Open Thread: Cubs vs. Padres, Sunday 5/14, 1:20 CT

the rain better stay away. My brother and I are headed out to the bleachers for the first time this year.

He's with a team that never loses anymore, especially with 6 (and probably 7, weather permitting) in a row against what has become the worst team in the NL. Hill can smile too, because somehow he made the major leagues. Smiles all around, except for us.

  Happy Mothers Day to all the great mothers out there today!  Happy mothers Day to my Mom especially and I thank her allowing me to watch WGN and the Cubs when I was young kid in the 1980's.  I'm going to be upbeat today and I hope today is the day the Cubs turn it around.  Things are bad right now but there's plenty of time to get back into things. We could have an entirely different team a couple of months from now so let's hang on for a little longer.  I'm not giving up and the I hope the team doesn't either.  Let's go Cubs!

Time to place an order for about, oh say, 300 of them delivered to Wrigley Field.

that there's not a single person hitting over .300 playing baseball at Wrigley today?

The Cubs catch a break!

...to be Barfield's agent?  Think he has a chance to be a player in this league?  

Mighty impressive...

You win.  I will stop posting, because your negativity is starting to spoil my sunny mood.

Re-god-damn-diculous.

on the brightside, at least they didnt have to cut his sleeves off

..or does Bruce Bochy look like one of those guys you see with the signs by the freeway exits?

I think it is celebrity deaths that come in threes.  Let's not go there...

Novoa!  this guy never sucks!

is singing?? This might very well be the only good thing to happen in Wrigleyville all day.

F***in' Roberto Novoa. I can't think of anyone in the Cubs' bullpen that pisses me off more.

And another steal!

reverse phychology doesn't work

Novoa is awesome.

I'm going to call my mom. What a waste of an afternoon.

Four runs off Novoa, ONE hit. Two runs score earlier on wild pitches. So you're realistically talking about five or six runs that shouldn't have been scored. This team finds more ways to lose than I could ever dream up.

Enough is enough. At least tomorrow they will not have a chance to lose.

was at least put out of its misery.

With already one out. Poor Eddie Vedder gets like 60 seconds of airtime.

 I was really trying to be upbeat this morning on this thread but man they are reaaaallly terrible.... We need some change and quickly..

gave us some real insight into how the individuals on the team are addressing this slump.  I live in SF Bay Area now, and the Giants announcers here (including Krukow) are fantastic at it.  

When the Giants are going bad, they give you an incredible amount of detail about how each player (and coach/manager) is trying to make it better.  You really watch the game differently, knowing that so-and-so is shortening his stroke, or that guy is trying pitching off the other side of the rubber, trying to break out.

It just helps you remember that the players hate losing, hate it as much as we do, and are working hard to fix it.  I assume the Cub players are the same.

I wish Brenly and Kasper, and Pat and Ron (although they are better at it) could provide more of that insight.  It makes bad stretches like this easier to deal with.

but, wouldnt this be a good time for theriot to be in the game?  

Can we trade for him and bat him cleanup?

3 Outs.

Dusty needs to go.

Yes, the players are the one's who are ultimately responsible, but, this group has quit on him.  DUSTY HAS LOST THIS TEAM.

Please tell me there are fire Dusty signs at Wrigley. And I wouldn't mind some fire Rothschild signs too. I don't think is humanely possible for the Cubs pitchers to do any worse without him. I don't care if the Cubs lose 100 games, I just want these bozos gone for good.

Luis

  Perhaps they were right last night on the TV and radio when they said yesterday is a game that sticks with you for awhile..  Sure looked it today and they just didn't have it to put it midly..

The team looks like it has quit, just like last year. My suggestion at this point would be to send the Cubs to play the AAA teams schedule and have the Minor league team play the Cub schedule, at least we would see some players that cared. I have never seen such a undisciplined number hitters on one team at any level. This team is a embarrassment to Chicago, baseball, and there families.

NOW do you accept that this club is finito, done, dead on arrival -- and needs to start working out trades to contenders, playing theriot every day and call guzman back up and put him into the rotation asap?

I remember them showing the future 4 or 5 series the Cubs were playing back before they went on the West Coast road trip, and every team they were playing had a losing record.  I believe at that time, the Cubs had a winning record.  They made it look as though it should be an easy road trip.  The tables turned on us and now they're like the only losing team out of all the teams they played.  They've all been playing amazing and the Cubs are the worst team in baseball right now.  It blows my mind how 1 stinking player getting hurt could cause our team to come unglued.  Derrek Lee is great, yes, but how can he have that much of an impact.  The last few years the Cubs have done the same thing they're doing this year.  Finding every way possible to lose.  I remember that one stretch they went through where everything was going wrong.  Like the throw to first by Latroy Hawkins I think, that hit off the baserunner's helmet and went in to the crowd and the winning run scored.  This year it's not weird stuff happening though, it just terrible offense and spotty pitching.  We all know that all the players in the Cubs lineup are good players, and they have shown us that before.  I truly believe it's all in their heads and once they get out of it, which may not be until Lee returns, they'll start to win more.  But in all the years I've been a Cubs fan, I've never known them to go on a long winning streak.  So the possibility of them coming back to win the division or wild card is pretty slim in my opinion.  

That's actually a good question.  Does anyone know the longest win streak the Cubs have had in the past 10 years?

It blows my mind how 1 stinking player getting hurt could cause our team to come unglued.  Derrek Lee is great, yes, but how can he have that much of an impact.

it was pretty clear even when they were winning that the team was poor and getting lucky. lee going down merely coincided with the end of that lucky bit.

bad teams find ways to lose. that's what this club is doing, and what it is.

I love this site. Don't worry the CUBS will make the playoffs for sure. I bleed cubbie blue so I know that we will have Wood back in a week and he is unbeatable. He'll probably throw some mor eno hitters and win another CY YOUNG.

Then Prior and Lee will make this tem the best in baseball again. This is our yera to win the World sERIES. CUBS ALL THE WAY !

http://mlb.mlb.com/NASApp/mlb/news/article.jsp?ymd=20060513&content_id=1451899&vkey=news_chc &fext=.jsp&c_id=chc