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Dale and Starlin had a little talk about Starlin's bad day Friday:
"It went well," Sveum said. "He was, I don’t know if ‘remorseful’ is the right word, but he knew he made a big mistake [on the basepaths in Friday’s 10-8 loss to the Reds]."
The mistake came when Castro tried to steal second, lost sight of a single to right field by Josh Vitters and was thrown out at third in the sixth inning Friday against the Cincinnati Reds. The Cubs trailed 8-3 at the time.
Gordon Wittenmyer's article goes on to quote Sveum:
"There’s that fine line [of still being only 22], but even he admits that [being young] is no excuse for anything that went on."
Exactly right. Starlin Castro is still the youngest Cub, even with all the callups, but he has now played in 395 major-league games. He should know better. He needs to know better. Castro has all the talent in the world. Now he needs to keep his head in the game. It wouldn't hurt to give him a day off now and then, too.
Cubs lineup:
DeJesus RF, Barney 2B, Rizzo 1B, Soriano LF, Castro SS, Valbuena 3B, Jackson CF, Clevenger C, Raley P
Reds lineup was not available at the time I wrote this post; check the BCB Twitter feed for the Reds' lineup.
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Brooks Raley is making his second major-league start. In his first start, he did all right until he gave up a couple of baserunners; then he seemed to lose his focus. Twice he was within an out of getting out of innings unscathed, but couldn't close the deal. If he can do that, even with stuff that isn't what some other pitchers have, he can be successful at this level.
Johnny Cueto is having another fine year; at 26 he's become one of the top starters in the National League. On April 22 at Wrigley Field he threw 6⅓ solid innings against the Cubs. Current Cubs, though, are hitting .293 against him (24-for-82), and Alfonso Soriano has homered three times off him. Perhaps this isn't quite at the top of the "doomed" meter.
Today's game is on WGN.
Here is the complete MLB.com Mediacenter for today.
Baseball-reference.com game preview
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Discuss amongst yourselves.