Rob G.'s Archives

From an interview given to Ed Sherman posted on Chicago Business:

I have no delusions that any of you care about my fantasy baseball teams, but the amount of time I put on this site allows me these occasional self-indulgent posts.

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The Gist: The odds were pretty low heading into the game that the Cubs could win it with the Astros best pitcher going and the Cubs going with a guy on a 45-50 pitch count limit. At least they didn't waste our time making it suspenseful. It started with the first batter for the Astros with Michael Bourne taking advantage of the lefty making his first major league start. Knowing that he's going to be falling off to the third base side of the mound and probably just worried about throwing strikes with that pitch count limit, Bourne executed a perfect bunt to the first basemen that Russell had no chance to get to the base in time. And then they did the exact same thing with the next batter. Give 'em some props for the smart baseball.

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The Gist: The first three times through the order, the Cubs one through three hitters went 7/8 with a walk and the Cubs first stolen base on the season(overall 7/13 with 2 BB's). The 4-9 hitters went 1/21 with 4 BB's for the night. The lesson learned? Try to bunch your hot/good hitters together if possible. It's insightful anaylsis like this that keeps you folks coming back for more. Castro, Barney (with a sweet hit'n run triple) and Byrd did the most damage with an assist by Soriano on a clutch 2-out double in the first (that being the 1 of the 1/21 from above). In all seriousness though, managers do tend to worry about protection and putting guys in front of other hitters to see good pitches. It does seem - and I'm sure there have been studies on this - that just putting your 3-4 best hitters next to each other is the better plan.

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The Gist: I didn't watch anything of the game, so not much to add. It's disappointing the Cubs couldn't get the win after getting to Yovani Gallardo, but disappointment and the Cubs go together like fire and gasoline. The bullpen blew it's second lead of the season, this time Kerry Wood being the culprit, leaving a fastball over the plate with Soto set up low and inside. Aramis and Byrd had the big days with the bat. Fukudome left after a few innings with a mild hamstring strain and is listed day to day. The Mendoza Line has been activated for Carlos Pena.  I think I've found my new nickname for him.

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The Gist: Chris Narveson pitched a gem, Matt Garza did not. Not much else to say. I believe the first two times through the Brewers lineup, the top 4 hitters had all reached base safely, somethingl ike 6/6 with a BB and a sac bunt and the bottom 5 were 0/10. Space that out and the Cubs are probaly not down 4-0, but such is the game. The big hits came from Prince Fielder of course who knocked in 4 of the 5 runs off Garza all on a bunch of lousy pitches and lousy location.

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The Gist: They took away streaming video or music from my day job which means these recaps are gonna be a lot shorter and lot less interesting. I think I got home just in time to see Kerry finish his inning and the Cubs finishing it off in the 9th. The big day obviously went to Jeff Baker who clubbed a two out, 3-run home run off Randy Wolf in the 4th off a cookie that Wolf left up in the zone. Unearned runs at that, as Rickie Weeks muffed a pop-up to start the inning. Baker then later tagged Wolf again in the 6th for the Cubs sixth run and scored the seventh run in the 9th when Byrd doubled. He ended up with 4 hits on the day, all off lefties. There's something reassuring when a platoon split works out like that.

We'll see how this works. I created an account at First Inning and it allows you to track certain minor leaguers. I thought I'd try to keep up with my top 16 prospects on a nearly daily basis. You may be interested in others, but it's my list, so go get your own. They haven't made Hayden Simpson available yet, so I will add him once they do to replace Darwin Barney, who of course is with the major league club.

I had most of it written Wednesday, but didn't have time to finish it up until tonight. Might as well put it out into the world.

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The Good: Ramirez and Soriano hit home runs, Marlon Byrd had two more hits today and Fukudome got on-base three times out of the leadoff spot and could have been a fourth if not for Chris Young's first amazing catch of the day. I think that about covers that section.

The Bad: ...started in the third inning. Willie Bloomquist continued to annoy himself to Cubs fans by singling and then easily stealing a base. Chris Young hit a liner just to the left of center that Marlon Byrd decided he needed to try and emulate Young's glove witchcraft and completely whiffed on. Bloomquist was gonna score anyway on the play if Byrd lets it drop, but now the ball is careening towards center with Soriano rushing over and the speedy Young easily going to make it to third. Soriano though fumbles the ball and then skips the relay throw and as the Diamondback announcer called it, "a little league home run".  During the play, I thought Byrd missed it by a mile, but the replay looked like he just missed it by a whisker. And it did happen with 2 outs, which is when you should try and take those chances in my opinion.

Patrick Mooney of CSN is reporting on his twitter account that Randy Wells and Andrew Cashner are both going to the disabled list.

Wells goes down with a forearm strain that no one knew anything about, Cashner's injury is his rotator cuff. I'm sure more details will be forthcoming. Mooney reports neither will throw for 2 weeks with the Cubs being cautious in April and Casey Coleman is sure to be one of the pitchers to join the rotation.

Some updates after the jump...

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The Gist: It seems the weekday recaps are gonna be a little harder to get to for me. Andrew Cashner got his first major league start and threw quite well except for a 3rd inning home run to Ryan Roberts. He made it into the 6th on just 72 pitches (43 for strikes) and 10 groundballs to 5 flyballs.  Then the bad news...he felt something in his shoulder and left the game with a 4-1 lead and went for an MRI, which we should hear the results tomorrow.

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The Gist: Wells didn't quite pitch as well as he did all spring and was uncharacterstically wild, but held the DBacks to just 6 hits, and only one of the extra base variety, that being a leadoff home run to Willie Bloomquist of all people. Geovany Soto showed off his healthy shoulder gunning down Justin Upton on a steal attempt and Miguel Montero on a wild pitch that didn't bounce very far away. The bullpen locked down the last 3 innings, even with Q-Ball and Kirk Gibson battling for over-Manager of the Year honors. First, the Cubs bring in Sean Marshall who is perfectly awesome versus lefties and righties to face Geraldo Parra. After getting him out, Gibson went to the righty Xavier Nady and Q-Ball countered for no good reason with Marcus Mateo and Gibson countered with lefty Juan Miranda who did single. Mateo retired the next batter and Q-Ball went to the pen again and John Grabow to get Kelly Johnson.

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The Good: Let's start with Matt Garza's first start as a Cub. It wasn't perfection, frankly it was odd. The Pirates knocked 12 hits off him, all 12 being of the single variety and a handful of the pure 'effin luck variety including a check swing hit and run and jammed dribbler through the right side. Garza matched those 12 hits with 12 strikeouts though on 0 walks and threw 80 of his 106 pitches for strikes. I'm feeling confident the earned runs will look a lot beter if he can maintain that strikeout to walk ratio the rest of the year. Honestly it was a pretty epic start, if not for the seeing eye singles and some bad defense, most notably Ramirez botching a double play with a bad throw.

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I know, I know, it's just the second game of the season and it doesn't matter where you get your wins, but losing to the 'effin Pirates irks me like nothing else. I feel comfortable labeling today's game the first must win of the season. :)

The Good: Z pitched well enough, and if not for a cramp, had a chance to leave with 7 IP and 3 ER. I think we'd accept that everytime. The team managed some extra-base hits, the first of the season by Z himself with Baker, Soriano and DeWitt also hitting doubles. The bullpen retired the last 9 in a row after Wood walked his first hitter (Ronny Cedeno of all people) and as a group struck out 6 over those 3 inningss. And of course the 8th inning...

Fukudome worked a nice walk laying off a close 3-2 pitch off the inside corner. Castro launched one to the ivy in right for a double that scored Fukudome. Byrd was due up next and all I asked for was something to the right side and he obliged on a 1-2 fastball with a grounder to Overbay who muffed it about as bad as anyone could muff a routine grounder. Castro hustled home for the second run after the ball bounced into short right. After a Ramirez flyout, Soto delivered his second hit of the day, but Pena popped out weakly leaving it up to Soriano to try and tie the game or better. After looking slow on a few fastballs, Soriano caught up to one on the outside corner and it dropped in right center easily scoring the tying run and Evan Meek was done for the day. Chris Resop came in and walked Colvin and then Blake DeWitt went with the pitch over the third basemen's head for the game-winning hit. And there was joy in Cubville....

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The Good: Fukudome got on-base 3 times out of the leadoff spot, Castro went 3 for 5, Pena got on-base twice with an RBI and and multi-hit games by Ramirez and Barney as well. Ramirez also just missed a 3-run game tying homer in the 7th. Dempster looked like a good pitcher for the first 4 innings and did strike out 7 on the game. Castro made an awesome dive to turn a double play to save Samardzija's ass. Some aggressive baserunning by Castro and DeJesus helped score the first run. The team pounded out 10 singles.

The Bad: No extra-base hits and just two walks by the offense, Barney got thrown out by Ryan Doumit and there was the 5th inning. After a leadoff single by Ryan Doumit, Dempster faces Garrett Jones. A hit and run is called and Jones fouls it off. Next pitch, no hit and run and a chopper to third that Aramis had a play at second base on and never takes a look and tosses it to first. He probably doesn't have a double play there, but you should always go after the lead runner of course. Then a walk to Ronny Cedeno which is a feat in of itself and maybe Dempster isn't so keen to pitch out of the zone against Cedeno if first base is occupied. Bob Brenly attempts to justify this by saying that it now sets up a possible double play with the pitcher up. It also sets up an sacrifice attempt and two runners in scoring position with the top of the order coming up. Tabata walks and then Neil Walker comes up. The count goes 3-2 and Dempster throws a splitter that Walker fouls off. Even if he keeps that it play, it may go for a single, but at worst it's a tie game. For some inexplicable reason, Dempster goes fastball next time and judging by the replay didn't miss his spot by too much and leaves one right in the lefty happy zone. Blame Soto, blame Dempster, blame Mark Riggins, but sweet jeebus was that a terrible pitch.

After two more walks in the 6th by Dempster and what looked like he was losing a little velocity, Q-Ball decides to keep him out in the 7th claiming that he thought he was fine and Dempster earned the right to tell him if he was done. He also cited that he liked how he finished up the 6th with Cedeno. *Facepalm*

Jeff Samardzija pitched an inning with the game still within 3 runs.