Homework

Zambrano although they did not hurt him.  Way too many walks for him.

Speaking of Barrett, I can't remember the last time he tagged someone out at home.  He seems very skittish on these types of plays.

...stole 22 bases and was only caught 3 times last year.  He can still steal on plenty of catchers.  He would've scored on Drew's hit no matter what.  The 9th innning is squarely on the shoulders of Will Ohman.

I'm off for the rest of the day to go watch Dontrelle Willis pitch.  I've never seen him in real life.  Just wanted to tell people who might care! Haha!

Carry on without me and have a great day all!!

I was at the game last night, and we looked hapless at the plate - give the credit to Lowe and Saito, as they looked very good. Why do we not jump on some of these Japanese guys for the bullpen?

Speaking of the bullpen, I was impressed with Eyre, but unimpressed with Howry and Ohman.

Overall, we beat ourselves by walking too many batters - Zambrano was all over the place, but as Al put it, he did appear more "settled" down, even if he worked extremely fast.

How come there has been no mention of Neifi's stellar defensive play in the 9th? Too bad he could not get the ball out of the IF, or hit his way out of a paper sack for that matter.

My question was, why did Dusty not have Neifi bunt with no one out and runners on 1st and 3rd? Mabry was coming up, and that could have put 2 in scoring position. Also, would have made for a nice squeeze play, although we know what Dusty thinks of those.

Lots of Cubs fans at Chavez Ravine though as usual, unfortunately I had to sit next to the big hispanic guy who thought he was funny by making South Side and White Sux references while also giving play by play out loud like the White Sux announcers. He LOUD! You can SHUT your mouth, YES!

I've seen him take hard hits by runners to the plate. He does have poor accuracy when throwing on steals, but more disturbing to me is how he has a tendency to drop the ball on plays to home.

and the game winning run was NOT Barrett's fault.

1. Lofton started the steal before Ohman came home. Ohman must have had some sort of "tell" in his motion that tipped Lofton off that he was going home with the pitch. He should have been picked off if Ohman had been paying attention
   
2. The pitch was off-speed and inside, far from the ideal fast, outside pitch a catcher prefers when trying to throw a basestealer out
   
3. A more accurate throw would not have gotten Lofton - Barrett's throw (which was rushed) did bounce a couple feet in front of 2nd base. However, Lofton was just getting to the bag when Barrett's throw skipped in the dirt. This means an accurate throw would have been late.
   
4. Lofton never should have been on in the 1st place - Ohman's pitches to him missed the strike zone by a wide margin after he had him in an 0-2 hole. I'd much rather give Lofton something hittable with no one on than give J.D. Drew something hittable with Lofton on 1st (or 2nd).
   
5. The game wininng single would have been a double if it didn't end the game - Drew laced a pitch Ohman left over the middle of the plate into the LF corner for an easy, stand up double... its just that the game was over once he set his foot on 1st. Without a strong RF arm, Lofton probably scores easily from 1st on that "single."

I'm not saying Barrett is god's gift to catching and i agree with Al that we shouldn't let near-39 year olds be stealing 2nd base in the 9th inning of a tie game. However, this particular stolen base was not due to Barrett's D. On the contrary, i think Barrett played admirably in the field last night, throwing out Bill Meuller by a wide margin (the ball was waiting for him) in the 2nd, making a couple nice stops when the Dodgers were threatening in the 8th, and deeking fellow catcher Navarro in that same 8th inning jam on the inning-ending strikeout pitch. (Barrett set up outside and high SLOOOWWLY and got Navarro looking there when the pitch was a filthy low, inside slider. Navarro's swing missed by a lot.)