Could use a day off. Your money players HAVE to deliver and he is not right now. Maybe an afternoon off would help. Not much more to say other than timely hitting is obsolete right now. They should have won this game. Too many left on base. Too many double plays.

and I am not about to start a fire Lou campaign, but….

you cannot discredit how much a change could benefit the Cubs right now. Dont believe me, ask the Hawks how having Coach Q take over worked for them.

has been extremely impressive. Such a bummer that we have wasted so many quality starts from him. Big game today. Go Cubs.

into the outfield is just inexcusable to me. What a terrible defensive job that was.

through the magic of DVR and watched innings 8 & 9 live.

Coming on the heels of the losing streak, this was a game possibly won and the loss is even harder.

However, if the team was over .500 over the last 15 games, I’m not certain a managment miscue would be such an issue. Len and Bob believed that Lou never signaled to the umpire that Hill was the next batter and the umpire had not signaled Hill was officially in the game and the announcer jumped the gun with Hill’s announcement.

The loss sucked, but I saw a great pitching performance out of Wells, saw that Fox’s bat made the trip with him, saw Bobby Scales tell BLou to stuff it with a great HR, DLee hitting the ball, a great at bat by Dome, etc. If that’s how they lose, I’m not leaping off any ledge just yet.

Additionally, I thought Fox’s throw to second was hung Scales in the air allowing for a big delay and time for Martin to roll and take him out long after the slide.

Why am I not surprised. Though I loved seeing Bobby Scales get his homer and third(?) hit of the 5 BLou asked for.

97 wins from a lefty deficient lineup….that should tell you enough that when you get older, you are often more set in your ways which alone can be detrimental to the team.

I too was proud of the work Lou did the last two years (though I didn’t like his ‘07 tirade and prefer even-keel managers and players, and was pulling for Girardi to get hired), but if there is any truth to the fact that he hated his time in Tampa bc the Rays were ’too young,’ well that doesn’t jive with me either.

Though, he’s our horse and we’ll obviously have to ride him through the rest of the year so here’s hoping he produces more common-sense game calling the rest of the way

Its not just the lack of anger, its the mental lapses. I’ve said before and I’ll say again, Lou saw the crappy bullpen and decided that instead of getting angry he just won’t use anyone besides Marmol and Guzman. Then Aramis got hurt and I think Lou’s good managing took a two month vacation with Aramis.

is good enough to think of playing at 3b in majors, but not good enough for the minors. I think the senior moments you speak of are not limited to Lou, the defensive preparation to get Fox major league ready was an organization-wide senior moment.

Also, where is Trammel on these in-game moves? Shouldn’t he be looking ahead and helping to antidcipate these scenarios?

This is getting tiring for me, the label that Lou was obsessed with making the line-up more left handed. Well if its an obsession its shared by every other manager and GM in the game. Almost every team has some focus on a lefty/righty balance in their line-up. It may not be strictly L-R-L-R down the line-up, but every GM focuses on having some balance in their line-up. The Cubs were so righty dominant that Lou felt he needed his team to have this balance and their performance both in the playoffs and over the regular season against really good pitchers and bullpens confirmed this.

So if you want to take Lou to task, take every other GM to task.

Did he get called up the same day?

I was at the game last night, first game of the year, and Wrigley looked beautiful. First time I have been there since the Winter Classic, which was cold, and before that game 2 against the Dodgers, so I might start calling myself “jinx”.

Anyways, not only was Sori’s AB in the 8th terrible (was he really going to bunt?) but if he would have thrown to 2nd base in the 3rd inning, keeping runners at 1st and 3rd, and not 2nd and 3rd, the next ab would have probably resulted in a double play and eliminating that run. I know he was trying to make a play at 3rd, but my point is I can handle is streaky hitting, just do the other things right.

What a great outing by Randy Wells after a few shaky innings. Let’s get a win today!

it was for 3 years, which would make this the last year of his contract. Did he sign an extension at anytime?

Pitched a great game last night, and has kept us in ballgames in all 4 of his starts. He definitely softens the blow of losing Harden.

he better start hitting soon. Otherwise, he is useless to this team

I thought he signeda three year deal and this would be the third year. This team doens’t seem totally right and you can’t get rid of 25 playres. Trammel wasn’t the best manager with the Tigers, but he does have experience.

And, I didn’t like the way Lou managed last night’s loss either.

We were in a close, winnable ballgame… and he sends Heilman and Ascanio out there? Are you kidding me? Are you trying to lose? Go with your best stuff… we need to win, badly.

Then, of course the Koyie Hill fiasco.

BTW, Al… did you leave your scorecard on your seat in frustration? There was one just sitting there when I exited the bleachers. Sorry, didn’t make it over to say hello.

But all in all, I’m not gonna jump on the “if only” criticism train.

Sometimes you just lose games. No team goes out and performs every single play perfectly, every single night. We didn’t. The Dodgers didn’t. That’s baseball.

I think Lou is doing a fine job, all things considered.

Let’s get a win today! :)

and intimidation as a prime motivator. These tactics typically work for a couple years at a pro level and then the players become disinterested. Orval Tessier, Mike Keenan—Mike Ditka—Leo Durocher—and I now wonder if Lou is that type of mananger?

He’s certainly not a brilliant strategist or a particularly good handler of pitching staffs. Was anyone else surprised that Torre had NO ONE warming up in the 8th and 9th? He seemed to know Troncoso would get it done. I hate to turn on Lou—but this team is doing alot wrong fundamentally—moving runners to third with no outs—they are no where close to working counts the way last year’s squad did….hanging pitches up in the zone on 0-2 or 1-2 counts…..failing to have any control of their focus on the field—it’s a real sorry state of affairs right now and extremely painful to watch….I have no idea what it will take to fix it—but I’m not so sure Lou is able to…I pray that somehow—he can—cuz I like the guy!

they got some good hits late in the game. Just couldn’t quite turn it up enough.

This is exactly why I wanted Hendry to hire him instead of another “retread” like sweet Lou. An infusion of youth is needed at manager if Lou can’t get it done this year. There’s no reason to go past three years if a senior veteran manager can’t win. Hendry should be fired too if the Cubs can’t come back and make the playoffs at the very minimum.

maybe it’s ADD. I know he’s years older than me but since I started taking Fokolin XR, my memory lapses are a thing of the past.

But the overriding issue is roster un-flexibility. Jimbo has to get on his horse and ride in to the rescue. The problem for me with this whole issue is that prick Zell is costing them a chance to take on extra salary right now.

He had already lost it last year. He was terrible managing in game situations, particularly the bullpen but of course
he had more to work with. He has no ability to inspire a team only to try to intimidate them which I suspect he has lost.
Faced with injuries and a bunch of new players HE wanted, he simply does not have the flexibility to adjust. That said
I still believe the TEAM has the ability to turn it around.