Cubnut's Archives

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Breaking News: The Cubs have demoted Rich Hill to AAA Iowa and replaced him on the roster with Sean Gallagher, who will be available to pitch this afternoon in St. Louis.

Of the now departed Hill and his one-inning, four-walk effort last night in St. Louis, Cubs manager Lou Piniella said:

"Hill can't start like this in the big leagues. C'mon. Every time he pitches, it's an adventure. He's doing his best, but we have no bullpen. I don't know what the solution is, but I can't start him anymore until this thing gets taken care of."

About this afternoon's game: With the stink of last night's loss still in the air, the Cubs try to square their series against the Cardinals. The Cards have won three in a row and five of six; the Cubs have lost six of eight. Still, the Cubs have MLB's third-best record, while the Cardinals, who better get to work if they're going to see that 90-loss season so many of us were planning for them, have the game's second-best mark at 19-11. (The D-backs lead the way at 20-9).

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Fonzie returns to the lineup as the Cubs go for 2-of-3 against the Brewers and try to grab some momentum heading into big road series in Saint Loo and Cincinnati.

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No, you're not imagining things--this is the Brewers' second visit to Wrigley Field in the season's first month while the Cubs have yet to visit Milwaukee and won't do so until after the All-Star break.

While the Cubs (16-9) were losing two of three on the road to the Nationals and scoring 10 runs this past weekend, the Brewers (14-11) were dropping two of three at home to the Marlins and scoring six runs. The Brewers, who led the NL in batting with RISP (.303) going into the series, went just 1-for-26 against the Marlins in those same situations.

Quotation marks make their first appearance in the Hits of the Week headline since this week's list includes two walks.

So here they are, the five hits...er, that is, offensive events...that did the most to enhance the Cubs' chance of winning during the past week, as measured by FanGraphs' Win Probability Added (WPA):

#5 Big Hit: Tuesday, v. the Mets, 4th inning-- With the bases loaded and two out and the Cubs already leading 1-0, Reed Johnson drives a single to left field, scoring Ronny Cedeno and Henry Blanco, and the Cubs' margin is three, which, on a day when the Mets can't seem to get an important hit, is more than margin enough. WPA .151

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And so it falls to Cub ace Carlos Zambrano on this, Hack Wilson's 108th birthday, to reverse the curse:

The Chicago Cubs have never won a game in Washington's Natonals Park. For the love of God, they've never even held a lead!!!

The Chicago offense went hitless in seven AB's with men in scoring position in Friday night's 5-3 defeat. Ryan Theriot, however, was able to extend his National League lead in Caught Stealing.

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WIth tonight's first-ever visit to Nationals Park, the Cubs will have played in three different cities in three different time zones, necessitating somewhere around 2,700 miles in air travel, all in a little over 72 hours. Gotta love those schedule gremlins.

Even with yesteday's loss to the Rockies, the first-place Cubs have won 8 of 10. After opening the season 3-0, the fifth-place Nationals, who needed 13 hits against the Mets on Thursday to raise their team average to .233, have lost 16 of 20.

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Pinch-hitting/pinch-running specialist Jason Marquis gets to try his hand at pitching this afternoon at Coors Field as the Cubs play the Rockies and seek their seventh consecutive win, which would match their longest streak of a year ago.

MLB Press Pass Game Note of the Day: At 15-6, the Cubs are nine games over .500, something they didn't accomplish last season until September 22nd, when they beat the Pirates to rise to 82-73.

In Marquis's one start at Coors in '07, last August, he had one of his best outings as a Cub (6 2/3 IP, 0 ER, 5 K, 0 BB). In fact, throughout his career, Marquis has been outstanding in this park (3-0, 2.49 over 21 2/3 IP with just one homer allowed).

The home team has lost four games in a row, and in each of them, the Rockies had a lead heading into the eighth inning. The last time they won was last Saturday, at Houston in a game started by Aaron Cook, who allowed the Astros just four hits over seven innings.

Cook is an impressive 2-1. 2.14 over 21 innings lifetime against the Cubs, and our non-pitchers are a cumulative 9-for-42 against him.

My favorite moment from Wednesday night's Cub win:

Both Gordon Wittenmyer and Paul Sullivan are reporting that Alfonso Soriano will return to the Cub lineup without an intervening rehab assignment and that, according to the manager, Soriano will also step right back into the leadoff role upon his return, on or around May 1st.

From Wittenmyer in the Sun-Times:

Alfonso Soriano won't be hopping down the rehab-assignment trail, but he will jump right back into the Cubs' leadoff spot when he returns from the disabled list in another week, manager Lou Piniella said Wednesday...

''We want to make sure that he can do all the things that a leadoff hitter needs to do,'' Piniella said. ''We don't want to take any chances here early in the year, bringing him back too soon, and all of a sudden we've got another problem on our hands.

''But, yeah, when he comes back, he'll go to left field and lead off.''

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The first-place Chicago Cubs--has a nice ring to it, don't you think?--are coming off a weekend drubbing of the Pirates, two games in which they scored 26 runs, amassed 30 hits, and still required seven innings of duty from their busy bullpen.

The five hits that did the most to enhance the Cubs' chance of winning during the past week of Dusty-dissing and Pirate punishment, as measured by FanGraphs' Win Probability Added (WPA):

#5 Big Hit: Friday, v. Pittsburgh, 4th inning-- With the Cubs trailing 1-0, Kosuke Fukudome rips a leadoff triple against Ian Snell. (Fukudome would score moments later on a Mark DeRosa single). WPA .120

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WGN Radio is reporting that Kosuke Fukudome has a sebaceous cyst on his forehead which is causing some swelling in his right eyelid and thus, some vision problems. However, according to WGN's Cory Provus, Fukudome is on medication and is expected to return to the lineup on Monday.

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No kidding--starting pitchers' combined K:BB ratio this season is 1:1.7.

The Cubs go for five in a row this season against the Pirates and their eighth overall versus the Bucs dating back to last September.

This is semi-ancient baseball history, but for those of us who haven't thought a whole lot about Cincinnati Reds play-by-play man Marty Brennaman until the last 48 hours or so, we can enjoy this as if it were fresh and new.

In late April, 1988, the Reds were hosting the New York Mets in old Riverfront Stadium. Umpire Dave Pallone, who had a long history of conflict with the Reds in general and Cincy manager Pete Rose in particular, was working first base. In the bottom of the third inning, Rose and Pallone got into a chest-to-chest confrontation over a disputed play on the bases. Rose and Pallone got their fingers in each other's faces, Pallone told Rose, "Get your fucking finger out of my face," Rose shoved Pallone with his forearm and then, after Pallone had given Rose the official heave-ho and turned to walk away, Rose shoved Pallone a second time, in the back.

Here's where Marty enters the story.

As reported by Phil Rosenthal in Friday's Tribune: