I Know You've Felt This Way

When the Cubs didn't score with the bases loaded and nobody out in the top of the fifth, I had a bad feeling.

So I figured, go out to dinner and forget about the first game, and in listening to the game on the radio, Ron Santo actually gave some pretty cogent analysis, and that's rare for him!

He said that when a team does something like this, a pitcher will go out there and press, because he's figuring, gosh, it's all on me since the team isn't scoring. What pitchers in situations like this tend to forget is that although the their blew a great scoring chance, they are still winning the game.

Predictably, Matt Clement, who had breezed through the first four innings, got in trouble and gave the Pirates the same bases-loaded, none-out chance that the Cubs had, only they capitalized with four runs.

Figuring the game was over, I went out to dinner.

Coming out from the restaurant only an hour later, I learned that Michael Barrett had hit a pinch-hit grand slam, the first for the Cubs since Julio Zuleta hit one almost three years ago, June 5, 2001.

Should have stayed there. As soon as I turned the radio on again, Joe Borowski had one of the worst innings since he's been a Cub. Even at that, had he retired Rob Mackowiak, the Cubs could have gotten into extra innings. I yelled at the TV (since I was back in the house by now), "Just throw strikes! If he hits it, he hits it!"

Well, he hit it. Mackowiak hit a grand slam and the Pirates beat the Cubs 9-5 and I think it's time that Dusty Baker thought about replacing Borowski as closer, or maybe Borowski can join the nine other Cubs on the DL.

The ninth inning might have turned out differently if Rey Ordonez, who's on the club for his defense (certainly, he's not here for his .290 lifetime OBA), hadn't made a horrible throw to third base when Tike Redman tried to stretch a double into a triple. That was only the first bad play Ordonez made, the second was trying to make one of his allegedly patented "flashy" plays on a potential double-play grounder.

OK, so Damian Jackson wasn't the answer as a backup infielder, and apparently, neither is Ordonez. Next?

The second game has just started and David Kelton is getting his first start of the year, and Jason Dubois his first major-league start, and why not? Nothing else seems to be working right now. This was about how the rest of my day went, with a bank ATM screwing up to the point I had to go to the bank to make sure it hadn't actually debited my account for the money it didn't deliver.

Let's hope Glendon Rusch is as good today as he was last Sunday. This club cannot afford to be swept by a team that came into the game with a 6-13 record at home.