Game 83 Thread / Cubs @ Giants (1 of 4)

Submitted by Rob G. on Mon, 06/30/2008 - 8:57pm

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SP *Ted Lilly SP *Barry Zito
  5-8, 5.40, 95 K, 36 BB, 98.2 IP
3-11, 5.91, 44 K, 48 BB, 80.2 IP
       
RF *Kosuke Fukudome LF *Fred Lewis
SS Ryan Theriot 3B Jose Castillo
1B Derrek Lee RF #Randy Winn
C Geovany Soto C Bengie Molina
3B Mark DeRosa CF Aaron Rowand
CF *Jim Edmonds 1B Rich Aurilia
LF Matt Murton 2B Travis Denker
2B Ronny Cedeno SS #Emmanuel Burriss
P *Ted Lilly P *Barry Zito

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Well that whole American League thing was no good...the Cubs went a paltry 6-9 against what was considered to be a soft interleague schedule at the beginning of the year.

Now it's back to the NL and back to the NL West, whom the Cubs have collectively beaten at an 18-5 clip. They'll get the offensively-challenged Giants tonight and it'll be up to Ted Lilly to try to keep them challenged. Lilly's overall numbers have been disappointing this year, but he's managed a 3.21 ERA in June up to this point. Most of his struggles this year can be attributed to a tendency to give up the gopher ball, but there's some hope that'll correct itself.

If you take a look at some of the numbers on his , his K/9 rate has actually gone up this year, but so has his walk rate, leaving him with a K:BB rate at 2.64 this year, down from 3.16 last year. That's still respectable though along with a 1.32 WHIP for this season. His BABIP is at .293 which is a bit higher than the .273 he gave up last year, but in the general vicinity of where you expect it for most pitchers. His HR/9 rate though is 1.64 this year, well up on his career mark of 1.38 and his 2007 season of 1.22. That can be attributed to a bit of bad luck though as 13.0% of the flyballs he's given up have ended up in the seats. The only time he ever gave up something in that range was 2005 when he also had a 1.64 HR/9 rate and became the proud owner of a 5.59 ERA that season. So it's possible that it will repeat itself, but most pitchers give up home runs around 10-11% of the flyballs hit off them, so it's also quite possible that we'll continue to enjoy the better Lilly the rest of the way.

Cubnut: Aramis Ramirez will miss the first three games of this series, having returned home to the D.R. to

With A-Ram out of the picture, Geovany Soto gets his second crack this year at hitting cleanup, and with DeRo covering third base and the lefthander Zito pitching, Matt Murton gets the nod in leftfield. Murton has hit better than .300 against lefties in each of his big league seasons, but so far, in this aimless season for the redhead, he is just 1-for-14 against southpaws.

Above, Rob refers to the Cubs' lackluster performance in their just concluded interleague play. The thing is, the Cubs were right in step with the NL as a whole. Pending the makeup of at least one rained out game that I know of, between the Yankees and Pirates, the National League went 102-149 (.406) this year against the American League.

The All-Star game should be fun.

 

Tags: 
Ted Lilly
Matt Murton
Gameday Open Thread
Aramis Ramirez

Comments

Submitted by big_lowitzki  on Mon, 06/30/2008 - 10:28pm  
MURTON!!!! But don't worry Matt... it will only buy you more time on the bench.

Submitted by Cubnut  on Mon, 06/30/2008 - 10:49pm  

Murton's 2 RBI, Soto's 2 hits in cleanup spot, DeRo bomb = Ramirez totally expendable.

How did we not see this sooner???

Submitted by Ryno  on Mon, 06/30/2008 - 11:14pm  
lol... I agree. Clearly the team is better off without Reed, Ramirez, Soriano, and Zambrano.

Submitted by Ryno  on Mon, 06/30/2008 - 11:12pm  
Murton having a good game. Meh. That just means the Murtonites will be out in full swing for several weeks now. *sigh* I almost prefer him to have a bad game.

Submitted by big_lowitzki  on Tue, 07/01/2008 - 8:03am  
Yea Ryno... because this team is so much better with Cedeno at 2b and DeRosa in LF than DeRosa at 2n and Murton in LF. Anytime Murton has received a decent amount of playing time, he has hit, and hit well. It is pretty simple. Don't get me wrong - I know that Murton does not have much of a role on this team when Fukudome and Soriano are playing LF and RF, but there really has been no excuse for Murton not playing LF in Soriano's absence.

Submitted by Mister Whipple  on Tue, 07/01/2008 - 10:07am  
Murton's clearly on the block come trade time, so the better he performs now, the greater his value when we make a run at another SP.

Submitted by Ryno  on Mon, 06/30/2008 - 11:36pm  
Mark [email protected]#$ Derosa.

Submitted by JoePepitone  on Mon, 06/30/2008 - 11:36pm  
DeRo Grand Slam!!! 9-0 Cubs!

Submitted by rokfish  on Tue, 07/01/2008 - 12:07am  
how bout that new 3rd baseman first cubs slam since chico walker in san fran first 3rd bagger to do it in san fran since ron santo. definately a good bounce back game by cubs ted lilly not great but got the job done.

Submitted by Rob G.  on Tue, 07/01/2008 - 12:22am  
Cubs petition MLB to be moved to NL West and to face Barry Zito every 5th game!

Submitted by Ryno  on Tue, 07/01/2008 - 6:08am  
How is he so bad? Very strange.

Submitted by Mister Whipple  on Tue, 07/01/2008 - 10:16am  
There could obviously be many reasons, but being a Bay Area sports stud in the early part of this decade whose talents decline significantly after the new testing policy is put in place certainly makes one wonder.

Submitted by Indiana JJ  on Tue, 07/01/2008 - 8:42am  
From the Sun Times: The lengthy absence didn't come without some grumbling from some team officials -- especially after Ramirez originally asked for four days, then seemed distracted during an 0-for-13 series against the White Sox over the weekend. I'm sorry, but begruding a guy a few days to go home for the birth of a child is absolute petty bullshit. I took at least a week off for the births of my kids and I didn't even have to leave the city let alone the country. I wonder who the "team officials" are. What douchebags. http://www.suntimes.com/sports/baseball/cubs/...

Submitted by big_lowitzki  on Tue, 07/01/2008 - 9:21am  
Completely agree. If the Cubs are truly "grumbling" about ARam going back to the DR for the birth of a child, that is bullshit.

Submitted by MikeC  on Tue, 07/01/2008 - 9:02am  
Interesting quote from Jim Leyland... Tigers manager Jim Leyland, on the Twins: "One thing I like about the Minnesota organization is that they go for ballplayers. They don't necessarily go for athletes; they go for ballplayers." That is like the exact opposite of the Cubs organization that goes after athletes instead of ball players. How many times have we heard from a Cubs prospect that "he is the most athletic in the organization?" In reality it means he looks good in a uniform but can't hit in the majors. Theriot = ballplayer Pie = He is very athletic Maybe he should go run track.....

Submitted by big_lowitzki  on Tue, 07/01/2008 - 9:55am  
Well... that might sound good, but in reality, most great baseball players are great athletes rather than just "ballplayers." Pujols. ARod. Hanley Ramirez. DLee. Soriano. Bonds. All "athletes."

Submitted by Wes  on Tue, 07/01/2008 - 10:05am  
I don't know what he means by ballplayers, but I assume it's got something to do with such illustrious concepts as "playing the game the right way" and scrap. The Cubs have had so much success with those types of players in the past. The wonders of the <700 OPS such as Todd Hollansworth, Mark Bellhorn, and Augie Ojeda come to mind off the top of my head. Hell, even 2007 Theriot sucked. Better now, yes, but his 300 AB's this season doesn't necessarily mean the organization should completely change it's philosophy on acquiring talent.

Submitted by Wild Thing  on Tue, 07/01/2008 - 12:51pm  
I say the Cubs outta go for scrappy athletes, like Sandberg.

Submitted by Mitterwald  on Tue, 07/01/2008 - 6:00pm  
Wasn't Sandberg an accomplished three-way athlete growing up in Spokane? Didn't he also play point guard and quarterback? D-Lee was probably a D1-level basketball player. Wasn't Jacque Jones an excellent high school basketball player? (I have no idea if Edmonds ever played football, but I would imagine he would have been an excellent wide receiver.)

Submitted by Vegas Brian  on Tue, 07/01/2008 - 10:33am  
Sure we go for some athletes, but never foreget we really prefer the scrappy :-)

Submitted by Sonicwind75  on Tue, 07/01/2008 - 12:44pm  
I'm waiting for somebody at the Hard Ball Times site to create indepth measurement of scrap with lots of charts and spreadsheets. There could be graph with a horizontal axis measuring "Natural Ability" and verticle axis measuring "Scrap" and then plot different players into the different quandrants. But I guess measuring scrap is very unscrappy.

Submitted by crunch  on Tue, 07/01/2008 - 6:47pm  
give it time. they've already got some stats that are so flimbsy its laughable. ya know, its easy to "prove" a point by setting up your data, but A + B doesn't always mean C is a singular correct. too few give credence to chance, also. if it falls in line, it must be true independent of other factors. *shrug* its bound to happen when you push out as much stuff as they do, though. most of it is great, but you're bound to pick up some "what?" in the mix. actually...didn't someone recently try to measure "scrap" or "heart" in a game. i remember reading something about it month(s) ago and laughing my ass off.

Submitted by Rob G.  on Tue, 07/01/2008 - 6:59pm  

about half-way down is a link to a Nate Silver article on BP

http://thecubreporter.com/2008/03/14/tcr-frid... 

Submitted by crunch  on Tue, 07/01/2008 - 7:16pm  
thnx...its so cute...they should have waited for april 1st to release it, not march 10th. ...or at least feb 14th =p

Submitted by WISCGRAD  on Wed, 07/02/2008 - 8:56am  
Statisticians never try to "prove" anything. Estimating a model gives you the likelihood that something is random given the parameters of that model. It is not about points falling on a line independent of other factors. It is about measuring the likelihood that the points would be arranged as they are while controlling for other factors. Usually our cut-off point is .05 - meaning that there has to be less than a 5% chance that the results were random - before we claim something is statistically significant. So every single model gives "creedance to chance" - in fact that is how we define which variables get noted as being significant and which are not. The heart example discussed below is really just summary statistics of won-loss records vs. PECOTA projections. They chose to call it "heart" because they are trying to be entertaining. It is interesting to see who has overacheived and who has underachieved. They aren't trying to prove anything, nor are they even estimating any model.

Submitted by crunch  on Wed, 07/02/2008 - 8:04pm  
okay..."prove" is a strong word...i guess "strongly influenced to the point of defending the view" would be better...or something along that line. i've seen more than a few really long and thought out A + B = C discussions (or most likely equals C, if you will). just because it's a well thought out bulk work doesn't mean its good logic, though. we have think tanks out there and scientific testing organizations that make a living off making A+B=C before a second of research is done. it usually makes sense and can be argued for true as presented...but tends to ignore or discount things which may (and in some cases do) influence what 'C' actually is. the bigger problem is when someone uses sketchy research to back up their own sketchy research...which is also a huge problem with the "think tank/etc" type research, too. and PECOTA...okay...look...1- i give them credit for actually having the balls to re-edit the formula so many times after they go "oh yeah, i guess we are being ignorant ignoring that" 2- doesn't the fact it's had to be changed/tweaked say enough about how much work there is left to do in this field? people gotta do this work...there's more than a few, though, that are stuck on marketing their stats/opinion company (and themselves now that stats geeks are being hired by almost all teams the past decade+). and yes, i know the article in question was supposed to be entertaining...its why i laughed =p

Submitted by Dmac  on Tue, 07/01/2008 - 5:22pm  
You could call it the "Scrappy McHustlstein" profile, replete with stats including how many games played with pants adjar and/or smudged up.

Submitted by Craig A.  on Tue, 07/01/2008 - 7:02pm  
Athletes hit triples and home runs. Scrappy is demonstrated by running out ground balls, busting up double plays, getting hit by a pitch, putting the ball in play, and never taking a walk. Some of those stats aren't listed conventionally. Maybe HBP/BB would be a good measure, but for most players it would be a very small decimal, which scrappy guys don't go for.

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The first 600 characters of the last 16 comments, click "View" to see rest of comment.
  • Dolorous Jon Lester 1 hour 54 min ago (view)

    I understand why it feels unsettling. I remember the series well (though I, unlike Theo, actually was in high school). Anyway, I view it as a chance to right previous wrongs in the same way we stomped StL out of the playoffs in 2015, or the way the Nationals got to burn through two teams last year that had dumped them out of October in previous seasons.

    But if we lose, of course that was 17 years ago so it's two extremely different organizations.

     
  • Arizona Phil 5 hours 55 min ago (view)

    DJL: All players on Optional Assignment to the minors must be recalled on the day after the conclusion of the MLB regular season, even if the player has not spent at least ten days on Optional Assignment. Players cannot be optioned to the minors again until Spring Training. 

     
  • Arizona Phil 6 hours 16 min ago (view)

    CHAMP: No option year is spent just by calling up a player to MLB. An option year is spent only if a player on an MLB 40-man roster is optioned to the minors for at least 20 days in a given season. 

    Also, Brailyn Marquez is (was) eligible for selection in the Rule 5 Draft in December, so the Cubs were going to add him to the 40 on 11/20 anyway. They just did it a couple of months early.  

     
  • bradsbeard 9 hours 26 min ago (view)

    Not sure if serious, but Theo became the Red Sox GM in 2002. It's true though, there probably aren't many people in the organization besides Ricketts and Crane Kenney who have any strong feelings about that series. 

     
  • Craig A. 10 hours 24 min ago (view)

    I wonder if anyone on the Cubs cares or even remembers the odd events when the Marlins played the Cubs in 2003. I think Theo was in high school. To this old fart it will be more than a little unsettling to watch this post-season match-up. At least we can be fairly certain there will no fans grabbing for foul balls. 

     
  • bradsbeard 13 hours 52 min ago (view)

    Which is kind of annoying. Nobody really picked the Cubs to win this division pre-season. I guess Mattingly gets some credit for guiding the Marlins through their positives but even just letting them play that one game with half the team sick should knock him out of consideration. Meanwhile Ross kept a tight ship and the Cubs has no positives all year. I'd say Ross or Tingler should get it over Mattingly. 

     
  • crunch 15 hours 9 min ago (view)

    cubs finish 34-26 (1st, division)...they play MIA on wednesday.

    good start for d.ross, but the manager of the year is most likely going to d.mattingley (MIA) or j.tingler(SD).

     
  • crunch 15 hours 46 min ago (view)

    ...or he won't make it out of the 8th

    0.2ip 2h 3bb 1k, 5r/er...2 wild pitches

    there's some great stuff in that arm.  mid/high-80s slider, "changeup" around 90mph, fastball 97-99mph...all effortless.  21 years old and never pitched above A-ball.

     
  • crunch 15 hours 51 min ago (view)

    -deleted-

     
  • crunch 15 hours 55 min ago (view)

    rough debut...doubt we're going to see him in the 9th.

     
  • Charlie 16 hours 3 min ago (view)

    Reminds me a little of Jeff Samardzija's debut. Adrenaline throwing straight gas but all over the place. Samardzija threw a fastball all the way to the backstop in his debut (2008).

     
  • crunch 16 hours 5 min ago (view)

    back to back 3-2 count 6-pitch walks.

    he's not in the zone.  he's throwing almost totally fastballs, too.

     
  • crunch 16 hours 6 min ago (view)

    alzolay's gotta be locked in for a start given what he's done lately.

    i wonder what role j.lester will be given.  if he's starting, hopefully he's the 3rd/4th starter, if at all.  someone will probably give him a 2021 contract if he doesn't retire...hope it's not the cubs giving that contract, though.

     
  • crunch 16 hours 9 min ago (view)

    dude's thrown a 97mph and 98mph fastball to start and both looked like he was barely expending effort.

    unfortunately, neither were near the plate.

     
  • Charlie 16 hours 12 min ago (view)

    So, Alzolay gets at least one October start, right? He'd be a weapon out of the pen if the Cubs had more than two believable starters ready.

     
  • crunch 16 hours 13 min ago (view)

    Q goes 2 effective (2ip 2h 1bb 2k, 0r/er) and here comes b.marquez...

     
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