, he hasn't been needed in a save situation since then, but he didn't seem at his best. Luckily, with the day off tomorrow, he should be well-rested for the St. Louis series, as should the rest of the bullpen.

If you didn't see the game on TV, it once again pointed out how good Steve Stone is; he virtually called every single pitch that Borowski made, told us which pitches he'd need to throw to get the last hitter, Steve Finley, out, and I'm always amazed, though I shouldn't be, at how accurate he is. Stone is a joy to listen to and I'm so grateful that he decided to come back to broadcasting this year.

The Cubs' offense was pretty good today, hammering out 13 hits and even drawing five walks, but the 15 men left on base is worrisome. The club could have, and probably should have, scored nine or ten runs with that many baserunners, even with no homers and an 0-for-5 from Sammy Sosa, who once again has not used the two-homer game as a base for starting another hot streak.

The club did get a few breaks today (and we deserve them, don't we?) when no fewer than three borderline check-swing calls all went in the Cubs' favor, the first of which resulted in the ejection of Luis Gonzalez, which, come to think of it, might have been a big factor in the victory. Having watched all three of the calls, and numerous replays, I think the one on Gonzalez could have gone either way, but the other two were pretty obviously correct calls. By the time of the third one, on Arizona catcher Robby Hammock, Bob Brenly came out and probably just told Kevin Kelley to throw him out because he was sick of watching these things. I can understand his frustration -- the D'backs are in the thick of the wild card race, and now that the Cubs are done playing them, I'll be rooting for them, especially since they'll be playing the Cardinals the last three games of the season at the BOB.

Speaking of which, with all three contenders in the Comedy Central having the day off tomorrow, I'll post (probably in the afternoon sometime) all three teams' remaining schedules, and some thoughts on where things go from here.

:: posted by Al at 7:43 PM [+] ::
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