A Summation Of The Cubs 2010 Season: No Timely Hitting, Bullpen Failure, Loss

Lou left Ted in too long. Or is it the hitters who failed w/ RISP in the 9th 10th and 11th? Or Howry? Or Stevens? At least the 2nd half of the order made a hell of an effort in the 12th.

You said it best: summation of this depressing season.

BUMMER!

“Sky” is to “blue” as
“bullpen failure” is to “Bob Howry”

But hell, maybe we aren’t. Props to Starlin Castro for another good game and Soto convincing me more by the day that he is the real deal.

But a good team would of won this game. Plain and simple. Time to see what we can get for most of these guys (Lee, Lilly, Soriano, Fukudome, Theriot).

Maybe we need to sell high on Byrd too — I don’t want him gone at all but I don’t even know anymore.

Depression as a Cub fan, there is nothing like it.

The Cubs had the winning run on third base with one out in three straight innings, the 9th, 10th and 11th, and could not score.

Damn the bullpen!

rip 2010 chicago cubs

Hill get some quality time. And it’s always a treat to watch Howry enter the game with his 7.29 ERA and 1.62 WHIP. But at least Marmol got his work yesterday in a blowout so he couldn’t throw 2 innings today.

Let’s be honest. Neither Howry nor Hill nor Stevens nor Nady belong on this team. Lou doesn’t have a clue how to think outside the box and our hitters have no clue how to approach an at bat with the game on the line. And it appears the Piniella bump is over.

Our biggest fear was realized yesterday when Lou announced his retirement, because it again reflected today in his baseball mired apathy. Jim, do yourself a favor and send him home before the end of the season. Hill should only be an emergency start from now one. 4 Ks are awful….did he even hit the ball with his bat all game? IDK- I didn’t watch all of his at-bats.

 “Chicago is a great town. But they don’t have patience:”

I guess he doesn’t want to manage the Cubs.

Just think…..if this were flipped….

And now, a combined record against the Astros and Pirates of 6-15

Man, it was more upsetting than anything. I was screaming for a squeeze play in the 10th inning, but Lou seemed to think that getting players stats was more important than winning the game.

He left Lilly in too long, he didn’t call for a squeeze when the situation called for it (and he had three chances to do so) and then he did the lefty-righty BS which cost the Cubs yet another game.

Shame on you, Lou. This one’s on you.

OT: If you watch Soto’s home run, look for a tall, thin fan to come into the picture from the top left of the frame. Yep, that’s me.

I think we all were upset after this one.

“Join in the conversation now with SB Nation on Blackberry Messager” box on the top left? It was a stupid idea, the conversation is horrible, it was over a week ago, and no, you can’t join the damn thing, because it’s over. Please, somebody, delete it.

.. but an evil wind blew out my hopes an hour before the game finally got mercifully blown open by the Astros. Despite the twirling, sorry, Coolio ..

It was right at my end of shift at 4:45 pm ET when I noticed on Gameday that Fukudome was at third and Colvin up to bat, bottom of the ninth .. two out .. I dashed to the breakroom and found some chick watching “Ellen.” With great tact, hiding all of my frenzied baseball addiction, I politely asked her, as she started zapping around, if I could watch TV for a bit. She did so, and I found the DirecTV channel just in time to see Colvin get out.

We talked for a few minutes and I explained to her my rabid Cubs fixation and she and I had a laugh over my wearing a Cubs hat and T to work that day. While watching the Astros and the Cubs fumble about on the field, we talked a bit. She was young and pretty and something seemed oddly familiar about her, nonetheless. The real surprise came when I discovered she had just graduated from the same local university I had also graduated from almost 20 years ago and she asked me if I knew a certain person, which I to my surprise knew immediately.

And then abruptly, like a bolt out of the blue, it turned out she was the kid sister of the girl who married this guy, a girl I had ardently pursued in a relationship that reallllly went south, something this young girl would know nothing of. I remembered meeting her back then, being all of six years of age, and yes, this was her baby sister.
This was absolutely unreal, Twilight Zone stuff, and I felt like I had walked out of a time warp or something .. and I wondered just what her big sister would say if she found out I’d talked to her sister .. UGH ..

And as she smiled at me, talking about what a wonderful guy my old friend was, something cold just went through me, about the time Starlin smacked that double .. and an omen, a shiver of dread about how futile the Cubs’ afternoon would be suddenly rattled my heart which I promptly I hid behind my easy gab. It was one of the creepiest moments of my life.

She said goodbye, went back off her break to the call center, and I gave her my polite farewell .. but as much as I tried to get into the game afterwards, I couldn’t shake the feeling of impending disaster, and an hour or so later, on 2 outs, the dam finally broke.

Flame me if you wish, but there, my therapy for the day is over. Let’s have a group hug!

And let’s have one tommorrow, huh, guys?

Colvin, Castro, Cashner

Three very good pieces to start with but of course there are others. Marshall and Marmol. Marshall, the guy’s had a very good year. Then there are some prospects in the pipeline. If it’s time to trade away the trade-able pieces of the current club, then that should bring in more good young players.

I know the feeling of another season gone away all too well. Not a great feeling at all but in the case of the Cubs this season, there are good reasons for hope in the near future.

he’d be on the DL. 4 K’s is just pathetic.

From all appearences, Lou “retired in 2008”. Notice, “coomon sense” is not so common this year. G’nite.

OK there is no question the Cubs should have scored more runs but Lou’s misuse of the bullpen was just nuts. Leaving Lilly in for the 8th was the least of it but still stupid. You think he would have figured out from now that it is not a good idea with one run leads, especially when your set up guy and closer are available. A questionable move , but not horrific.
Next is why the hell can’t Marshall pitch the 9th? He did not throw a lot of pitches and while he was in all but Monday’s game he has been lights out so rather than pull him BEFORE his spot comes up in the order, let him pitch the 9th and not your closer. Next up Bob freaking HOWRY. I got up and left when he came in. He should not be on this roster and he gave up 5 runs in his last two appearences. I grant you the bullpen now has only the kids left but better them than him. So he gives up back to back singles and then manages an out and Lou puts Russell in and he gets an out and what does he do next, pull Russell for a guy just off the Iowa who is your last available pitcher. Al and I argued about this a LOT at the game, but I think this was by far the dumbest move of the game, but of course Lou wanted a righty. WTF, you pull out a guy who has been modestly effective to use the last available pitcher in a tie game who is just off the farm.
I imagine there was decent chance Russell might have given up a hit too , but again how do you take him out for Stevens?
Al assures me that EVERY manager in the MLB would have done the same, but I don’t think so.

Shame it didn’t turn out better game-wise. But I made my train AND got to finally put voices with some people.

Definitely have to do that again! :-)

But I can’t blame this one on Lou. Gotta hit with RISP. I agree, he should’ve called for a squeeze play, but at some point you’ve got to hold the players accountable for clutch hitting. End of story.

I’ll be at the game on Friday. I’ll come over to say hello. I’m 1-10 lifetime sitting in right field so I figure I’ll switch it up and go to left Friday. See you there.

http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/news?slug=ap-obit-houk

is a better SS than Castro??

A better hitter than Castro???

Castro shouldn’t have been starting SS on openning day????

As Al mentioned, the Cubs had outstanding chances in the 9th, 10th & 11th to push across a run via a suicide bunt. Doesn’t Lou see what we see? The Cubs either score lots of runs and get two out hits, or the well is dry. Clearly by the 10th yesterday, it was clear that the well was dry on this day.

Lou does nothing to manufacture a run and put the pressure on the Astros. There is a reason that the ’Stros are fighting it out for the cellar in Comedy Central with the team that owns the Cubs (Pirates). Lou: make the Astros make a play! Put yourself in the highest probability situation to score!

If Lou gets the reputation for often using a suicide bunt, it will force your opponent’s corner infielders IN and give your hitters a better chance to execute when you are not bunting. But Lou sat there patting his belly and expecting a different result. Time, after time, after time.

Yes, there is a reason the Cubs fail at winning games with quality starts and yes there is a reason the Cubs have an awful record in one run games. Lou. He is the ultimate example of managerial insanity (also: putting Howry in and expecting a different result).

The sooner Lou is gone, the better.

Yep

The Cubs are now 11.5 games out and can no longer kid themselves that they are only “a hot streak away from getting back in this thing”. Sorry, no. This is the year-long bed you’ve made for yourselves. You have to sleep in it.

This will save me some money in that I will now hold off on ordering MLB EI until next season and (unless tickets fall in my lap) I won’t have to spend any more money on attending Cubs games this season.

Tick-tock JH. The 31st approaches. Time to reduce the payroll.

I was able to catch part of the game on TV during my lunch, and I saw a couple of notable things that nobody mentioned here (maybe on the game threads).

1. They showed a long shot of Ballhawk Ken standing patiently at his station outside the stadium, and talked about the ballhawks. I was pretty sure that it was him from the first shot, but when he shifted and his left knee strap was visible, that was the positive ID.
2. They showed a shot of Theriot and Castro talking animatedly on the edge of the dugout, and Theriot was pointing at various things. I just imagined that he was saying “and there’s the other TV camera…”

If they were focused for these series, they would at least be close to .500, and we could still be agonizing over whether the Cubs are contenders. Losing often to bad teams says a team isn’t showing up for those games.