"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, September 04, 2004 ::

The Waiting Is The Hardest Part

For some reason, I've found song lyrics for a couple of posts the last few days ("Looking For Clues", Robert Palmer, and today's, a Tom Petty lyric from the '70s).

Maybe it's just because I'm bored. Today, the Marlins announced that the entire 3-game series with the Cubs has been postponed.

So, the Cubs get a four-day vacation, and watch while their nearest competitors -- the Giants, Padres and Astros -- all play teams worse than they are. C'mon -- you didn't really think that the Diamondbacks were going to beat the Giants last night, despite scoring three in the first inning? Or that the Rockies would maintain their 5-0 fifth-inning lead over San Diego? Or that the Pirates would come back from 7-0 down to Houston (sure, they made it fun with a six-run seventh)?

Arizona has a chance to win one game from San Francisco -- tomorrow, when Randy Johnson throws for the D'backs. The Houston/Pittsburgh pitching matchups slightly favor the Pirates today and tomorrow. The same is true for Colorado, yes, even with Shawn Estes throwing tonight.

The scenario for making up the three postponed games is to play a doubleheader in Miami on the one remaining common off-day, September 20, and then to hold the third game for play on Oct. 4, if it's needed. Or, the two teams could play it as part of a doubleheader here in Chicago next Saturday.

That all makes too much sense, so I'd guess MLB will probably dither around long enough to make the Sept. 20 date unrealistic.

For now, it appears that the Cubs will maintain the existing pitching rotation, giving all the starters extra rest, and Carlos Zambrano, who was supposed to pitch the opener in Miami, will face the Expos on Monday, and if the rotation follows as it did before this enforced break, Matt Clement on Tuesday and Greg Maddux on Wednesday.

Meantime, I'm spending part of today reading Bill Clinton's autobiography. It's long.

Enjoy your weekend.

:: posted by Al at 2:20 PM [+] ::
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All-Star Break #2

That's what this kind of feels like -- three days without Cubs baseball, in the middle of the season, only with a bit more urgency because of the tightening wild-card race.

We can hope that other teams help us out during this enforced timeout, and who knows? The Cub lead might be increased by the time they take the field again.

There's lots of wild-ass speculation going on right now, so let me add to it. We know that Saturday's game is now officially postponed, and the Cubs might travel to Miami for a single game on Sunday -- that's already known, that IF they play Sunday, there'll be only one game.

There are many, many scenarios, but the most likely one appears to be that one game could be made up as part of a DH next Saturday in Chicago, with the Marlins as the "home" team, batting last. The other(s) could be made up on Sept. 9 (if the Marlins and Mets could move their Tues/Wed/Thurs series to Mon/Tues/Wed), or on Sept. 20, or held till the end of the season.

For more speculation, and some actual information, click here.

For me, I'm off to watch the beginnings of the Colorado/San Diego and Arizona/San Francisco games, then to sleep and up for work tomorrow at 3 am.

:: posted by Al at 8:26 PM [+] ::
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Interlude Musings and Movie Review: "Vanity Fair"

It's still very much undecided as to whether any games will be played at all between the Cubs and the Marlins this weekend. Based on current forecasts, I cannot imagine conditions being suitable for baseball in Miami this weekend. Even if the storm does in fact make landfall north of the Miami metro area itself, there will be rain and wind for likely a couple of days, and then there's the question of whether any airports will even be open for the Cubs, who are now in Chicago, to be able to fly down there.

The latest "best guess" has the Cubs and Marlins playing a doubleheader in Miami on Monday, Sept. 20, which is the only common off day for the two teams -- and this would require the Cubs to fly from Cincinnati to Miami and then to Pittsburgh to play Tuesday night, Sept. 21. Then the third game in the series would be held till the end of the season if it still had any bearing on the race.

This isn't the greatest scenario, but it's probably the best of a bad situation. In the meantime, let's hope that the hurricane does indeed weaken, so that damage in south Florida is minimal.

As for the Cubs, if their next game is indeed Monday vs. the Expos at Wrigley Field, this gives a great opportunity for rest and recovery and tune-up. Aramis and Nomar need rest. The pitching staff can use a few extra days off. And if there are indeed doubleheaders and no off days stacked up later, by Sept. 20 the Triple-A playoffs will be over and pitchers like Sergio Mitre and Mike Wuertz will be available to bolster the bullpen (no jokes here, please).

So, with the day off, my wife & I went to see the highly-touted "Vanity Fair" at the Davis Theater, which is a neighborhood theater that's started showing first-run films (it's where we saw "Fahrenheit 9/11" as well). Here's the difference between a neighborhood theater and your local multiplex. We arrived about 3:55 for a 4:15 show, and when we opened the door, the staff said "We're not open yet!" Apparently, the lock on the door wasn't working. So we had to stand outside for a few minutes while they finished -- I dunno, cleaning the floors or making the popcorn or something.

Roger Ebert gave this movie four stars, and though Ebert likes most everything, he doesn't give out this top rating often, and so I wanted to see what all the fuss was about.

I got confused, frankly. There are so many characters and so many families in this story, based on an 1820 novel by William Makepeace Thackeray, and this movie didn't cast them well -- or maybe too well, because too many of the characters looked alike, that it took me half the movie to figure out who some of them were.

The basic story is of Becky Sharp, a lower-class orphan who attends a "finishing school", but as a lower-class woman in the early 19th Century, can do no better than be a governess. She winds up working for a family that has a title, but apparently never bothered to hire servants, or couldn't afford to, because the family estate redefines the word "rundown".

The rest of the film is about how Becky tries to social-climb (or as one character puts it, "mountaineer") her way into the upper-crust of British society. The novel, I suppose, at the time was a devastating commentary on what the class system was all about in Britain, but it seems somewhat lost in translation in the film. Reese Witherspoon, who gets better and better with each role she plays, is terrific as Becky, and though she is the only American in the cast, you'd never know it -- her British accent is perfect.

There is a scene late in the film which involves a dance performance put on for the King (played foppishly by Richard McCabe), which seemed a little out of place for the 1820's -- but may have been done intentionally by the Indian director, Mira Nair (no cracks about outsourcing directing here, please). Gabriel Byrne is great as a nobleman who at first appears buying paintings from Becky's father, and later becomes an important force in her life. Of this I will speak no further, if you are not familiar with the story from the novel.

The movie's probably going to garner Oscar nominations, if for nothing else than costumes and set designs, and maybe even for Witherspoon. Is it a four-star movie? Four stars of confusion, maybe.

(I know, I know. Let's get back to baseball!)

AYRating: ***

:: posted by Al at 1:00 PM [+] ::
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Looking For Clues

Searching around the web, I noticed within the last few minutes that the front page of the Cubs website listed "next game" as "Saturday, September 4, 5:05 pm CT" and that the mini-calendar that shows a week's worth of games, had Friday blank.

Then I located this article which indicates that tomorrow's game is, in fact, officially postponed.

And finally, the Cubs website posted this article which confirmed the postponement and that no makeup date has been announced, and that the Marlins are "monitoring the situation".

Here's my best guess: that Saturday's game will also be postponed, and if weather and other conditions permit, the two teams will play a doubleheader in Miami on Sunday, with the third game in the series held back and played only if it has bearing on the wild-card (or other) standings.

We await developments, and hope that people in South Florida will be safe.

:: posted by Al at 1:35 PM [+] ::
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Now What?

So, September has begun. Today, I saw leaves turning red and gold on some trees on the north side of Chicago -- weeks early -- and the Cubs, as many Dusty Baker teams have done, began the month with a welcome victory.

And perhaps the most important thing that was announced during the Cubs/Expos telecast tonight was that after the game, the Cubs would return to Chicago instead of flying to Ft. Lauderdale, their original plan.

Mission accomplished, then: a series win in Montreal with a tense 11-inning, 2-1 win over the Expos tonight, with the first run of the night (and the Cubs' first run of any kind in 26 innings -- since the fifth inning on Monday) scoring on a Claudio Vargas wild pitch.

So, the Cubs will wait at home tomorrow and see what the Marlins and the MLB poohbahs decide what is to be done with the scheduled weekend series in Miami.

The Miami Herald reported that Andy MacPhail had proposed that the two clubs play a doubleheader on Friday, then leave town ahead of the hurricane arriving early Saturday. The postponed game would have been played in Chicago as part of a doubleheader, likely a week from Saturday, with the Marlins as the home team for one of the games.

The two weekends could not be flip-flopped because the Miami Dolphins have first rights to Pro Player Stadium on Sunday, September 12 for their opening game vs. the Tennessee Titans.

MacPhail's proposal made sense, but the Marlins nixed it. MLB could still intervene, but as of tonight they haven't -- this seems to be typical indecision for baseball executive types, the same indecision that has the Expos listed as "Expos" on the draft schedules that have been released for 2005, not knowing where they'll play, though it makes absolutely total sense for them to be based at RFK Stadium in Washington while a new stadium is built for them in downtown DC. Presuming this happens, tonight's game was the last the Cubs will ever play in Montreal, after thirty-five years of colorful history, including a game in 1969 in which Ernie Banks was deprived of a home run on a rainy night in which the umpires ruled that the ball went under the chain-link fence that was then the outfield wall at Le Parc Jarry, the charming city park in which the Expos played -- I went there in 1976, and the most notable things about it, other than the swimming pool beyond right field (into which players occasionally homered, long before there was a pool at the BOB in Phoenix), was the aluminum seats off which foul balls clanged all night, and the fact that home plate faced northwest, which meant in the peak of summer, night games often had delayed starts due to the setting sun being in the batter's eyes.

Man, have I digressed tonight. Nostalgia, don'tcha love it?

Anyway, there is absolutely no contingency plan for making up an entire series that might be postponed this late in the season, especially one with playoff implications for both teams. MLB certainly doesn't want a scenario where they'd have to play these games after October 3, have all of them mean something, and have to postpone the entire postseason schedule for up to three days.

Last year, with Hurricane Isabel bearing down on the mid-Atlantic states, the Orioles and Yankees attempted to play a game at Camden Yards in a driving wind and rainstorm, with the result being a 1-1 tie and the game having to be replayed a week later as part of a doubleheader in New York.

This fiasco is probably a reason why the clubs and MLB are trying to find a way to play all six Cubs/Marlins games this year with a minimum of disruption to both teams. But for now, we wait.

Meantime, Kerry Wood rebounded from what might have been the worst start of his career, to throw eight lights-out innings against the Expos, working his way out of several jams with 11 strikeouts, though he was gassed after throwing 119 pitches. The Cubs also couldn't get any offense going either, despite seven hits, as the Expos turned two double plays, and also benefitted from today's Alou Baserunning Screwup -- it's fascinating to watch the new and interesting ways in which Moises gets himself caught off base. Today, he was picked off first with two out in the seventh. Apparently, either he hasn't noticed the presence of new baserunning coach Vince Coleman, or he has chosen to ignore him completely. This must have been hard for him to do -- the two of them were sitting right next to each other at the ball-signing event that my son Mark and I attended on August 11.

Speaking of Mark, he and two of his school friends came to watch today's ABC-7 11 am news, a little treat for them before the first day of fourth grade starts next week.

And, perhaps we still will all be treated to a game of "bonus baseball" next weekend when the Marlins visit Chicago. There was even a suggestion in the Cubs newsgroup that such a game be opened to $10 general admission tickets -- a lovely thought, but that would probably cause a riot at Clark & Addison.

There is precedent for moving games to Chicago from another city -- in 1991, a 55-ton slab of concrete fell off at Olympic Stadium in Montreal, forcing the Expos to play their last 13 games on the road. Among them were two games moved at the last minute to Wrigley Field, played as a doubleheader on September 22, swept by the Expos. If memory serves, all tickets were sold on a general-admission basis for that date, and attendance in those less trendy days was 16,061.

That, of course, wouldn't happen today, and so a conventional doubleheader, played on a date that's already sold out, is the best way to go. Let's hope the MLB honchos figure this out tomorrow, before South Florida is evacuated in advance of what appears to be the very dangerous Hurricane Frances arrives.

:: posted by Al at 9:20 PM [+] ::
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Rationalizations

* It only counts as one loss

* There's no way the Cubs were going to hit Livan Hernandez anyway yesterday

* The Cubs are still a game ahead of the Giants in the loss column

* The Cubs had a successful month of August, going 16-12

How am I doing? You still with me? You still convinced that we are marching to the wild card?

Here we are in September, and we are better off than we were on September 1, 2003 (69-66 going into that day, 2.5 games out of first place).

It sure doesn't feel that way, however, after the Expos blew out the Cubs 8-0 in Montreal, in front of a rather indifferent "throng" of 7,162.

It could be worse. We could be the Yankees, who equalled the 1975 Cubs' record of the worst shutout loss ever, losing 22-0 to Cleveland last night and having seven games shaved off their first-place lead in the last few weeks.

But back to last night's fiasco. There is clearly something wrong with Mark Prior. The crew on "Baseball Tonight" stated it after the game, and watching Prior try to slog his way through 110 pitches and five agonizing innings, it was obvious on just about every other pitch, that he had no idea where the pitch was going. Whether Prior is still being bothered by the Achilles problem, or whether he just didn't have his head on straight yesterday (it wasn't the velocity, it was his command), we won't know till his next start.

The second pitch of the game went, all right -- straight out over CF, a home run by Brad Wilkerson. OK, Wilkerson's a pretty good hitter (it was his 26th homer, and Steve Stone pointed out on the telecast that only five Expos have ever hit 30: Rusty Staub, Andre Dawson, Gary Carter, Vladimir Guerrero and Larry Parrish). And then the Cubs could have been out of the inning if Nomar had been able to hold on to one of Michael Barrett's better throws of the year, which would have caught Endy Chavez stealing. But Chavez kicked the ball out of Nomar's glove, and no error was charged, which would have made three of the four first-inning runs unearned.

These are all silly excuses, anyway. One of the four rationalizations I put at the top of this post is absolutely true: The Cubs weren't going to hit Livan Hernandez anyway yesterday, and he's beaten the Cubs like a drum most of his career.

The Expos have changed their rotation for the final game of the series -- ex-Cub Scott Downs, someone the Cubs probably would have hit really hard, will not pitch after all; instead, Tony Armas Jr., who is coming off surgery and hasn't thrown more than five innings in a game in over a month, will face Kerry Wood. The Cubs absolutely must win this game -- losing two of three to a last-place team is simply not acceptable for a contending team at this stage of the season.

Nevertheless -- the Cubs remain tied for the wild-card lead, since the Giants won, and both teams remain half a game ahead of San Diego. I suppose we must count Houston and Florida in the race again, since both won yesterday and both are three games out.

The Cubs can dispatch the Marlins themselves this weekend -- IF the weather cooperates. With Hurricane Frances bearing down on the southeastern USA, MLB executives have actually considered a contingency plan where the Cubs and Marlins would play a doubleheader Friday, then postpone the third game in the series and play a doubleheader in Chicago sometime next weekend (my guess would be on Saturday, and it couldn't be a split DH because the Cubs have reached their limit of 22 regular-season night games), with the Marlins actually being the "home" team and batting last for one of the games.

Also yesterday, the Cubs made two minor acquisitions -- catcher Mike DiFelice from Detroit, and outfielder Ben Grieve from Milwaukee.

DiFelice isn't a very good player and will be here only to provide some flexibility in late-inning situations.

Grieve was once a very good prospect who hasn't hit well in several years. He does hit left-handed, can play the outfield reasonably well, and is clearly here as insurance against the possibility that Todd Hollandsworth really won't play again this year (I suspect Todd won't). Both players are eligible for post-season play, due to MLB's arcane loopholes (if you are on the 40-man roster on Aug. 31, you can replace a player who is on the DL, or something like that) for post-season rosters.

Finally, those of us who are season-ticket holders received our postseason invoices yesterday. Despite the fact that the Cubs have virtually zero chance of winning the Central (the magic number for the Cardinals to clinch is 16) and so would NOT have the home field in any playoff series, we are being required to buy all ten possible postseason dates. Well, the Cubs will just have to be writing a lot of refund checks. Let's hope we get to spend all the rest of the money.

The package also contained a fact sheet which lists the following dates for playoff series in which the Cubs would be involved (Cub home games in bold:

NLDS: Game 1, Oct 5 or 6; Game 2, Oct 7; Game 3, Oct 9; Game 4, Oct 10; Game 5, Oct 11

NLCS: Game 1, Oct 13; Game 2, Oct 14; Game 3, Oct 16; Game 4, Oct 17; Game 5, Oct 18; Game 6, Oct 20; Game 7, Oct 21

WS: Game 1, Oct 23; Game 2, Oct 24; Game 3, Oct 26; Game 4, Oct 27; Game 5, Oct 28; Game 6, Oct 30; Game 7, Oct 31

Yes, that's right: barring rainouts, World Series game 7 will be played on Halloween.

:: posted by Al at 9:12 AM [+] ::
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Looking Back, And Forward

Eight hundred sixty-six days ago, the Cubs played the Expos in Montreal.

Before today, that was the last time the Cubs played in that Canadian city; last year, the Cubs-Expos series was played in San Juan, Puerto Rico.

That date, April 17, 2002, produced quite an interesting game; the Cubs scored six runs in the first inning, and then proceeded to give them back, and back, and back, until the Expos had a 15-8 win.

To show you how completely Jim Hendry has turned around this franchise in a little over two years' time, of the twenty-five players currently on the Cubs' active roster, only six were active the last time the Cubs played in Olympic Stadium: Sammy Sosa, Moises Alou, Corey Patterson, Kerry Wood, Carlos Zambrano and Matt Clement (two others, Joe Borowski and our pal Dr. Tightpants, active then, are now on the DL -- Mark Prior had not yet made his ML debut at that time).

That's the core of this year's team, I think not coincidentally, and unbelievably, here are some of the names that did appear for the Cubs on April 17, 2002:

Delino DeShields
Chris Stynes
Jason Bere
Donovan Osborne
Jesus Sanchez
Robert Machado

Had enough? I have. Yuck!

I spent most of my day again doing catch-up from things I'd put off during the homestand, running errands (Hey! I was totally out of my favorite low-carb ice cream, which incidentally you ought to try even if you're not on an Atkins-related diet.

Speaking of Atkins, Mike reminded me recently that there was a low-carb vs. sugar matchup in the recent White Sox/Indians series: Coco Crisp vs. Jon Adkins. Yeah, I know, groan away. They faced each other twice. Results: double play and sacrifice bunt. Draw your own conclusions.

I have digressed. Let's talk about our revamped Cubs. Today, they traveled to another country, played on artificial turf for the first time this season, and in front of a crowd about a third of what they're used to (this is the first game they have played that was not sold out since August 5 in Colorado). So what happens? Greg Maddux threw a game reminiscent of his glory days of the mid 90's, the offense clicked early and, even though Jon Leicester gave up a consolation two-run homer to Terrmel Sledge (great baseball name, incidentally), the Cubs dispatched the Expos easily, 5-2. Maddux threw 102 pitches in his seven innings, allowed five hits and no walks (which gives him a season total of 28 walks in 175 IP), and lowered his ERA to 3.70 -- even lower than what it was last season -- and won his thirteenth game of the year and 302nd of his career, with last-out save help from LaTroy Hawkins.

As Steve Stone repeatedly said on the telecast, these are the games the Cubs absolutely must win. With Jose Vidro and Nick Johnson out and Brad Wilkerson not playing tonight, the Expos put what amounted to little more than a Triple-A lineup on the field and it showed. They started Rocky Biddle, who came in with a lifetime ERA of 1.93 against the Cubs but a season ERA of 7.32, and it showed.

They came in with the umpires against them and it showed. No, seriously, the umpires aren't against the Expos, but they made another blatantly bad call that went the Cubs' way and we'll take it. In the bottom of the second with no score, two Expos singles and a sacrifice put runners on second and third, and on a contact play Juan Rivera tried to score from third. Replays showed he clearly got his hand on the plate before Paul Bako got the ball, but plate umpire Ted Barrett never saw it, made no call, and as Rivera ran away from the plate, Bako tagged him and Barrett called him out.

That's the closest the Expos came to scoring till the ninth inning. Maddux was masterful, and he even showed some of his old-style hitting prowess, singling twice, scoring a run and driving one in. Even Bako has warmed up his bat, getting two hits himself, and not a moment too soon, because he'll be needed to catch Maddux not only for the rest of the season, but in the postseason. I watched Montreal's catcher Brian Schneider have a really nice at-bat, fouling off seven pitches after going down 0-2, then smacking a double to CF, and thinking he'd make a fine, fine backup left-handed hitting catcher to Michael Barrett. But that's for next year, perhaps.

The rest of the Cub offense was provided in part by two Montreal errors and then a timely two-run Sammy Sosa double. Sammy's started to look a bit better with the bat, and his 2-for-4 night raised his batting average to .260.

This is what I've seen this club do time and time again this year -- come back from losing streaks where they look absolutely horrible, and start a winning streak where they look unbeatable. Yes, I know the opposition is not major league caliber. But the games count in the standings, and with the Giants blowing a 9th-inning lead and losing 7-6 to Atlanta, the Cubs move a game ahead of them, and a half-game ahead of the idle San Diego Padres, into first place in the wild-card race.

Now, we have to hold our noses and root for the Cardinals for the next three days, as they host San Diego. The Padres have the second-best road record in baseball (behind only St. Louis), but the Cardinals are nearly unbeatable at home.

And as if the Cubs didn't have enough to worry about, they may have to deal with Hurricane Frances, which may make landfall in south Florida sometime late Saturday, just about gametime. Let's hope the hurricane veers off in the next four days.

:: posted by Al at 8:35 PM [+] ::
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That Sound You Thought You Heard...

... could be the sound of wheels falling off.

Yeah, I know there are still thirty-two games left in the season, and with the Giants and Padres both winning big, the Cubs are now tied with San Diego (of all teams!) and San Francisco for the wild-card lead -- much as the 1998 wild-card race went, where there was no more than one game separating the top two teams for the last forty-five days of the season.

But this game, a 10-3 loss to the Astros which redefines the word "ugly", is something this team is simply going to have to shake off, forget forever, if they are to seriously contend in the five weeks left in the regular season, and through the postseason, games like this are not going to be able to occur, and now they've had two of them in the last three days.

Oh, and all of this was on a double-personal-milestone game for me: my 1700th Cub game, and 1600th game at Wrigley Field (the game in Milwaukee on the 19th was my 100th Cub road game).

You know, I deliberately waited to post because I wanted some perspective on this fiasco. Went to see "The Manchurian Candidate" (mini-review: Good acting, but not a movie that cried out to be remade, three stars) -- didn't help.

When I got back I had an e-mail from Kasey Ignarski, who got his name on the scoreboard today for his birthday, who wrote (after the earlier post regarding wanting to wait to post):

Al.. It's now 8:45 PM. Believe me, it didn't get any better. The only good thing was my name on the scoreboard. I ran into roadblock after roadblock getting to the park (I didn't hear anything about the triathlon and so I took LSD allthe way from the stevenson...it took about 1.5 hrs to get to Wrigley from the Stevenson! - WGN had a Jerry Lewis interview, BBM was simulcasting CBS morning shows - Nobody had traffic reports to tell me what was going on!). Parking was a bear after getting to the park that late. Then I had to still sit thru that mess.

Now, that's about how today's game felt. And Mike e-mailed me to say:

You really should write today's blog whilst incoherently fresh.

Well, obviously I didn't, but I think I can maintain that incoherence pretty well, so bear with me.

It's still August. But it was cloudy and cold when I left, so I put on three layers, and it didn't really clear out for good till about 3:00, so I was wearing my black ABC-7 pullover, which Bill from Rockford had to remind me was "White Sox colors", as he put it (it IS black, but that's the way they make them!), and I spent the first hour or so playing Al-Master.

See, Phil doesn't have a season ticket. He comes mostly on Fridays and Sundays, with the occasional Saturday. This day was a tough one, because all the women were to get the annual Enesco "Cherished Teddies" figurine, half of which are probably on eBay by now. But since Jeff couldn't come yesterday, he swapped his Saturday ticket for a Sunday ticket for Phil. Meanwhile, Dave had left me his Sunday ticket with instructions that he was going to call early in the morning to tell me if he was going to use it or not. He never did call, but I got word from Jeff that neither he nor Brian were coming. In the meantime, I had put out word for another ticket just in case, and all of these came through.

So, I figured, why not treat my son Mark to a game, since he wasn't doing anything after his sleepover with his friend (which isn't far from the ballpark). This required quite a few logistics, since I was already inside and Mark, being nine, couldn't wait in the long line by himself. Jeff was in line, so I called my wife, who was driving him over, to find Jeff in line -- then, I gave Phil both his ticket and Mark's, he found Jeff, and all was well.

Incoherent enough yet?

Then, we had total Tomato Failure. Clayton from California, a devoted reader of this blog who I met in June, was in town again and stopped by to say hi, only to let me know that he had intended to bring me an heirloom tomato, but since he had been in town since Tuesday, he didn't think it would still be any good. I agreed. Then the traditional tomato drop fell across the second and third innings -- no go, except for Matt Clement's single to right, which is rare enough.

Incoherent enough yet? Oh, I'm just warming up.

What was even more incoherent was the state of the Cub pitching staff. The Astros, left for dead a week ago, and now four games behind, scored in the first inning for the fourth day in a row, and with two more runs in the second, you figured that was about it for Clement, who doesn't usually get much run support. Corey Patterson smashed a rocket onto Sheffield leading off the bottom of the first (after we all figured nobody would hit one out today, and we were playing "Long-Distance Home Run Derby" with Carole and Sue who were in Terrace Reserved seats today, and I wound up having to pay Jeff for this. Someone had Moises Alou, but nobody sitting where we were, so I guess I owe someone $1), but that was it while Clement was in the game, and he had to leave with a slight back problem, though he says he'll make his next start. It took him 90 pitches to get 13 outs, so maybe that's just as well.

This game was absolutely winnable. The Cubs rallied to within 5-3 after six, and then Ryan Dempster came in and had a 1-2-3 seventh -- the first 1-2-3 inning the Cubs had all day. But then he had a meltdown in the eighth, hitting a batter, and then being replaced by Mike Remlinger, who hit Lance Berkman -- or did he? I haven't seen any replays but judging from some radio comments that Howard heard, and the reaction we heard to the replays that can be seen from the skybox level, it appears that Berkman might have been doing a real good acting job on the ball that "hit" him with the bases loaded.

After that Remlinger totally lost it and gave up three more hits, putting the game out of reach. Of course, then LaTroy Hawkins comes in to pitch the ninth in a totally non-pressure situation and has an easy inning, throwing only ten pitches. So maybe this is the trick -- tell him he's coming in seven runs down whenever he has to pitch in a save situation.

To finish this incoherent afternoon with a real touch of absurdity, Dan Wheeler, who was just acquired by the Astros yesterday, hit Derrek Lee with two out and nobody on in the bottom of the ninth. All that accomplished was to get the Cubs out of the dugout, and delay the game several minutes while Mike Gallo came in to warm up. We were practically begging Nomar Garciaparra, who had grounded to short four times on the day (once into a DP), to do so again -- instead, he got a hit, prolonging the ridiculousness for one last batter.

And then, to add injury to incoherence, as I was carrying my scorecard back toward the car, I must have put my hand right on the Cub half of the scorecard and I pretty well smeared most of the scoring.

It was a smeary kind of day. It was a smeary kind of series.

Off to Montreal, where the Cubs had better unsmear themselves in a hurry.

Keep faith and hope, everyone.

:: posted by Al at 9:55 PM [+] ::
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Today's Fiasco

I'll post a full report either later this evening or tomorrow morning. The ugliness is too fresh, and I want to take a step back and digest for a while, before I say anything.

Later!

:: posted by Al at 5:24 PM [+] ::
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