This is how bad things are. After Aramis Ramirez's home run last night, he offers a high-five to Alfonso Soriano. But Soriano is waiting with a fist-bump. The Cubs have gotten to the point where they can't even celebrate a homer.
And, if anyone thinks Carlos Zambrano can return to the Cubs, think again after you read Gordon Wittenmyer's article in today's Sun-Times, in which we learn that Z told a friend that he blamed Derrek Lee for the whole thing. That's nonsense, in my opinion, and Z's teammates agree:
"That's not the way we see it," said Alfonso Soriano, who planned to call Zambrano on Saturday night. "If he explains, maybe we can see it the way his friend sees it. But what he said wasn't right."
As one Cub put it, "Anybody who believes [Zambrano's version] must be smoking something."
Asked if teammates could forgive Zambrano, Soriano said, "I don't know."
Soriano's one of the good guys. These statements come perilously close to the things said after the [name redacted] blowup last September. The final straw might be this:
Even Carlos Silva, considered by several teammates to be Zambrano's only friend in the clubhouse, sides with the team on this one.
"Carlos is a very good friend of mine, but this is my team, too," Silva said after pitching Saturday night. "If I'm going to have a good success and have a good year, I need to give my support to my team. That's what I'm doing right now. We are a team, and we stick together.
"Man, Derrek Lee is such a special guy. And I respect that guy so much. And I don't know what Carlos was trying to do yesterday, but I think it was the wrong time, the wrong guy and the wrong place, too. I don't know what happened to him in the past, but what happened [Friday] was very hard for everybody."
Enough. Even if they have to eat a lot of the contract, send him away.
There's a 70% chance of storms this afternoon. At this point, a rainout might be the best thing that could happen to the Cubs.
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John Danks is 2-0, 0.90 in three career starts vs. the Cubs. Current Cubs are 10-for-56 (.179) against him with three doubles, one walk and 18 strikeouts. Danks is 3-0, 2.05 in his last three outings. We are doomed.
Ryan Dempster made three starts against the Sox last year and went 0-2, 4.00. How is it possible to make three starts when there are only two series per year between the teams? Remember that one Sox/Cubs game at Wrigley was rained out last year and made up in September; that's the third game that Dempster started. He gave up no earned runs, but the Cubs got shut out and made several errors. Andruw Jones has hit Dempster well in his career (13-for-40, .325) but Jones seems anchored to the Sox bench, so he probably won't play. All told, current Sox are hitting .326 (43-for-132) against Ryan.
Today's game is on WGN with Len & Bob; the other guys are on CSN Chicago this afternoon. Here is the complete MLB.com Mediacenter for today.
Baseball-reference.com game preview
Please visit our SB Nation White Sox site South Side Sox.
Today's first pitch thread will be up at 1 pm CDT, and the overflows will post at 2, 3 and 3:45 pm CDT.
Discuss amongst yourselves.