April 2007

The sad story of Josh Hancock’s crash Saturday night conjured the inevitable comparisons to Darryl Kile’s death at the Westin Hotel in Chicago in June, 2002. It also reminded me of an item which appeared in Jon Weisman’s Dodger Thoughts last week, a link to an L.A. Times story about the family of Tim Crews, who died along with a Cleveland Indians teammate during a spring training boating accident 14 years ago. The piece, written by Bill Plaschke, is quite good and quite sad. The gist of it is that for all of the teammates and all of the baseball officials who gathered around the family at the time of Crews’ death, none have kept in touch or helped keep the Crews children connected to a game that their father loved and played for six Major League seasons. (Crews was a Dodger from 1987 through ’92. He signed with the Indians as a free agent in January of ’93, dying before he ever actually played in Cleveland, thus the story’s relevance to the L.A. Times.) As for Josh Hancock’s team, the Cardinals, it seems unlikely they will be able to regain their focus anytime soon. On the other hand, the same seemed true of the ’02 team which had to deal with the loss of Kile, a veteran who was, by all accounts, a beloved teammate and part of the emotional center of the squad, not to mention a major contributor on the field. At the time of Kile's death, the Cardinals stood at 40-31, two games ahead of Cincinnati. Over the rest of the year, they went 57-34, finishing first in the NL Central and winning their Division Series against Arizona, before they were beaten in the NLCS by Dusty Baker’s Giants.

Tonight's game between the Cubs and Cardinals has been canceled due to the tragic death of STL RHP Josh Hancock in a traffic accident in St. Louis early this morning. He just turned 29 a couple of weeks ago, and worked three innings in yesterday's 8-1 Cubs victory. Hancock was reportedly traveling westbound on I-64 west of Compton Avenue at about 12:30 AM when his Ford Explorer SUV plowed into a tow truck parked on the side of the road. Hancock was pronounced dead at the scene. The tow truck driver told police he was assisting a stranded motorist, and was seated in his parked truck in the far left lane of the highway with the wrecker's emergency lights activated. He said he saw the SUV coming up behind him, but it did not slow down before slamming into his vehicle. The tow truck driver was not injured. Hancock played college ball at Auburn, and was selected by the Boston Red Sox in the 5th round of the 1998 June draft, making his MLB debut with BOS in 2002. The Red Sox traded him to the Phillies for 3B Jeremy Giambi during the MLB Winter Meetings in December 2002, and then Josh was dealt to CIN in a trade deadline deal where RHP Todd Jones went from CIN to PHI on July 30, 2004. Hancock started nine games for the Reds over the last two months (August-September) of '04, but spent most of the 2005 season on the 60-day DL (groin). Hancock was released by the Reds in February 2006 when he reported to Spring Training overweight and out of shape, but was subsequently signed by the Cardinals as a FA, becoming an important cog in the Redbirds '06 World Series Champion bullpen (3-3 with a 4.09 ERA and 1.21 WHIP in 62 games). Our prayers are with Josh's family and friends.

Game Chat Jason Marquis vs. Anthony Reyes Lineups:

Soriano LF	Eckstein SS
Theriot SS	Duncan LF
Lee 1B	Pujols 1B
Ramirez 3B	Rolen 3B
Barrett C	Edmonds CF
Murton RF	Wilson RF
Derosa 2B	Kennedy 2B
Pie CF	Molina C
Marquis P	Reyes P

A compelling aspect of Wednesday’s Cubs-Brewers game, apart from the fact that the Cubs actually won, was Lou Piniella’s decision to start Ryan Theriot at short. As Lou explained:

"We need a lift. We need somebody who hopefully can get us going a little bit. I've been trying to figure out where to play him. He's been getting work at shortstop. We'll put him out there at shortstop and let him play."

Theriot, naturally, was elated to get the opportunity and said he wasn’t intimidated about moving over from second.

"The only [difference] is the throw. It takes a little getting used to. Two years ago, that's where I was every day. It's something I'm comfortable with and excited about."

In fact, during minor league stops at Daytona, Lansing and West Tenn, Theriot played a fair amount of shortstop, 189 games total, handling 777 chances successfully, but making 40 errors. That adds up to a woeful .951 fielding percentage. For comparison’s sake, National League shortstops had a combined .972 fielding average last season and the Cubs haven’t had an everyday shortstop who fielded anywhere near .951 as far back as I had the energy to check. Could be because shortstops with .951 fielding percentages soon cease to be shortstops. Theriot clearly gives the Cub offense a boost that Cesar Izturis and Ronny Cedeno are incapable of providing. But to justify his place in the lineup Theriot is going to have to dramatically improve his glovework. Or be one helluva hitter.

Game Chat Ben Sheets vs. Ted Lilly Lineups:

Weeks 2b	Theriot SS
Hardy SS	Floyd LF
Fielder 1B	Lee 1B
Hall CF	Ramirez 3B
Estrada C	Barrett C
Mench LF	Jones RF
Hart RF	Derosa 2B
Graffanino 3B	Pie CF
Sheets P	Lilly P

We've got a RUMORED radio report from reader WPZ that he heard Bruce Levine on ESPN 1000 saying that Mark Prior will announce that's he's going to be out 12-18 months following yesterday's surgery. UPDATE: Len just read a Cubs press statement on Prior, but my MLB.tv decided to freak out just as he read it. So here's what I heard...

Prior underwent.........debridement of the labrum.....also a capsular...lab????....won't pitch this year.

Thanks to MLB.tv for that thorough update. UPDATE #2: Cubs.com has the press statement up now and some readers heard a clearer version if you want to trudge through the comments.

During the arthroscopy, Dr. Andrews performed a debridement of Mark's right rotator cuff as well as repair of labral and capsular injuries in his right shoulder.

The tarp is off and game time has been set at 2:30 pm CST.

While much of the focus has been on the Cubs bullpen blowing these extra-inning and close games, there has been another culprit. Cubs Offense Innings 1-6: .290/.333/.459 66 Runs National League Average: 258/330/404 56 Runs Top Performers: Aramis Ramirez: 429/457/810 Derrek Lee: 400/492/520 Michael Barrett: 308/370/641 Ryan Theriot: 467/467/533 Mark Derosa: 244/279/634 Cubs Offense from the 7th Inning on: 212/299/288 21 Runs National League Average: 247/331/382 26 Runs Note: Only the Giants have a worse offense from the 7th inning on in terms of OPS. The Cubs have the 7th most plate appearances from the 7th inning on but the third least amount of runs scored. Top Performers: Jacque Jones: 368/478/421 Bottom Feeders: Michael Barrett: 200/273/200 Aramis Ramirez: 150/227/150 Ryan Theriot: 150/227/150 Floyd, Murton, Izturis and Soriano all have OPS' under .600 after the 7th inning as well. The bullpen is 0-6 this year, 7th in ERA and 4th in innings pitched and tied for 2nd worst with three blown saves (none by Ryan Dempster though who has curbed his walks to 3 in 11 innings pitched so far). While the bullpen has certainly not been spectacular and Scott Eyre has been particularly awful, as a whole they've been forced to do more than they should thanks to an anemic late-game offense that cannot muster any runs in our 3 extra-inning losses, nor has done much of anything to pad our leads.

Mark Prior is going under the knife for exploratory arthroscopic surgery on his pitching shoulder tomorrow in Birmingham. The procedure will be done by Dr. James Andrews and IF he finds any damage, he's expected to repair it on the spot. Hopefully our resident doctor will be along to let us know what Prior can expect tomorrow.

If Carlos Zambrano can pitch 21 1/3 scoreless, hitless innings tonight--striking out 17 while walking four--he’ll have the same pitching line in ’07 as he did five appearances into 2006: 3.94 ERA, 33 K, 20 BB, 25 Hits Allowed. You remember 2006...when Carlos got off to such an awful start.

Game Chat (You can now register your username here and then revisit the same link and go to "log-in to change your settings" to change the password they give you) Adam Wainwright vs. Wade Miller Lineups:

Miles SS	Theriot 2B
Duncan LF	Floyd LF
Pujols 1B	Lee 1B
Rolen 3B	Ramirez 3B
Edmonds CF	Barrett C
Spiezo RF	Jones RF
Kennedy 2B	Cedeno SS
Molina C	Pie CF
Wainwright P	Miller P

If you haven't had a chance to see or hear about how the Cubs game ended today, let me explain. Mark Derosa singled with one out in the bottom of the ninth and was replaced with Ronny Cedeno on the bases (you'd think Felix Pie would be the choice but whatever). Jacque Jones was up next and worked a 3-2 count before an Isringhausen cutter missed off the inside part of the plate. Now here's where the trouble starts. The ball was clearly inside but as we learned last Sunday with the Kyle Lohse/Ted Lilly duel, balls clearly off the plate are called strikes every once in awhile. In this case though it was called a ball except that the home plate umpire did nothing to actually acknowledge that this was the call. So Jones just stood there, the ump didn't do anything which apparently is the universal sign for a ball and a walk and Ronny Cedeno who was stealing on a 3-2 count wasn't sure if it was strike three or ball four. Cardinals catcher Yadier Molina not sure of the call either did the smart thing and threw the ball down to second and David Ecsktein, also not sure of the call tried to apply the tag. Now Cedeno actually beat the throw and this is where it gets really sketchy. He slid head first into the bag and his left foot ended up oversliding and Eckstein kept the tag applied. Walk or not, once Cedeno touches second base, he's in play and once he overslid and the tag was applied, he was out. Now the second base umpire wasn't even sure about the call but after Eckstein and Larussa argued and the umpires huddled, the right call was made and Cedeno was out. So my issue isn't with the umpires for making the wrong call because it was clearly the right call and it's not really with Cedeno, although he should really have stayed on the bag if he thought the play was still going. My issue is with how balls and strikes are called and the procedure that allowed this to happen. Shouldn't there be some sort of hand gesture or obvious way of demonstrating that a walk has been issued? Shouldn't the second base umpire be signaling the players around the bases like an air traffic controller to let them know what's going on? Games should not be decided on confusion. Of course, there's plenty of other reasons we lost, most of them associated with an offense only able to muster a single run off Braden "F******" Looper. But we now have have our 2007 version of the Barrett boner in Philly, the Latroy helmet bounce and the Neifi 2-errors on a single play to let a runner score from second base on a sacrifice fly.

A quick tour of the Wonderful Wide World of the Web... - If you're a scouting junkie or just a masochist who enjoys enduring the bitter downfall of Mark Prior, the good folks at The Hardball Times put together a wonderful breakdown of Prior's pitching mechanics over the years. - MySpace isn't just for picking up under-aged girls (use your inner voice, Rob), it's also good for showing off your man-love of Cubs players. The latest is for Ted Lilly. If you check out his friends you'll find a number of other Cubs pages as well. Our (former) fearless leader Christian sent me some links for actual Cubs players' Myspace pages once upon a time, I'm going to have to dig that out soon.

Now that our new wonder-kid centerfielder is up with the big club, and since he's spent his entire minor league career being unfairly compared to our last wonder-kid centerfielder, I thought it would be appropriate to continue the unjust association. So let's see how the major league debuts of Corey and Pie match up.

I’m really looking forward to the Opener tonight down in Atlanta. I think Hill is going to be a terrific #1. I’m hopeful that Lilly and Marquis can hold their own as numbers 2 and 3, and make all of their regular starts, as has been their history. I figure Miller is a short-timer in the #4 spot—Guzman has GOT to fill that role—but Zambrano is, no doubt, the best fifth starter in baseball. Maybe the best fifth starter ever. Drag that Soriano will miss the Opener, but sounds like he’ll be back by the season’s second week and in the meantime, we can at least get a sample of what Pie’s capable of. I think it’s going to be a fun year.

What player stole the most bases with the Cubs in the 1990s?

As always, try to answer without a web search.

The good doctor, Joseph Hecht, gives us the latest on Soriano's hamstring injury.... -------- April 19^th has been a painful day for Cub players and fans for two years running. I painfully remember Nomar Garciaparra falling in a heap near home plate when he ripped his adductor muscle off the groin. Derrek Lee’s wrist fracture needs no instant replay for me to remember it. So when April 16^th produces another injury to a star player I think we should just petition the powers that be to start playing the schedule May 1^st. Len Kasper and Bob Brenly live on Comcast TV, after Alfonso Soriano grabbed the back of his left thigh, immediately recognized that he “tweaked” his hammy.

Here's the way it works: every degree over 50 is good for 1.5 runs. Sunday gametime temp--50; runs scored--0. Monday gametime temp--58; runs scored--12. Tuesday gametime temp (forecast)--62; runs scored (forecast)--18.

I'm not much into the daily post-game reviews, far too easy to be overly-reactionary about one play or one moment that doesn't really say much about the team or individuals in generals. But now that we're two weeks and eleven games into the season, let's discuss a few trends and other tidbits that have caught my eye.