Can Any Cub Anywhere Play This Game?
Taking a cue from his counterpart in the big leagues, Iowa Cub manager Bobby Dickerson held a pre-game meeting yesterday in the team's clubhouse at Principal Park in Des Moines. The team had made 10 errors in its previous three games.
After the meeting the troops went out and made three more in the process of losing 5-3 to the Sacramento Rivercats.
The battle of capital cities was also a battle of pitching prospects as former Cub Sean Gallagher opposed current hotshot Jeff Samardzija.
Gallagher rationed 89 pitches over seven strong innings to get the win. Samardzija labored while throwing 102 in just four plus and took the loss.
Jake Fox did manage to extend his hitting streak to 17 games with a single in his last at-bat, but be advised that he's also gone a season-long six game stretch without homering. He was also brushed by a pitch for the eighth time, another of the many categories in which he leads the league.
Samardzija is clearly working on stuff other than his fastball. After the first inning he seemed to start most batters with some kind of breaking pitch. All told he threw first pitch strikes to 15 of the 24 hitters he faced, but the Rivercats reached him for eight hits in his short, pitchy stint.
In the Sacramento 3rd, he came a little undone after CF Sam Fuld approached a routine single like it was a rattlesnake for a two-base error. Samardzija issued a four-pitch walk and then wild-pitched a run home, cussing his way back to the mound in his best Zambrano impression after the ump called the runner safe on a close play at the plate.
Between the starting pitchers and I-Cub reliever Vince Perkins the scoreboard radar gun was registering in the mid to upper 90's throughout. Perkins comes near the century mark.
Jeremy Blevins, the chip that brought us Jason Kendall a couple years back, relieved Gallagher in the 8th and surrendered a run in less than an inning; right in keeping with his ERA of nearly seven.
Leading off for the Rivercats and playing CF was Eric Patterson who managed two hits and a run scored. Patterson also swiped his 19th base in 23 tries. I-Cub catcher Chris Robinson leads PCL catchers in fielding percentage but he, Mark Johnson and Jake Fox have combined to catch only seven out of 48 base stealers this year. The Cub organization doesn't seem to put much premium on either efficient pitch counts [how many years running have they led the NL in strikeouts?] or the holding of runners.
OTHER ODDITIES: After Richie Robnett tripled in a run in the bottom of the 2nd Dickerson ordered a squeeze bunt on consecutive pitches; both were popped foul and glanced off the glove of Sacramento's diving third baseman...eerie similarity: even though it was almost completely rebuilt as recently as 1992, Principal Park has chunks of concrete falling off just like Wrigley Field! Three small areas of the place have been closed to the public for the duration of the homestand which ends on Thursday...Fox was out from here to Chicago trying to go 1st to 3rd on a single to right - it appeared that the bad idea was Dickerson's in the 3rd base coaching box...Fox has now played 29 games @ 1B, two @ DH, one @ 3B, one in LF, and two @ catcher...Dickerson loves to bunt - in Sunday's game the team loaded the bases on three straight and yesterday's attempted squeeze[s] came after two successes earlier in the week...MW
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