The Cubs Offensive Offense
The Cubs struggles offensively are obviously no secret and it's been a team wide affliction that I don't even think a roll in the hay with Amy Winehouse could fix. I took a quick look at their OPS numbers since May 1st:
Lee |
.976 |
R. Johnson |
.906 |
Theriot |
.785 |
Soto |
.756 |
Bradley |
.747 |
Hoffpauir |
.682 |
Fontenot |
.678 |
Fukudome |
.670 |
Soriano |
.636 |
K. Hill |
.620 |
You could pick any arbitrary date and come up with equally appalling numbers such as:
Theriot hasn't taken a walk since June 9. For the month, he's 12-for-49 for a .245 batting average. His OBP for June is .296, and his slugging is .327. He's walked twice and struck out 12 times this month. For the season, Theriot has 18 walks and 39 strikeouts. Last year, he put up an OBP of .387, walking 73 times and striking out 58. His isolated power (slugging minus BA) of .147 is still way up from last year's .052. So that's definitely a good thing.
There's also "Soriano Shame Watch", his numbers since he was embarrassed at a WWE event.
108 PA, 152/222/263 485 OPS, 15 H, 2 HR, 7 R, 5 2B, 31 K, 9 BB
So Soriano can get moved down, Lou can tinker with the lineup or just draw numbers from 1 through 9 to pick the day's lineup, but it's all just trying to put $100 lipstick on the ugliest fucking pig we've seen wearing blue pinstripes since 2006
- To say the least , Jim Hendry didnt't have a good offseason. After displaying the Midas Touch the previous two offseasons, pretty much signing and getting rid of all...okay most...of the right players, he's shown whatever is the exact opposite of the Midas Touch...shall we call it the "Number Two Touch"...where everything turns to shit? Jason Marquis goes from overpaid 5th starter to the league leader in wins with a decent ERA, Mark DeRosa has 12 HR's while the Cubs are a third and second basemen short, Michael Wuertz is striking out the AL as Milton Bradley is pretty much doing everything wrong, Kevin Gregg has been the very definition of mediocre and Aaron Miles is Neifi without the exclamation point.
But for all his past sins, he at least made the right decision on Angel Guzman. The über-prospect from the early part of the decade has had his injury issues to say the least and with the Cubs facing a roster and bullpen crunch, Hendry and Co. could have traded the righty. But Guzman's rewarded the organizations good faith in him with a 2.67 ERA to date along with 25 K's to 10 BB's even though he's a good bet to be one of the "tender" arms in the bullpen that Lou spoke of recently.
Of course this is a trivial point as the team struggles at .500 and this is not meant to blow sunshine up Hendry's derriere just for the fun of it. Rather, to merely point out amidst this cloud of doom hanging over the city of Chicago that a few rays of sunshine are still poking through.
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