"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, May 15, 2004 ::

A Blast From The Past

The old San Diego/Jack Murphy/Qualcomm/Whatever Stadium was a house of pain for the Cubs for many years, and worst of all was the 1984 NLCS, of which more anon.

So it was with great anticipation that I was looking forward to seeing the first Cub game in the new stadium in San Diego, (Insert Corporate Name Here) Park.

When I turned on the game, to my horror I saw the Padres decked out in precisely the same uniforms they were wearing on Sunday, October 7, 1984, the day they beat the Cubs to make the World Series; it was Turn-Back-the-Clock Day in SD, and the Padre marketing department apparently decided they'd twist the knife a little bit, to their eternal discredit. Twisting it even further, the Padres had the nerve to ask the Cubs to wear their 1984 uniforms, which they had the good sense to decline.

The Padres stopped wearing those uniforms after 1984, and thank goodness. The lettering and numbering style was odd (and by my recollection, the numbering style used last night was just slightly different than the one in 1984 -- check out this hideous batting practice jersey from that year, for example, and the Padres have had at least three other uniform changes since then.

Good riddance. I was at the cursed 1984 playoffs in San Diego and rarely have I seen such nasty fans. They almost seemed happier that the Cubs lost than that their own team won.

This time, the curse didn't work. The Cubs brought back someone from the past, too, Greg Maddux, and he turned in his finest start of the year so far, an 88-pitch, 8-inning, no-walk gem and the Cubs beat the Padres 6-1 and so started their first series in the new ballpark with a convincing win.

I fell asleep after the sixth inning, but I probably could have stayed up even though I had to get up at 3 am for work; the game only ran 2:09 and so must have ended at around 11:15. Homers by Sammy Sosa (the 548th of his career, tying him with Mike Schmidt for ninth place on the all-time list) and Corey Patterson gave the Cubs a 2-1 lead by that time, and it felt like a win.

Maddux also reached a milestone last night, his 2800th career strikeout. He's never really been known as a strikeout pitcher, but he does have 35 in 50 innings so far this season, which would put him on pace for about 100 more, and thus he'll get to 3000 about the middle of 2005.

Sosa's home run came after he came into the night 4-for-46 against ex-Cub Ismael Valdez, and struck out looking bad against him in the first inning.

And if you're sharp-eyed, you'll note that I spelled his name "Valdez" instead of the way he spelled it when he was with the Cubs (and the Dodgers, Angels, Rangers and Mariners) -- Valdes.

Apparently he learned over the winter that his name had been incorrectly spelled on his birth certificate, so he changed it. That raises the question -- how can you not notice this when you're a professional athlete who has to get visas to come to the US from your native Mexico each year?

Perhaps this question is better left unanswered.

Patterson's homer came in the second game in a row in which he's been dropped into the seventh spot in the batting order, a spot to which he's much better suited than batting second. Dusty Baker has apparently finally figured this out, from this quote in today's Sun-Times:

I need speed at the top of the lineup, but [No. 2] is usually a position for a bat control guy, a guy that moves runners over and stuff. That's a pretty big chore for him. The only places he can hit in our lineup are basically second and seventh.

To which I can only say, "Well, DUH!" Speed doesn't really help you unless you can get on base in the first place, and while I think Patterson is capable of hitting .300, he has walked only nine times and struck out 30 in 133 at-bats so far this season. Hitting seventh seems better, plus the Cubs have won both times that he's hit in that spot in the order.

Someone wearing Jose Macias' uniform had three hits last night, including two triples (raising his average to .281), but as I mentioned the other day, He Still Sucks. Learning the Patterson way, he has walked exactly zero times in 32 at-bats. Todd Walker, who hurt himself the other day with a too-intense workout (what will they think of next?), should be available to play today.

As for the new San Diego ballpark itself, it has a number of interesting quirks, not the least of which is an historic 1909 building which the Padres were required to incorporate into the design, so the Western Metal Supply Company building is now part of the LF corner, and it includes bleachers and suites. There's also a grassy berm in the outfield where you can watch the game for $5, and two towers with more suites that are reminiscent of the tower above Dodger Stadium. It's got a huge right field, and all the Padres left-handed hitters are cursing it.

Credit where credit is due: the oddly-named Padre SS, Khalil Greene, not only has the best hair in the NL (yes, better than Craig Wilson's curls), but man, can he pick it. He made at least three outstanding diving stops, throwing the hitter out each time, or the Cubs might have had many more than the six runs they got.

This bodes well: The Cub pitching staff is now second in the NL (and also all of MLB) in fewest runs allowed -- to, oddly enough, the Phillies. The 175 runs scored (5 runs per game) is presently good for sixth in the NL (fifth among all teams not named Colorado). This is a ratio that ought to get the Cubs to the postseason. And this despite constant complaints that the offense is sputtering.

Finally, the Cubs and Kerry Wood lucked out due to his minor injury, and so he began serving his five-game suspension last night, dropping his appeal, since he was going to be sitting on the bench anyway. This is an indicator that he won't have to go on the DL, and will most probably miss only the one start (tomorrow, with Glendon Rusch going in his place), and will most likely start next Saturday against the Cardinals, which will be the first of nine appearances the Cubs will make on regional/national Fox-TV.

As the cliche goes, "check local listings".

:: posted by Al at 10:10 AM [+] ::
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Miscellaneous Stuff That Happened Today

One of my colleagues, legendary anchorman Floyd Kalber, passed away yesterday at the age of 79.

Floyd spent more than 50 years in the business, and was a Chicago anchorman for so many years that he was (no joke here) my grandparents' favorite anchor. Seriously. They watched him every night.

And, when he came to ABC-7 in 1984, out of retirement, I had this image of him as an imperious old man. What I found was a man of integrity and intelligence, with a wickedly dry sense of humor, who was a pleasure to work with, which I did on a daily basis for more than a decade. It was a privilege to be able to call him a colleague and friend.

And for those of you who have had bad dealings with the rapacious phone conglomerate SBC, I had a rude one today.

Nearly three years ago, my grandmother passed away in California and I handled her bills, among those a final bill from Pacific Bell, which has since been swallowed up by SBC.

Today, I received a bill from a California collection agency saying I owed money to SBC and they were collecting.

I have been on the phone with SBC for nearly half an hour trying to straighten this out. One rep said that she would take care of it. But then when I asked for something in writing, she said that would have to be taken care of by another department. I asked if I'd have to explain this again. "Oh, no, of course not."

Well, when the other rep came on, he had no clue what I was talking about.

This is customer service in the 21st Century. And this company has the temerity to put its name on a ballpark.

:: posted by Al at 4:54 PM [+] ::
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If You Think The Cubs Always Get Victimized By Umpires...

You should have seen the end of last night's 3-2 Florida win over Houston, as I did via MLB Extra Innings.

This time, the umps actually got it right, after initially making the wrong call.

Scenario: top of the 9th, Marlins have the bases loaded, nobody out, and a run already in to tie the game 2-2.

Miguel Cabrera hits a high bouncer to third. Jose Vizcaino leaps and stabs it and in coming down his foot hits third base.

The 3B ump signals twice: once to indicate fair ball, then emphatically signals "out".

That takes the force off at the plate. But neither Astros catcher Brad Ausmus nor the plate umpire see this quickly enough. Vizcaino throws home and Ausmus steps on the plate and the umpire signals "out". Ausmus then throws to 1B, but the throw is late, and Cabrera is safe.

Jack McKeon runs out of the dugout to correctly argue that Ausmus had to tag the runner. After a conference, the umpires change the call. Jimy Williams, naturally, protests, but they got it right. And this turns out to be the winning run.

What was really the worst was the way the Astros TV announcers were whining about how the plate umpire made the wrong call. First of all, it happened so quickly that the plate ump might have been out of position. Ausmus had his back to the plate umpire so he never saw the call at all. But if you think Chip Caray is a bad announcer, you should have heard Bill Brown and Larry Dierker last night.

And if the Cubs win the Central by one game again, look back to May 13 as a critical date in the 2004 schedule.

:: posted by Al at 3:29 PM [+] ::
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An Afternoon At The Cell

Rachel was supposed to be where I was this afternoon.

The entire middle school (fifth through eighth grades) from her school was taken to the Sox game as a "treat".

Well, Rachel doesn't care about baseball, and didn't want to go. She also didn't like my suggestion that Mark go to the game with the middle school and she go to school in his place.

So, she stayed home today. I didn't see the school group, but oddly, in the section next to me there was another group from a different Jewish school, and sitting next to me was a friendly and knowledgable Sox fan named Jesus. (Incidentally, Jesus doesn't know I'm a Cub fan. I may see him there during the Cub/Sox series. Don't tell him, OK?)

None of this apparent religion helped the White Sox in the first game of their makeup doubleheader; they lost to the Orioles 1-0.

In fact, I could have left after the first two batters. Brian Roberts led off the game with a single, stole second, went to third on catcher Sandy Alomar's throwing error, and scored when the second batter, Melvin Mora, singled.

That was it. The Orioles had a six-foot-seven rookie making his major league debut, Daniel Cabrera, and he's got a pretty good curveball, and based on today, he's got a pretty good major league future ahead of him. Cabrera allowed only two hits, both singles by ex-Cub farmhand Ross Gload.

This gives me an opportunity to tell you how Ozzie Guillen has a long way to go as a manager. Sox GM Kenny Williams has obviously given him a long leash as far as personnel decisions, and Gload had a fabulous spring training, so he made the team. As Cub fans found out in the brief time he was with us, Gload's best position is DH. Well, the Sox already have one of those. So Gload tries to play other positions -- RF, LF and 1B. The Sox have pretty good players at those positions too.

Why keep a guy like this? He's 28, no prospect, can't really play the field, and then he'll have a day like this which will convince some people that he's worth a roster spot.

It wasn't just him today. None of the other Sox could hit; their only other hit was a seventh-inning single by Alomar off Rodrigo Lopez.

Meanwhile, I was following today's no-brainer Cub 7-3 win over the Dodgers on my webphone, which handily gives play-by-play via a web version of ESPN.com. So early on, I knew that Hideo Nomo was playing the LA version of Kyle Farnsworth, and walked three batters in a row, and with Corey Patterson, Sammy Sosa and Michael Barrett all getting the day off, it was good to see some of the subs, particularly Paul Bako (catching for the first time this year with someone other than Greg Maddux on the mound), who had two hits and an RBI and finally got his average up to the Mendoza line. And, the Cubs once again avoided being swept; they have not been swept since September 2002.

I was alarmed, however, in the ninth inning, because after a brilliant 8 innings from Carlos Zambrano (no earned runs, lowering his ERA to 1.82, and 11 strikeouts), Joe Borowski came in without a save situation and did not throw well at all. There have been some hints that Borowski's lessened velocity this year is because of an injury that he doesn't want to tell anyone about because of the two-year contract that he signed, and emotionally, you can understand that, because a player who's had the kind of career that Borowski has, when he finally "makes it", he wants to prove that he's not a fluke.

But if he's hurting the team by his performance, I don't think there's any shame in going in to management and saying he's hurt; the Cubs do have another option at closer in LaTroy Hawkins, and while today's Borowski performance didn't cost the Cubs the ballgame, he simply has not had even one outing this year that could be considered the typical "easy" save.

Today, he was so bad that after allowing a walk, two hits and two runs, he had to be taken down for Hawkins, who did get the save.

One player note: the Cubs signed former Met shortstop Rey Ordonez to a minor league contract. About the best thing I can say about this signing is that he's the second-best Ordonez ever to play in the major leagues.

Weird stat of the year so far: I have remarked to many people on how warm this spring has been, and here's some evidence. I have attended nineteen games in Chicago so far this year (16 Cub games and 3 at the Cell). The average game-time temperature so far in 2004 has been 63 degrees.

The average for the first 19 games I attended in 2003 was 53, ten degrees cooler.

I don't think I've seen this much warm weather this early in the year since the 1970's.

Finally, only one of you has taken me up on my challenge to design a logo that I can put on shirts and hats. It's a nice one, but I want some competition here!

:: posted by Al at 4:29 PM [+] ::
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Yawn

This is what I get for my lack of sleep during the work week. I was determined to stay up and watch the end of last night's game on the West Coast.

Didn't happen. I see by the box score that it ended just about midnight Central time, another disheartening loss, 4-0 to the Dodgers.

Apparently, what I really missed was an at-bat for the ages, an 18-pitch at-bat by Alex Cora, who fouled off fourteen consecutive Matt Clement pitches before sealing the LA win with a two-run homer.

Think about this. Clement threw 104 pitches in his six innings of work, which is a little high but not outrageous. 18 pitches to one batter is seventeen percent of all the pitches he threw last night. That's unheard of.

There really isn't too much else to write about the game. Dusty decided to shake up the lineup, dropping Corey Patterson to seventh (that's pretty much where he should be hitting anyway) and moving Ramon Martinez into the two spot, against the lefthander Wilson Alvarez. Didn't matter -- the Cubs managed only five hits off Alvarez and Guillermo Mota and dropped to 2-9 in Dodger Stadium since the beginning of the 2001 season.

Meanwhile, the Cubs are stuck with Glendon Rusch to start on Sunday in San Diego, due to the slight elbow injury to Kerry Wood. If you read between the lines, you get the impression that they are just being absolutely overly cautious with Wood; at least one of the doctors said that any pitcher would show this kind of strain the day after he pitched, in an MRI similar to the one Wood had.

And, it appears Mark Prior is right on target to be activated for the Pittsburgh series on June 4.

Fortunately, former Cub farmhand Dontrelle Willis threw a complete-game win over the Astros last night, so the Cubs remain three games behind.

With only 33 games having been played, it is way too early to panic. What the Cubs have to do is begin to ignore the breathless bleatings of the mainstream media, who take any small setback and make it into several days' worth of columns in the newspaper. This sells a lot of papers, I suppose, and is primarily due to the expanded expectations for the ballclub this year.

But does it reflect reality? Hardly.

Which leads me to something completely unrelated. Or maybe not, you decide.

I recently stumbled across the website for a company called CafePress, where individuals can design and sell their own logo T-shirts, caps, etc.

Say! I thought -- there might be a cool way to make up a cap for this blog!

But, I am an artistic doofus.

So, if any of you are more creatively artistic than I am, and can design and send me (use the "contact/comment" link at the top of this page) a cool looking logo for this purpose, which would include the following:

* name of my blog
* URL of my blog (www.yellon.org/links.htm)
* something to do with the Cubs, without the Cub logo since that's copyrighted...

I'll use it, and give the winner a free clothing item of their choice.

:: posted by Al at 9:15 AM [+] ::
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Sixth Sense

No, I don't see dead people.

Though, I do see that Todd Wellemeyer pitched in last night's 7-3 Cub loss to the Dodgers, so that either means he's been restored from the dead, or he's still actually alive, though you wouldn't believe that from his game log (only three appearances in the last 19 games). Remind me again why the Cubs need a 12-man pitching staff?

The sixth sense I am talking about is in regard to my feeling about last night's game. I knew I wouldn't be able to see the end of the game, and I kept nodding off in the first couple of innings. I actually did miss the Cubs scoring their first run and taking a short-lived 1-0 lead.

The big story, of course, is that Kerry Wood left the game after two innings (and two homers allowed -- this is rather alarming, considering in the 42 innings he had thrown before last night, he had allowed only three home runs this season). "Tricep stiffness" is given as the reason, and that article also says that he "ran hard to first base" in grounding out in his only at-bat.

Cubs pitching can survive without Wood, believe it or not, especially with Matt Clement being so dominant, and with Mark Prior now most likely due back for the Pittsburgh series on June 4 (that's only 19 games from now, or only about four starts for a typical rotation starter).

And keep in mind that last year's Cubs suffered through an injury to Prior, and that last year Sammy Sosa had only six home runs by the end of May and was on the DL and suspended and...

Yeah, I'm trying to rationalize. Here, let me do some more: the Cubs are now without their starting DP combination (though the replacements have more than held their own), and one of the key members of the bullpen, though it appears that Mike Remlinger may be back in a week, which I suppose means that Todd Wellemeyer will find himself back in Iowa. Too bad, because in the limited amount of time he has pitched, he's done pretty well (although 12 walks in 11 innings isn't exactly what you'd like).

There's nothing really good to say about last night's game. Glendon Rusch, who came in and threw so well and got his first Cub win on Sunday, threw an alarming 63 pitches in three innings and gave up eight hits and four runs. OK, I'll say something good about him: he didn't walk anyone.

Dodger Stadium has become almost as much a chamber of horrors as St. Louis for the Cubs; they are 2-8 there (including last night) since 2001. And tonight, the Dodgers have replaced the scheduled starter, Kaz Ishii, with Wilson Alvarez, who has beat up on the Cubs going all the way back to a 1997 interleague win over them when he was a White Sox.

Matt Clement, who has been terrific this year, will try to stop the bleeding tonight.

Incidentally, Roger Clemens, who's been just about the best pitcher in baseball this year so far and who beat the Marlins last night to go 7-0 and put Houston 3 games up, will miss the two-game series against the Cubs the last week of this month, if the Astros maintain their current rotation. However, he will pitch against the Cubs at Wrigley Field on June 2, if that rotation holds... five days short of a year after his attempt for his 300th win while with the Yankees blew up after he left the game, when Eric Karros hit a 3-run homer off Juan Acevedo.

Curiously, if the Cub rotation holds, and there's no serious injury, Clemens' opponent on June 2 will be...

Kerry Wood.

Bring it on.

:: posted by Al at 8:33 AM [+] ::
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An Eerie Resemblance

As I stare at two huge piles of paper on my desk... and how do you get rid of that kind of thing, anyway? At a certain point, it gets so big that you have no idea where to start. So I let it continue to pile up.

The only thing that I need to know about the pile is that my season ticket book is on top of it, so I know exactly where to find my tickets when the next homestand starts.

That's not what the title of this post is about, anyway. With the nearly two days off between games (and tonight, being on the West Coast, will be a game I won't see the end of), I got to thinking about what's happened so far. At 31 games played, the Cubs are just a little under one-fifth of the season so far.

They are 18-13.

After 31 games last year... they were 18-13.

Then they lost 3 of their next 4 before winning five straight, the last of which was the 17-inning game in Milwaukee where Todd Wellemeyer made his ML debut striking out the side for a save.

That won't happen again, but only because Wellemeyer is now dead. Or might as well be, because Dusty won't let him pitch any more.

After 31 games last year, Joe Borowski had five saves. Now he has six, but appears to not be as good a pitcher as last year.

After 31 games last year, Kerry Wood was 4-1. This year he's 3-2, but is having a far more dominant season.

After 31 games last year, Mark Prior was 4-1. This year, he's just about ready to play in a minor league rehab start, maybe in a couple of weeks. My friend Dan and I make a baseball bet each year (proceeds to charity) and this year one of the topics was "What date will Prior make his first start?"

We're both going to be wrong. I picked May 18 and Dan picked May 24.

So Prior is 0-0. But Matt Clement is 5-1 and has picked up the slack nicely from Prior.

After 31 games last year, Carlos Zambrano was 3-1. This year, he's ... 3-1. But he's thrown a two-hit shutout among the three wins this year.

This 18-13 team is far better than last year's 18-13 team, despite the conventional media's intimation that it somehow is being crushed by the pressure of expectations. Moises Alou is hitting far better than at this time last year. At this time last year the Cubs' starting third baseman was Mark Bellhorn, and in that 31st game in 2003, among the pitchers was Alan Benes.

But the eeriest resemblance between game #31 in 2003 and game #31 in 2004, is that they wound up with precisely the same result: a 5-4 win over the Colorado Rockies at Wrigley Field.

But mostly, I wrote this post today because I'm bored and needed to talk some baseball. Incidentally, did you know that researchers in Massachusetts discovered some documents that prove that baseball was played in 1791?

No, really! Researcher John Thorn said, "It's clear that not only was baseball played here in 1791, but it was rampant. It was rampant enough to have an ordinance against it."

Here's the entire article. Yes, the Cubs have won a World Series since then. Two, in fact.

Sheesh. Time to win some ballgames in 2004.

:: posted by Al at 3:56 PM [+] ::
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What Is It About Mother's Day?

I'm about to petition MLB to always schedule the Cubs out of town on Mother's Day.

Last year it was the "Typhoon Game", the four innings played against the Cardinals, in horizontal rain and 48-degree temperatures, and having played that long they ought to have played another inning and made it official -- though to be fair, the postponement wound up giving us the excitement of the five-game series in September.

Today, our ABC-7 meteorologist Phil Schwarz forecast a beautiful day, partly cloudy with temps in the 80's, and no rain till "late Monday".

So, after three days of dragging the umbrella to the game, I left it in the car.

About the third inning I said to Mike, "I don't like the looks of those clouds" -- dark clouds gathering to the west, though they appeared at the time to be heading mostly north and west of the city. And this after I kept telling everyone how amazing it was that we've gotten 16 games into the season without a rain delay.

Luckily, I keep a Cubbie blue poncho in my backpack, and it kept me and my scorecard mostly dry, as the game was lengthened to near-ridiculousness by three rain delays totalling about 45 minutes (and they could have played through the the first two of them, which lasted barely over ten minutes, and on the second one it stopped raining even before the ground crew could get the field covered), and four extra innings, but Corey Patterson's bases-loaded, two-out single in the last of the 13th won this must-win game, 5-4 over the Rockies, keeping the Cubs two games behind the Astros, who also won this afternoon.

It's hard to call a game this early "must-win", but it would have been really embarrassing to lose two of three to a team as bad as Colorado is. The Cubs just don't seem to have the "oomph", as Phil put it today. They left nine men on base in the first nine innings, and relying on Damian Jackson to hit home runs isn't going to cut it if this team is going to do what we all expect it to do. Sometimes it's hard for a team to go from where the Cubs were at this time last year to "expectations", and they've struggled at times.

Dusty Baker is one of the better managers at dealing with things like this, and all we can do is hope that he can steer this ship through the upcoming West Coast trip with at minimum, a split, because after that the Cubs start a tough stretch with the Giants, Cardinals and the first two home and home series with Houston.

Al the Media Whore had to relinquish his title to Jeff the Media Whore, because after talking to the Sun-Times reporter for 20 minutes on Thursday, I didn't make the article. Jeff, on the other hand, got quoted extensively, as well as getting his picture in the paper.

Just to show that we are all a family in the bleachers (which is the point of the book Holly is working on, here's the article from today's Sun-Times. I actually wanted to save the paper (Jeff promised to autograph it for me) but it pretty well got ruined in the rain.

None of us (save Mike, who always seems to have his small umbrella with him) was that well-prepared for the rain. Neither Carole nor Phil had any rain gear at all, so they spent the rain delays running up and down the ramp; they'd probably have stayed drier if they had just stayed with us. The poncho did me pretty well; the scorecard's dry but has a couple of badge-of-honor water stains, and Jeff & Krista looked awfully cute in their matching Eddie Bauer green-and-black rain suits.

Just to tell you how concentrated in a small area these rainstorms were, it didn't rain at my house, which is only about a mile and 3/4 south of Wrigley Field.

I suppose I should say a bit about the baseball played today, though the Cubs used that term loosely. Sergio Mitre slogged through his six innings as if he were getting rained on, although with three double plays helping him out he threw only 78 pitches, despite allowing ten hits. He's probably earned another start. Both Kyle Farnsworth and LaTroy Hawkins threw well, keeping the game close, but the Cubs could simply not score anyone after Tom Goodwin's pinch-hit RBI double in the sixth. In fact, the Cubs left the bases loaded in that inning, after having done so in the fifth as well.

The worst baserunning mistake was Derrek Lee's in the eighth; after he was hit by a pitch for the second time today, and was sacrificed to second, he took off for third and Ramon Martinez lofted an easy fly to right.

Now -- this has to be Wendell Kim's fault, because I don't think I've ever seen a baserunner as confused as Lee was there. He rounded third, then headed back, then turned around again, and by the time he realized what had happened, he was easily doubled off.

I know Kim is Dusty Baker's pet coach, but seriously, he's about the worst third-base coach I have ever seen. He really must go. Lee might not have scored, but at least he'd have been in scoring position with two out, and Todd Walker probably would have hit for Hawkins. Todd Hollandsworth apparently had a sore wrist today and couldn't hit, which again makes you cry out -- why are the Cubs carrying 12 pitchers, especially since Todd Wellemeyer is only used in "Dawn of the Dead" situations. They could have used another hitter today, as Jose Macias was sent up to lead off the 9th hitting for Hawkins. Macias is going to acquire the "You Still Suck" monicker this year, given to a player who does an occasional good thing even though he stinks -- problem is, you have to actually do something good before you can get that officially, and Macias hasn't. He really is terrible. There are at least two other options (Bill Selby, Benji Gil) at Iowa who would be better.

All, however, is well that ends well, as Patterson, who struck out with the bases loaded in the sixth and who has looked pretty miserable lately, was dissed by the Rockies when they intentionally walked Jackson, who had led off the game with a homer, to pitch to him. Kudos to Dusty for actually leaving Rusch in to sacrifice runners along, realizing the Rockies would probably do this and make the lefty Jeff Fassero pitch to Patterson. At long last, Jeff Fassero helps out the Cubs...

Joe Borowski didn't, however. He gave up a long home run to Todd Helton leading off the 10th, and if Aramis Ramirez hadn't matched that in the bottom of the inning, Joe would have been saddled with the loss. Either he's lost his velocity or his edge, and I think Dusty might actually have to consider other closer options at this point.

So, the Cubs finish the homestand with a 10-6 home record, which is a pace that would result in 50 wins at home. I think we'd take that, but the hitting, which has sputtered to life a couple of times in the last week, must become more consistent.

Happy Mother's Day, all. Maybe next year it'll be dry.

:: posted by Al at 8:00 PM [+] ::
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