Z…?
Arm…?
…
Geronimo…

It was a real depressing loss, especially after Edmonds’ blast tied it up. The highlight of the night had to have been for Casey Mcgehee. He got his first major league at-bat last night to a standing ovation, in a clutch situation, with the crowd chanting “Let’s-go-Casey!” My friend looked over at me, “No pressure, right?”

for keeping this into perspective. As I mentioned in another fanpost, " put the Cub hat on, took my daughter to school, and said enough of the negative thought"
 This team is to damn good, they will get it going again. A tired lull right now, win tonight, get a day off, then take the series in Cinn.
 I also have seen enough of Howry, goodness, no movement on his fastball, all his pitches appear to have the same speed.
 I feel for Lee, he took the loss on his shoulders. He smoked the ball in the eighth, ( even though it appeared to be ball 2) and ends up in another DP.
 Go Cubs

that the worst thing (non injury) about the loss is that both our closer and top setup man are unavailable tonight. Lou should have pulled Kerry as soon as he gave up the 2 run bomb. Now, if the game is close and late, we have the Shark and Guzman as our power arms. We don’t have Gaudin, We don’t have Wuertz. Shark has been a little shakey lately and Guzman…well he just came back.

Thank God for the Off day tomorrow….Here is to Dempster pitching 7/8 Strong Innings and the Offense plating some runs.

First time all season I’ve seen Lou make so many questionable decisions, most egregiously bringing Howry in. IMHO that’s what lost the game, not DPLee’s miserable at bats.

abosolutely w/ each of your points on Lou’s managing last night. The bullpen moves were puzzling. I can understand inserting Howry b/c Zambrano left abruptly, but after the first two batters reached, he should have had someone up, and made the switch away from Bobby. Bob Brenly openly questioned Howry’s location last night, specifically to Wiggington, who swings freely.

Fontenot must play more often, he is a clutch hitter.

As a 3 hole hitter, Lee must choose a pitch he can hit in the air. He hit the ball hard, but chose a pitch, early in the count, that was down in the zone.

Alas, the batters hit the ball well, walked a ton, and will start to hit in the clutch again soon. The Astros are playing good ball right now, they are certainly a 2nd half team.

was more storybook than an actual thought through process. First MLB official at bat of his career? What pressure. I bet Lou wished he had that one back. As always, hindsight is……

is that he is continuously allowed to try to finish an inning even after he gives up a couple hits/runs. More often than not he is not able to pitch himself out of jams anymore. How you do not have someone warming up when he goes into the game is beyond me. I would be completely OK if he were DFA’d today.

Lee is almost as frustrating. He has virtually no clutchness left in him huh?

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the Cubs have lost 3 games once and now 4 games twice in a row. Every other loss was either a single or two in a row. When was the last time you could say that about the Cubs? Al’s got it right with the Hitchhiker logo. At least the magic number isn’t 42.

This is only the second game all year that had me seeing red (kerry wood blown save against the cardinals in July was the first). This one though really sets me off. Lou was completly missfiring tonight. D LEE CANNOT hit into to that DP in the 8th. We have no bullpen for tomorrow putting even more pressure on Dempster to end the streak. Soriano in the ninth (i think) showing great discipline hacking at the first pitch with runners on 1st and 2nd with no outs. No consideration of moving runners over. I see Puljols give up ab’s to mover runners over. Sori is no freaking puljols. Anyway, this one fires me up. And on top of it Big Z. Call me a ledge jumper or whatever, i’m just seeing red today. And all of this the playoffs are a foregone conclusion is crap (probably accurate) but crap.

…that was really inexplicable. He is the hottest hitter on your team.

Bob Howry is done, period.

I love D Lee, but right now I cant bear to watch him at the plate with RISP. It almost seems like he knows he is going to GIDP.

Dempster will right the ship and we will get back on track tonight.

yeah, he had 3 errors and looked tired. But, all 3 errors were on tough plays. Yes, all errors, but each play was going to be difficult to get the guy. He’s the least of our problems. It’s Z that bothers me.

I don’t care who is right or left handed (let Tony LaRussa play match up game) common sense tells me I want little babe ruth up there.

I know he looked clueless for the past 2 weeks up an till his homerun, but he is a classic streak hitter and a big moment hitter. Give him a chance. OOOH I’m mad today.

…that would’ve been a 7-3 win. I was generally feeling better about him recently – he’d only given up 1 run in his last 7 innings and was looking like he might actually be a reliable arm down the stretch. I guess I was wrong.

Can we petetion MLB to award the loss to Howry rather than Wood?

He looked good last night.

…even I had to laugh (and I AM nervous): all this THE SKY IS FALLING! crap. Come on. It’s Sept 3rd, and I’m NEVER the one to be on the ‘glass is half full’ side of this kind of stuff, but gimmie a break.

Or rather, she blames herself. Every time we come out to see the Cubs they swoon. This is her third or fourth series, and they’ve won exactly one game. In fact, she came out for the four game Reds series in 2004 where the Cubs let their season slip between their fingers. I told her we’re just coming out at bad times in the schedule (i.e. late when everybody’s tired) so it’s less than totally surprising that they might get stuck at the horse latitudes.

and i will say it here – the difference between us losing and winning right now are the clutch hits. They just are not there.

with D-Lee in the past it seemed that he would really try to drive the ball the other way. it appears now that he is getting into a streak of trying to pull hard and ends up hitting these tailor made DP’s.

On plus side it was good seeing the boys show some patience at the plate when we were down, its a sign that noone on the teams seems to be stressing about the recent games

Considering the season, enough has been said about Bob Howry.
Many have commented about his decrease in velocity, straight as an arrow fastball, and his barely passable offspeed pitches which rarely find the strike zone.
I have stopped counting the number of times Lou has brought him into games that were winnable — down by a run or two, tied, or ahead.
I sit and watch and scream as soon as he puts men on base, allows runs to score, and wonder what Lou is thinking. Just like last night — tie game and here comes Howry.
Gives up a triple on a pitch down the middle; gives up tow more hits to two wak hitting players (Newhan and Quintero) — enough. But no — he’s allowed to throw five balls to another weak bat (Abercrombie). Enouh — but no — he’s allowed to pitch to weak hitting Bourne — results — another hit. For gosh sakes Lou — why did you let him pitch? Even after the first three hits, it’s only a one run ball game and you still leave him in? What was this — a senior moment?
One final thought — Cubs brass — please give us some credit and tell us the real story behind Harden’s layoff. A planned absence or rest — in the heat of the pennant race — give me a break!

Looked pretty good last night. He had battled back for a walk and then had a hit his next AB. I believe he’ll be key down the stretch.

Which is a good thing. There is nowhere to go but up. Demp will right the ship tonight. Then they will go on to have a great September.

but the z situation has me freaking out…….someone talk me down from this ledge

Hear me out. Up until Sori’s AB the pitcher had thrown 8 pitches, 6 of which were balls. Men on 1st and 2nd, No Outs. And Soriano, who had not had a hit since the first pitch of the game, swung at the first pitch (which looked to me if it was an above-the-letters pitch). And don’t get me wrong I have 90% of the time I have faith Sori will come through, but he and and our other big boppers seemed to be pressing w/ RISP after Edmonds’ HR. Correct me if I’m wrong but I remember a couple years ago, the same situation presented itself in a game against the Cardinals. Except it was Pujols at bat and he laid down a perfect bunt to move the runners. I’m not asking Sori to sacrifice his bat every time but maybe just every once in a blue moon?

That being said Booby Howry is D-O-N-E.