Accepting the Inevitable

This won't come as a surprise to anyone, but its official: Old Style Cubs is shutting it's doors. Here in Madison I don't get nearly enough Cub games (or have the time to watch them) to keep my blogging interesting high enough to post on a daily basis, so I'm calling it quits.

I'll be leaving the site up in its current form indefinitely if you care to browse through the archives, and if that still isn't enough, you can check out my new, not necessarily baseball-related blog at http://michaeljansen.net.

Thanks to everyone that read Old Style Cubs and commented over the year and few months that we were around, and go Cubbies!

Shifting Focus

I've been an optimist throughout most of the season, looking on the bright side without trying to be a blatant homer about the whole thing. However, as Aramis Ramirez strained and stumbled his way into first base in Wednesday's game, the Cubs' already slim chances evaporated. Even with Derrek Lee batting .900 like he did in April and May the Cubs couldn't get far above .500: without Ramirez now, I can't fathom the Cubs putting together any semblance of offense.

So what's a Cub fan to do? There's a couple standard options:

1. Speculate on September call-ups. As the roster expands, I expect we'll see Ronny Cedeno and Matt Murton in the dugout. Whether they see much playing time will depend on Dusty's level of delusion that this is a contending team. The funny thing is that if Baker does "give up" and let the young players start, it might remove enough pressure to let the team remember how to play baseball.
   
2. Look forward to the offseason. While the Cubs will have a decent amount of money to spend this winter, there's not many exciting free agents available. Johnny Damon is at the top of a short list, but I'm sure once the playoffs are over the Hot Stove league will be even more exciting than usual.
   
3. Play the blame game. It's finger-pointin' time! All sorts of accusations are possible, but let's start with an easy one: even though Aramis has had an incredibly productive season and was voted to the All-Star team, his unwillingness to hustle cost the team multiple games. Just ignore both of his bruised legs and it almost seems plausible.

In between the common three diversions listed above, I might turn my focus a bit toward baseball in general and look at what other teams actually have a legitimate shot at making the playoffs. For example, during my 3-week sabbatical from baseball, I failed to notice that the Cleveland Indians have made a push and are now tied for the AL Wild Card Lead with Oakland and New York. How did this happen? I think I could name maybe 5 Indians--C.C. Sabathia, Victor Martinez, Travis Hafner...ok, I guess only 3. And that's a damn shame.

I'm making my last trip to Chicago for a while to clean out my old apartment, and while I hate to drag figurative language in this, it will feel a bit symbolic to be shutting the door on the season when I move out entirely. The Cubs could still surprise us in the last month, but if they do, it'll still be too little and far too late. Check back for Cub news as it comes along with playoff race coverage.

Determining The Outcome

Ever get the feeling that instead of actually playing a baseball game, Dusty Baker could walk out to home plate, meet with the opposing manager and the umpire, and flip a coin to determine a win or loss for the day? He'd go back and forth between wins and losses regularly with some streaks of 7 or 8 mixed in there every once in a while. Sometimes they'd end up right around .500, sometimes way above or way below.

The chances are pretty much equal that you'll have a great season as easily as a bad season, and just as likely you'll end up mediocre. In a sense, baseball works like this anyway: a couple of injuries and you're down and out or everything breaks your way and you have a great season. While the Cubs were plagued by injuries early in the season and it's useless to speculate if they would have had the same season with a healthy roster, it still seems like they're just flipping a coin to see if they show up for a game every single day.

Last night came up heads, apparently, as the Cubs won 10-1 behind Jerome Williams and a Burnitz grand slam. What's so maddening about this and the entire season is that last night's result will most likely have no effect on tomorrow afternoon's game. I could mention that Mark Prior is opposite Jorge Sosa, but do their splits or last 3 starts really matter? I'd like to think so, but previous experience is telling me no.

Maybe I'll flip a coin instead.

Not Long Until Wood Is Shelved

Dropping a well-played, tight game to the Braves isn't such a bad thing. Atlanta's on the top of their division and while losing never feels good, losing to a playoff team that put Tim Hudson on the mound for all 9 innings is the kind of loss that's acceptable.

Unfortunately for the Cubs, no losses are acceptable at this point, especially after losing two of three to the Rockies to completely undo their efforts against the Astros the series before. Another great Zambrano start was wasted, but the real disappointment comes from Kerry Wood, who gave up another home run, this time to seal the Cubs' fate in the 9th. After looking unhittable in his first 7 relief appearances, he's looking more like the Kerry Wood we've got to know quite well after the '03 postseason: flashes of brilliance separated by the long ball.

The way the team is playing and the way Wood is pitching, I wouldn't be surprised at all to see him shelved and go under the knife before the season ends. I understand that the Cubs need to have the appearance of trying to make the playoffs to try and draw fans, but at some point very soon next year will have to come to the front of the minds of Jim Hendry and Dusty Baker.

Things aren't getting any easier for the Cubs with the Marlins visiting after the Braves leave town, and short of those teams putting on Cardinals jerseys, the Cubs will likely flounder at the plate and in the field for the rest of the week.

Current NL Wild Card prediction: The Florida Marlins.

Outside Chicago

There's a few things I've learned in my first three weeks in Wisconsin:

1. Full-time jobs aren't so bad. I was a bit concerned how well this waking up early every day thing would go, but it's been surprisingly easy so far. I've never had a real full-time job before this (and no, I don't know how that happened), so I'm glad its working out.
   
2. Not having regular Internet access sucks. A lot.
   
3. Corollary to #2: did you guys know Matt Lawton's a Cub?
   
4. As far as the Cubs go, moving to Madison was a bad idea. The day I moved was the first of eight consecutive losses and for a brief moment, I considered returning to Chicago to see if it would make a difference.
   

Despite what I'd like to believe, my proximity to Wrigley Field makes no difference in the Cubs' performance. If this were the first time the Cubs dropped an inordinate number of games in a row, I'd have been shocked, but as the losing streak dragged on, the optimism I once had waned quickly. The Cubbies have shown some signs of life in the last week, winning 5 of 7 from the 'Stros and Cards, but not only do they have to keep up that pace, the Astros, the entire NL East, and the Brewers have to hit low points all at once.

It's still possible: with the NL West out of the Wild Card picture, two divisions are left to duke it out for the 4th playoff spot. The Phillies, Marlins, Nationals, and Mets will see a lot of each other in the last month or so of the season, and the Cubs will have opportunities to beat Houston and Milwaukee and directly gain ground. I'm not holding my breath, though.

What I have had a lot of time to do is think about how the Cubs ended up where they are. Who's to blame? Dusty? The players? Jim Hendry? A big part of me wants to blame Dusty for the losing streak: managers have been fired for collapses like this before (even this year), and it's an awfully convenient to pin it on Baker.

I'm reluctant to assign all the blame to him, though, because I'm still waiting for a player to stand out as the team leader-type. When your backup, poor-hitting shortstop is the guy that calms the pitcher down and tries to fire up the team, there's bound to be leadership problems.

So Hendry, then, for not assembling a good team? Surely $100 million could buy a better team than this (it certainly can), but the DL has cost more than anyone expected this year and has prevented the front office from getting their money's worth.

Like everything else in life, the situation isn't black and white. I could be swayed any number of ways on who deserves blame more, but I'm not really interested in that line of thought. It's self-defeating, but that's not the real reason I don't care that much. When you don't see any baseball for three weeks, you're glad to get just about anything. Zambrano's 8 1/3 inning, 10 strikeout pitching performance and thunderous line drive homer on Wednesday might not mean anything come October 3, but damn if I didn't cheer as loud as ever as I watched it in the apartment clubhouse.

I might not hold much hope for the Cubs as we come up on September, but that doesn't mean I'll miss a game if can help it or not be excited by the playoffs and the Wild Card race, with or without my team. That reminds me, I left off an item on my Things Learned List:

5. Baseball, however it comes, is still the best sport out there.

Signs that all cylinders are beginning to fire

I'm going to allow myself some unrestrained optimism today and point out all the things the Cubs are doing right lately. I'll get to why things are the way they are after the list, so here we go-

Signs that all cylinders are beginning to fire

1) You come back to win 3 straight games, and then followed it up with a 5-1 victory. Three games with big innings helped the Cubs come back to beat the Phillies to win that series at home, then take the first two against the Rockies before shutting them down in game 3. Most of the year has been spent wallowing in hopelessness as the Cubs trail going into the late innings, but now with a lineup that has virtually no holes, scoring runs doesn't seem as difficult as it did before.

2) You bat around 4 times in 4 games. Since the Cubs gave Alex Gonzalez the boot in favor of someone who could actually hit, they have sent all 9 batters to the plate in an inning 4 times. A few weeks ago I railed on the Cubs for their all-or-nothing approach to offense, but it seems that now the Cubs have begun to master the invaluable skill of stringing hits together. Combine that with their home run power, and suddenly a lot more runs are scored.

3) Mark Prior pitches 6 solid innings of shutout ball. Prior hasn't recaptured his form entirely since returning from the DL and working past his tender elbow, but he sure looked sharp today, striking out 8 and accumulating a pitch count of 108, his highest yet this year. The rotation looks like everyone expected it to in spring training, and while its a little late, at least it's here.

4) You climb to a season-high 12 games over .500. The Cubbies finally surpassed their previous high of 11 games over, which they reached by sweeping the White Sox back in the beginning of July. They're way behind the Cardinals still, but they go head to head against the Giants and the Padres over the next 7 days, and can give themselves a considerable lead if they continue the hot streak.

5) Your pitcher drives in Paul Bako for an insurance run in the 9th. Up by 4 going into the top of the 9th against the Rockies today, I didn't expect much from the Cubs, who added 2 runs in the 7th. Instead, with two outs the Cubs weakest hitter in Paul Bako steps to the plate and hits a two-out infield single. Exactly 1 pitch later, pitcher Glendon Rusch doubles to left-center and drives Bako in to help pad his lead. Even the two weakest hitting guys on the team (I mean the pitcher's position, not Rusch specifically) are scoring runs, and that's the icing on the cake.


Now what's the reason for all of this? I won't lie and say Nomar had nothing to do with it, because anytime you add a 5-time All Star with a couple of batting titles to your roster without trading away a significant portion of your team, not only will he provide (3 RBI in 4 games), the rest of the team gets energized, as shown by the rallies, bat-arounds, and the 4 straight wins. You can't really disregard the fact that your best pitcher a year ago, Mark Prior, is finally healthy as well, and the rotation is finally ready. I believe Prior would have made the same type of start today without the addition of Nomar: would the Cubs have still won? That's up for debate, but it shows that the addition of Nomar plus a sharp, healthy starting rotation are two factors that are playing well off one another so far.

BUT, I won't get ahead of myself too much. The real test comes tomorrow, when Matt Clement takes the mound. Clement has gotten the worst run support of all Cub starters, and if the Cubs can rally behind Matt on the mound, they'll be in excellent shape.

Rocky Mountain High

What started out looking like an old-fashioned Coors Field shootout last night ended up becoming quite the pitching duel as the Cubs prevailed over the Rockies 5-3. Despite scoring 8 runs combined in the first 2 innings the two teams held each other scoreless the rest of the game thanks to some gutsy pitching by Kerry Wood and surprisingly Jeff Fassero. With this win last night and some help from the Phillies the Cubs have now moved into a tie with San Diego for the NL wild card spot. I know I wasn't alone in thinking that the 5-3 lead the Cubs had established in the second inning would not hold up but shockingly neither team could manage a single run after that. Jeff Fassero settled down after his rough 2nd inning, in which he was likely one more batter away from being pulled, and proceeded to set down 11 straight Cubs before Kerry Wood reached on a single in the 6th. Not to be outdone, Kerry Wood also rebounded after his tough first inning to hold the Rockies scoreless in his next seven innings, giving the Cubs a strong eight inning, three run effort.

I haven't been able to research this idea yet and it will likely fall on it's face when I do, but it seems to me that the Cub pitchers are having a very tough time with the first inning of games. From what I observed it seems like Cub pitchers rarely get out of the first inning easily, often using up to thirty pitches and giving up a couple of runs. Yesterday was no different as Kerry Wood struggled in the first , giving up three runs on a Todd Hilton homer and a Larry Walker triple while throwing 24 pitches. I don't know if this is a trend, a problem, or maybe just a fluke but in the past 6 wins Cubs pitching has surrendered at least one run in 4 of the 6 first innings. Even in the game in which carols Cambrian shut out the Brewers in eight innings of work, carols still needed 31 pitches to get out of a jam in the first inning. This phenomenon could be the result of being too hyped up or maybe it is a more serious problem in that they are not warming up enough before the game. Either way, I hope this is just a fluke because it makes a team's job much harder when they are forced to play down early in the game.

I know it is way too early to pass judgment but I am enjoying Corey Patterson's short stint as the leadoff man. I know deep down that he probably does not have the makings of a true leadoff hitter as he is way too impatient and strikes out way too much, but it seems to be working right now. Patterson was 1-5 last night which at face value does not seem great for a lead off hitter but he showed some patience at the plate and it was his steal that resulted in the go ahead run when Nomar Garciaparra dumped a ball into right field. If Corey can take a few more pitches and get his first bunt attempt into play, I believe he would be a good leadoff hitter for this team. Too often he messes up his first bunt attempt at which point he is already down a strike and the infield is in and waiting for him. If Corey can adapt to his new role he would be the speedy, base stealing threat that the Cubs need at the top of the order.

Tonight Carlos Zambrano takes on Jamey Wright in game two of the series. The Cubs hitters seem to love hitting at Coors, though I'm not sure what hitter wouldn't love it, and hopefully they can provide some good run support for Carlos tonight. A win tonight sets the table for a potential sweep and keeps the Cubs rolling on an all important NL West trip. Hopefully the Cubs will take care of business and win tonight behind a strong effort from Zambrano.