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 Carlos Zambrano and the Cubs looked like they were going to cruise to a victory today until they realized they left their brains on cruise control in the ninth inning and ended up losing to the Brewers 4-3. The Brewers have now won two series at Wrigley Field this season and the Cubs are left searching for answers to a lot of questions.
First, to the first eight innings of the game. Zambrano looked like one of the best players in the National League as he helped the Cubs get out to a 1-0 lead with his first homer of the year and as he held the Brewers to one run through 6 1/3 innings. Carlos Marmol came on and was able to get the next five outs, four by strikeouts, and it looked like the Cubs were going to roll to a 3-1 victory as Kerry Wood entered the ninth inning.....That's when things got interesting....
Wood led off the top of the ninth by hitting Craig Counsell with a pitch, which is a cardinal sin but really wasn't that big of a deal until Gabe Kapler doubled over Alfonso Soriano's head in left to give the Brewers runners at second and third without any outs. Now, I'm going to go on a tangent really quick....
Why Soriano was still in the game, I'll never know. In the eighth inning Lou Piniella brought Felix Pie into the game to play center field as a defensive replacement. That in itself is not a bad idea. The idea became bad when he left Soriano in the game, after he had just hit, when he could have left Reed Johnson, a better defender, in the game. Sure, at the time the score was 3-1 and the game may have seemed over and it wouldn't matter...but it did matter.
Back to the double over Soriano's head. In a game situation such as this, ninth inning with the Cubs up, the only ball that should get over the head of an outfielder is a home run ball. How a ball not only gets over the head of Soriano but also hits the bottom of the wall is beyond me. Piniella is the captain of this ship so he gets the blame for me.....but wait, there's more....
So there was a runner on second and third when Jason Kendall came up and dinked a run scoring single to make the score 3-2 with runners on first and third without any outs. Nervous yet? Then Wood made his second major mistake of the inning by walking the free swinging Rickie Weeks to load the bases....without any outs. See the problem with walking people? I understand the theory behind setting up the double play but that's not what happened here. He flat out walked the guy. Wood then struck out Mike Cameron for the first out of the inning and it looked like the Cubs might get out of trouble when....Ryan Braun doubled over the head of RF Kosuke Fukudome. Again with the doubles over the heads of outfielders. THIS CAN NOT HAPPEN. THAT IS POOR COACHING. It is up to the coaching staff to make sure the players are in the correct position....the position to succeed. I love Lou and I think he does a great job normally but his staff really stunk up the joint today. The double scored two runs, putting the Brewers up 4-3 and the game ended as such....with a lot of frustration.
Whoa!!! I almost forgot one more thing. Ronny Cedeno led off the Cubs portion of the ninth inning with a walk and didn't move off of first base even though the Brewers had the Kendall/Eric Gagne battery going......which is probably one of the easiest for basestealers to steal on. I understand maybe holding Cedeno at first when Geovony Soto is up but when Felix Pie came up after the Soto strikeout....it was time for some movement on the bases. It was as if the brains of the entire coaching staff froze up. Ugh.
To keep things in perspective, this is only one game in May but the funda"mental" errors by the coaching staff and players was....highly disturbing.
The Cubs head to St. Louis for a three game series with Rich Hill, who hasn't pitched in forever, taking the mound tomorrow night. Things could be worse.....but they could also be a whole lot better.
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2008 Cubs Preview
Wood hitting a batter to lead off the inning sounds familiar. Hopefully they step up their play this weekend. Luckily, all the games will be televised in this area.