So frustrating
Alright, here goes the first of many recaps. Cubs lose another one at Milwaukee 4-3 on a bases loaded walk in the bottom of the 9th. Really, I probably don't have to say another word. But there were so many things about this game that just pissed me off I have to vent. First off, let's take a look at the Cubs' record in 1-run games this season. Right now the boys are 4-5 in 1-run games....which is actually quite a bit better than I thought before checking the schedule just now. And there's nothing special about 4-5. But let's take a look at the game that put them back below .500. Just taking a broad look at tonight, the "hero" (if you can have a hero in a losing effort) has to be Michael Barrett. Now you have to give this kid a ton of credit so far this season. My sources say he's only hitting .241, but he's had so many balls that he's just drilled right at a fielder. But he's stuck with everything, and now a lot of balls are starting to find grass. It's good to see. I guess, though, it's time to break this game down a little more in depth.
First is hitting. 3 runs, 8 hits, 3 walks, 8 runners left on base (2 in scoring position with 2 outs). 2 in scoring position with 2 outs is not bad. 8 total left on base is. And really, in a 1-run game when you leave 2 guys out there in scoring position, there's your difference between winning and losing. It might not seem like much, but it's the difference maker tonight. All the starting position players except Neifi got at least 1 hit tonight, so that's not too bad. And wouldn't you know it, but he went 0-1 with RISP. So Neifi didn't really come through tonight. To be fair, though, this kid's been one of the most consistent hitters we've had this season so far (probably 2nd best behind D Lee). So he's allowed an off-day. Let's look early in the game, though. Best chances to score were early and often. 1st inning. Victor Santos has just walked D Lee intentionally (as I figured he would) to get to Jeromy Burnitz. Now granted, this situation ended in Baseball Tonight's top web gem of the night as J.J. Hardy snared the line drive off Jeromy's bat and dove on the bag at 2nd to double off Corey, but still. You wonder what Corey was doing so far off the bag when he could see everything in front of him. Obviously he wasn't more than a couple steps off 2nd, but still, in that situation you gotta play it safe. If the ball drops in front of Hardy they're not gonna throw to 3rd anyway. That was the biggest blown opportunity of the game....didn't have a chance to score again until the 4th, and we did get 1 there. Hollandsworth gets in RBI single, Barrett moves to 2nd, and then Neifi flies out to end the inning. OK. Fine. Nothing too terrible there. There's that guy left at 2nd, but at least 1 run scored there. 7th inning, 2 runners on, 2 out, Ramirez just misses hitting one out to right field. There's the other runner left on 2nd base. So again, opportunity wasted, but a quality AB if nothing else by A-Ram. Then in the 8th, we did a terrific job of playing small ball. Lee singles, steals 2nd, Barrett singles him home. I thought that was the biggest play of the game at the time. Momentum seemed on the Cubs' side, but then Hollandsworth again just missed hitting one out to left center....not the best place to try to hit one out for him. Then a tough AB for Neifi, as he worked the count full before popping up to Overbay in foul territory. That was really the last chance we got to do anything on offense. So to sum it up, 3-8 with runners in scoring position, which really isn't terrible. I always say I like about 1 chance per inning on average with RISP, so 8 chances isn't terrible, and 3 out of 8 isn't bad. Which means it was up to the pitching.
And again Ryan Dempster did his part. This guy has really picked it up after a rough start to the season. 6 and 2/3 IP, 3 runs. Another quality start for him, so I'm not going to get too upset about anything he did. He made a few mistakes, but I always find it hard to point fingers at a guy who goes out and does what he's supposed to do. So that leaves the bullpen. Will Ohman came in and got 1 out. Michael Wuertz again shut hitters down. Remember this. He pitched the 8th with a runner on base, gave up a walk to set up a potentially dicey situation with Junior Spivey coming up and the bases loaded (the walk was intentional to set up the double play), but Wuertz once again came through by striking out Spivey and then getting Jeff Cirillo out (who hit the ball hard, but right at Neifi). And then came the most confusing part of the game for me. Dusty has guys like Mike Remlinger and Latroy Hawkins on his bench who have established that they CAN get hitters out in big situations (yes, even Latroy....while obviously not perfect at it). But instead Dusty went with this Novoa kid who just got called up a few days ago from the minors....to pitch to the top of the order. He gets Brady Clark out alright, but then gives up a double to Bill Hall. Fine. The kid's been hitting everything this season. But you got 1 out already, so things are still OK. Then they elect to walk Geoff Jenkins to pitch to Carlos Lee, who's had a rough start to the season. Now I don't know whose idea that was, but I don't agree with it at all. Carlos Lee is already 2 for 4 tonight, and you know he's a better hitter than his average says he is. But Geoff Jenkins will swing at ANYTHING. You need to go after this guy. He's a good hitter, but with a ton more holes in his swing that Carlos. Whatever....either way, 1st and 2nd, 1 out. Novoa gets C Lee to fly out, but Hall tags and goes to 3rd. Still, though, you have 2 outs. Then you definitely walk Lyle Overbay. I have NOTHING wrong with that. Damian Miller's been hot, but you take your chances with him every time. And right away Novoa gets strike 1. But then he runs the count full. But still, it's Damian Miller. Give him something to hit. You have fielders behind you. It looked like Novoa tried to throw a 2-seamer over the inside corner and missed inside. JUST THROW A 4-SEAM FASTBALL. Let him hit the ball if you have to. But he walked in the winning run. A damn walk-off walk.
In the end, it was obviously Novoa who was out there walking in the winning run, so blame him if you must. And I'll blame him too, to a degree. But let's look at the situation. You have Mike Remlinger just sitting in the bullpen who is devastating against guys like Miller. Right handed hitters with not a ton of power who tend to try to pull outside offspeed pitches. That might seem like a major assumption on my part about Damian, but I watched him do a TON of that when he played here. Remlinger could have gotten Miller to roll over his changeup away, and probably would've been able to get him out. But because he's a lefty, Dusty hates using him against right handed hitters. I have no idea why, that's what Dusty does. You're going to see a common theme of me second-guessing Dusty after losses. Obviously you're not going to do everything right, especially when your decision doesn't work. For all I know there was a perfectly good reason to pitch Novoa in that situation. It's easy for me to sit and rip Dusty a new asshole for what he did tonight, but in reality he's the one who's paid to make the big decisions and not me. But that's my take on the game tonight. These recaps will be huge for losses, because in true Kevin fashion I'll find a way to say exactly what went wrong in every situation. Of course nobody's gonna come through in EVERY spot. But I just like to play armchair manager and second-guess everything that went wrong. It's fun for me. So there. Let's hope Maddux pitches well tomorrow, and the bullpen holds it down for him.
First is hitting. 3 runs, 8 hits, 3 walks, 8 runners left on base (2 in scoring position with 2 outs). 2 in scoring position with 2 outs is not bad. 8 total left on base is. And really, in a 1-run game when you leave 2 guys out there in scoring position, there's your difference between winning and losing. It might not seem like much, but it's the difference maker tonight. All the starting position players except Neifi got at least 1 hit tonight, so that's not too bad. And wouldn't you know it, but he went 0-1 with RISP. So Neifi didn't really come through tonight. To be fair, though, this kid's been one of the most consistent hitters we've had this season so far (probably 2nd best behind D Lee). So he's allowed an off-day. Let's look early in the game, though. Best chances to score were early and often. 1st inning. Victor Santos has just walked D Lee intentionally (as I figured he would) to get to Jeromy Burnitz. Now granted, this situation ended in Baseball Tonight's top web gem of the night as J.J. Hardy snared the line drive off Jeromy's bat and dove on the bag at 2nd to double off Corey, but still. You wonder what Corey was doing so far off the bag when he could see everything in front of him. Obviously he wasn't more than a couple steps off 2nd, but still, in that situation you gotta play it safe. If the ball drops in front of Hardy they're not gonna throw to 3rd anyway. That was the biggest blown opportunity of the game....didn't have a chance to score again until the 4th, and we did get 1 there. Hollandsworth gets in RBI single, Barrett moves to 2nd, and then Neifi flies out to end the inning. OK. Fine. Nothing too terrible there. There's that guy left at 2nd, but at least 1 run scored there. 7th inning, 2 runners on, 2 out, Ramirez just misses hitting one out to right field. There's the other runner left on 2nd base. So again, opportunity wasted, but a quality AB if nothing else by A-Ram. Then in the 8th, we did a terrific job of playing small ball. Lee singles, steals 2nd, Barrett singles him home. I thought that was the biggest play of the game at the time. Momentum seemed on the Cubs' side, but then Hollandsworth again just missed hitting one out to left center....not the best place to try to hit one out for him. Then a tough AB for Neifi, as he worked the count full before popping up to Overbay in foul territory. That was really the last chance we got to do anything on offense. So to sum it up, 3-8 with runners in scoring position, which really isn't terrible. I always say I like about 1 chance per inning on average with RISP, so 8 chances isn't terrible, and 3 out of 8 isn't bad. Which means it was up to the pitching.
And again Ryan Dempster did his part. This guy has really picked it up after a rough start to the season. 6 and 2/3 IP, 3 runs. Another quality start for him, so I'm not going to get too upset about anything he did. He made a few mistakes, but I always find it hard to point fingers at a guy who goes out and does what he's supposed to do. So that leaves the bullpen. Will Ohman came in and got 1 out. Michael Wuertz again shut hitters down. Remember this. He pitched the 8th with a runner on base, gave up a walk to set up a potentially dicey situation with Junior Spivey coming up and the bases loaded (the walk was intentional to set up the double play), but Wuertz once again came through by striking out Spivey and then getting Jeff Cirillo out (who hit the ball hard, but right at Neifi). And then came the most confusing part of the game for me. Dusty has guys like Mike Remlinger and Latroy Hawkins on his bench who have established that they CAN get hitters out in big situations (yes, even Latroy....while obviously not perfect at it). But instead Dusty went with this Novoa kid who just got called up a few days ago from the minors....to pitch to the top of the order. He gets Brady Clark out alright, but then gives up a double to Bill Hall. Fine. The kid's been hitting everything this season. But you got 1 out already, so things are still OK. Then they elect to walk Geoff Jenkins to pitch to Carlos Lee, who's had a rough start to the season. Now I don't know whose idea that was, but I don't agree with it at all. Carlos Lee is already 2 for 4 tonight, and you know he's a better hitter than his average says he is. But Geoff Jenkins will swing at ANYTHING. You need to go after this guy. He's a good hitter, but with a ton more holes in his swing that Carlos. Whatever....either way, 1st and 2nd, 1 out. Novoa gets C Lee to fly out, but Hall tags and goes to 3rd. Still, though, you have 2 outs. Then you definitely walk Lyle Overbay. I have NOTHING wrong with that. Damian Miller's been hot, but you take your chances with him every time. And right away Novoa gets strike 1. But then he runs the count full. But still, it's Damian Miller. Give him something to hit. You have fielders behind you. It looked like Novoa tried to throw a 2-seamer over the inside corner and missed inside. JUST THROW A 4-SEAM FASTBALL. Let him hit the ball if you have to. But he walked in the winning run. A damn walk-off walk.
In the end, it was obviously Novoa who was out there walking in the winning run, so blame him if you must. And I'll blame him too, to a degree. But let's look at the situation. You have Mike Remlinger just sitting in the bullpen who is devastating against guys like Miller. Right handed hitters with not a ton of power who tend to try to pull outside offspeed pitches. That might seem like a major assumption on my part about Damian, but I watched him do a TON of that when he played here. Remlinger could have gotten Miller to roll over his changeup away, and probably would've been able to get him out. But because he's a lefty, Dusty hates using him against right handed hitters. I have no idea why, that's what Dusty does. You're going to see a common theme of me second-guessing Dusty after losses. Obviously you're not going to do everything right, especially when your decision doesn't work. For all I know there was a perfectly good reason to pitch Novoa in that situation. It's easy for me to sit and rip Dusty a new asshole for what he did tonight, but in reality he's the one who's paid to make the big decisions and not me. But that's my take on the game tonight. These recaps will be huge for losses, because in true Kevin fashion I'll find a way to say exactly what went wrong in every situation. Of course nobody's gonna come through in EVERY spot. But I just like to play armchair manager and second-guess everything that went wrong. It's fun for me. So there. Let's hope Maddux pitches well tomorrow, and the bullpen holds it down for him.