From Wrigley

‘Shell was lucky enough to score entry to ‘Neighbors Day’ at the park– so we’re heading over to play catch out on the field for an hour or so. I’ll be sure to check for any Corey Patterson remains out in center.

The Cubs are facing Lohse today, who’s been pretty brilliant thus far but his day-time ERA is a full point higher than at night. After the way things have gone this week, I’ll take any bright spot I can get.

I’ve got a new stat for the standings… Win, Loss, ‘Fonzo. For the second consectuive day Alfonso Soriano was a massive liability in left. So bad that somewhere, Manny Ramirez was no doubt laughing. And yes, I know (obviously) it was his homer that tied the game up and he was not on the bump when the Cardinals scored their walk-off winner, but Zo led directly to two of those Cardinals three runs that sent it to extras. Unbelievable.

Brenly had it spot on when he said (paraphrasing here) that “guys taking a few fungoes in daylight does not prepare them for game situations like tonight, under the lights at full speed.” Keep him down in the minors a few days and make him work at it. I don’t care how bad they’re itching to get back up, if they can’t handle it their paycheck still clears at the bank and we’re left holding the mess.

The Cubs fell yesterday despite another quality start by Ryan Dempster. The Cubs bats have cooled off in the last couple of games, and last night managed 3 runs against the Nationals 5. The real bright point for the game was Reed Johnson’s highlight reel catch last night. If you haven’t seen it, here it is…

Zambrano takes the mound today and lets hope he builds on his success so far and the Cubs can put up some runs.

Ten dramatic innings of baseball tonight as the Cubs won their 10,000th game in franchise history.  Rich Hill pitched a few really strong innings to get started, but ended up getting roughed up a bit in the bottom of the 6th inning and looked to be in line for the win going into the 7th.  Unfortunately the Cubs blew the lead and Kerry Wood blew a save, while picking up the win.

Some of today’s highlights were Fukudome and Lee both hitting triples and home runs by Aramis Ramirez and Geovany Soto.  Ramirez’s homer looked to seal the win until Wood’s blown save in the 9th set the table for a game winning single by Ryan Theriot.  One of the surprising moves of the day was pinch running Felix Pie for Derrek Lee in the 9th.  Its a move that makes sense if you have Pie steal a base, but Pie stayed put at first until Ramirez hit his homer.

Some tid bits about this 10,000th franchise win that they mentioned in tonights broadcast, only one other franchise has more wins, the Giants.  The Cubs are also the only franchise in the history of the game not to ever have a franchise overall record to never dip below .500.  That was pretty surprising, especially given the ‘loveable losers’ moniker.

Another interesting point that the Elias Sports Bureau pointed out was that in the previous four games before today, the Cubs won each by six runs or more.  The only other time the Cubs have won four in a row by six or more runs was in 1876.  Gee, feels like yesterday.

In the end, the Cubs won yet another extra inning game, putting them at 4-0 on the road in extras for the season.  The Cubs are also off to their best start since 1975, this is the fifth time in the franchise’s history to get off to this good of start.   These guys are firing on all cylinders and even when they don’t dominate they are finding a way to win.  I know it can’t last all season, but I’ll take it while I can get it.

Tomorrow at 2:05 PM CST the Cubs will face off against these Rockies again with Jason Marquis on the mound.  Given the rough day for the bullpen, the Cubs are going to be looking for a good outting by Marquis.  If Marquis can’t go deep, my money is on Sean Marshall to come in and play the long relief role, since Lieber threw an inning and a third today.

After finishing the last home stand with an 8-1 record, the Chicago Cubs travel today to begin a trip in Colorado and then Washington before coming back home next Tuesday to face the Brewers.  This is another two-game series, like the on with the Mets the last two days.  Can I say how stupid two-game series are to me?  Seriously.

To call the Cubs  red-hot right now would be an understatement.  Since the beginning of this young season their defense has improved dramatically, the starting pitching is starting to come around, with Lilly getting his first win yesterday and Marquis doing well in both of his last outtings.  In addition to all that, since Soriano went on the DL the Cubs have been on an offensive tear.  In the last week the Cubs, as a team, are hitting .336 with 7 home runs, two by D-Lee and Ramirez each and a grand slam by, and you are reading this correctly, Ronnie Cedeno.  In the last two weeks?  Hitting a solid .300 with 17 home runs.  These guys are firing on all cylinders and I think you can find the root cause in one Kosuke Fukudome.

Sometimes it may sound like, in the media, here, talking to people, that Fukudome has to be overrated.  You hear praise all the time for this guy, and people talk like he can do no wrong.  It seems to good to be true, but so far it hasn’t been.  I think that if you look up and down the Cubs lineup right now you can see how Fukudome’s approach at the plate has rubbed off on all of the Cubs hitters (with the exception of Soriano).  The Cubs as a team are batting patiently, which is a complete turn-around from last year.  Fukudome himself, going into yesterday’s game was seeing a league leading 4.7 pitches per at bat.  Thats astronomical.  The Cubs as a team were seeing over 4 pitches per at bat and leading the league as a team in that category.  What does this translate to?  A team that also leads the league in hits, runs, batting average, on base percentage, and second in walks taken.  I don’t think this is a coaching thing.  I think it is the Fukudome effect.  And I’m glad to be seeing it.

Where you are seeing this effect more than anywhere else in the lineup is with the young players coming of age, as Jay mentioned in his post from yesterday.  When Cedeno has a long at bat where he runs the count up full, fouls off a bunch of pitches, then comes through with a clutch hit (or in this case a grand slam), you can’t help but be surprised.  After all, as a Cubs fan, you’ve watched Cedeno the last 3, 4 years and he has never been patient at the plate, generally just happy to get his cuts in.  But now you’re seeing him exude some control at the plate, making the pitcher make his pitches.  I think that being able to watch someone as patient, with as good an eye as Fukudome has, took him from being a marginal utility player in to a valuable asset.

It doesn’t stop there either.  You’re also beginning to see Felix Pie be a little more patient at the place and for the Corey Patterson-clone of a center fielder, that can’t help but make you smile.  Of course the way Reed Johnson has played it might be a case of too-little, too-late on Pie’s part if wanted to have a full time role, as Johnson looks to have that pretty well locked up at the moment.

Tonight the Cubs have Rich Hill on the mound against the Rockies Franklin Morales.  I’m going to run through this quick because I’ve droned on way to long.  Hill has not faired well in his previous two starts in Colorado, going a total of 10.2 innings and giving up 13 runs, all earned.  As for Morales, he’s in his first full year at the big league level and is off to a mediocre 1-1 start in his first three starts, giving up 11 free passes.  This will be his first time to face the Cubs and as a rookie I wouldn’t want to be in his shoes.

If the Cubs can keep up their hot hitting against the Rockies (which in Coors Field they’ll need to do), then they sure fair well tonight, a 7:35 PM CST start, and continue to grow their 1.5 game advantage on the Cardinals.

So I’m back from England, California, you name it and that means another night up in the 5-2-8. Hindsight is always 20/20 but the ‘07 Cubs might have gassed that game last night and sent Carlos into a tailspin. If it were ‘06 we probably would have headed for the gates early to avoid another night ending in tears, so to speak. The key moment? A classic manufactured run, the kind that don’t make the Baseball Tonight highlights but keep the ‘W’ column clicking.

It started in the 8th with an error, a hit batsman, and an epic ten pitch At Bat involving Fukodome and Heilman, resulting in a single and loaded bases. Two ugly outs later, Cedeno lashed a neat single up the middle and for all intents and purposes the Mets were dead. Jorge Sosa proved it by coming in and serving up a home run pitch to Pie.

Point is, as a Cubs fan, you can now feel comfortable when the balance of the game hangs on guys like Cedeno/Theriot/Fontenot et al. I’m of the opinion that these guys are growing up quite nicely in front of us, and it’s no longer “leave it up to the bullpen” or “leave it up to the 3-4-5 hitters”. Whether it’s the stretch-run and playoff experience of last year, better chemistry, confidence, whatever, I don’t know. But I do know this- no more hiding behind the couch with one eye closed waiting for the worst. If this team continues to seal games like last night’s, they’ll only get stronger as the year goes on. And that’s bad news if you’re listening in Milwaukee or Saint Louis.

Or should I say the Cubs?  The Pirates are in town for a three game series starting today after getting swept by the Cubs in three games last week.  The Cubs will look to build upon their success last week in Pittsburgh as Rich Hill returns to the rotation to take on Ian Snell.

Hill has struggled lately with his control, which is the key part of the lefty’s game.  In order to be effective Hill has to be able to located his big slow curve in the strike zone and not leave a meatball out over the plate.  Rich had a no-decision against the Pirates in his last outting, giving up 3 runs in 3 innings work, while he surrendered four walks and three hits.  The Cubs went on to win that game by a 7-3 margin, while Hill got a no decision.

Right handed hurler Ian Snell will face the Cubs for the first time this season today.  2-0 in his first three starts, Snell has gotten through 6 innings in each of his starts, and into the 7th in one of them, providing some inning eating ability to an generally weak Pirates pitching staff.  Snell comes into today’s game with a 3.93 ERA with 20 hits, four walks and 15 strikeouts in 18 and a third innings of work.  Pretty decent numbers overall.

The Cubs have hit for average against Snell, but not for much power.  Guys like Derrek Lee, Aramis Ramirez and Ryan Theriot have all faired well in the past with each sporting higher than a .325 batting average with nine runners batted in.

The Cubs are looking for Hill to step up to the plate and start to regain some of his form from last season.  If he gets roughed up again today I wouldn’t be surprised to see him relegated to the bullpen full time or even sent down to Iowa some time in the next week with either Jon Lieber, Sean Marshall, or Sean Gallagher to get the oppurtunity to start.  The first guess of these would be Lieber, based on his performance so far, but Marshall provides another southpaw.  Of course, I don’t want to get ahead of ourselves…Hill is a good young player going through a rough patch and I’d really like to see him get on track.

Its been two games since we’ve done a recap or a preview over here at From Wrigley and I apologize, its been a hectic week, and no one else has had time to write anything for the site either. Hopefully that will change in the next couple of weeks. Anyway, I’ll get to today’s preview in another post, what I’d like to do now is what I suppose we’ll call the week in review. Pretty self explanatory, right? Then lets get to it.

• Soriano’s to the 15 day DL after straining his calf after one of his “hops.” Says Soriano, “It was the step after the hop.” Says Me, “Bullshit.”
• With Soriano’s stint on the DL Eric Patterson rejoins the club, promptly flies out to Cubs perennial prospect an ultimate team disappointment, his brother Corey.
• Marquis didn’t suck in the series finale in Phillie. In other news, Hell hath frozen over.
• Dempster continues to perform well, if giving up 4 in 6 innings is good that is. Still better than expected remains the norm for our good friend Dumpster Dempster.
• Zambrano is back into form. Apparently the bananas didn’t, in fact, plug him up, Ronnie.
• Good news, Lilly at least got through 6 innings in his Thursday start against the Reds. Bad news, he gave up 5 runs in doing so, a total that the Cubs didn’t get to.
• Derrek Lee is a monster at the plate. Like Hell he was totally healthy last season. He’s already eclipsed his home run total for the first half of last season and we are 3 weeks into the ‘08 campaign.
• Its official, Zambrano will be playing the part of Gargomel and Mike Fontenot will be playing Surfer-Smurf in the all new live action “Smurfs In Chicago” film set to debut next fall. Say the casting directors, “We loved watching Big Z pretend to hammer Fontenot into the ground in pre-game the other day, we are looking for that kind of chemistry on set.”

Finally, the Cubs going into today are 3-3 in the last seven days (these ‘week in reviews’ will run Friday to Friday), dropping two in Phillie and one at home against the Reds.

Ok, so maybe you don’t know that Sublime song, but that doesn’t matter.  What does matter is that the Cubs are opening up an eight game homestand tonight against NL Central opponents, the Cincinnati Reds.  The Cubs and Reds have been dueling for over a hundred years and it is a little odd to be facing them for the first time so late in the season.  It seems like every season opener either the Cubs are in Cincy, or they are up here.

But I digress, if you’re reading right now you’re interested in the upcoming game, not my prattlings on the history surrounding these two clubs.  The Cubs are going up against 6th year starter, and Reds’ staff ace Aaron Harang.  Taking the hill for the Cubs tonight is the only starting pitcher that has had a quality start every time out this season, and I can’t believe I’m not making this up, Ryan Dempster.  I don’t think anyone, myself at the top of that list, had any faith in Dempster’s ability to be quality starter for the Cubs.  Or any other team for that matter.  But here we are, he’s got three starts under his belt, and has played the role Carlos Zambrano should be starring in.

Lets take a look at Aaron Harang, shall we?  Harang has come into his own the last couple of seasons, notching 16 wins in each of the last two campaigns while sporting a career 4.11 ERA.  One thing is for sure about Harang, he strikes a lot of people out, tallying 216 and 218 fans, respectively, in 2006 and 2007, while only issuing 108 free passes in the same time frame.  From Harang you can look for a study diet of low 90s fastballs while using his slider and a very effective change that he works in and out of the strike zone all day long.  That is of course, assuming he’s hitting his spots.  When he’s a little bit off he tends to leave his fastball up in the zone, which has come back to bite him in the past with the long ball.  The Cubs should also probably look to run on Harang and battery mate Javier Valentin.  Valentin has above average arm strength and a quick release, but Harang doesn’t hold runners well and takes his time to delivery the ball.  Someone with a good jump, like Pie, Soriano, Theriot, or Fukudome should be able to swipe a few bases between them.

The Cubs have had moderate success against the big Reds’ righty, especially when it comes to the long ball.  Derrek Lee has gone yard four times and Aramis Ramirez three times on Harang, knocking in a total of twelve runs.  The rest of the team has largely faired so-so against Harang, and Geovany Soto will look to continue the path he’s on both this season and against Harang, whom he is 3-4 with two doubles against.

Not much to be said right now about Dempster except that I hold my breath and expect this fantasy to end.  His performances have been great and he really got cheated out of a win in Pittsburgh last Wednesday.  I don’t think he had the same stuff he had in his first  start last Wednesday, but he was efficient and located his pitches well, leaving in the seventh after throwing 98 pitches.  Against the current batch of Reds, Dempster has given up an awful lot of hits across the board, in 90 at-bats the Reds are hitting .289 against him.  But this is a different Dempster than we’ve seen in the past, so its hopefully going to be a different story today.  Fortunately on a team of home run smashers, only one has been hit against Ryan, during the 4th inning of a Cubs 8-4 loss on September 30th of last year.

The FromWrigley.com pick to click (is that phrase copyrighted?  Its got to be…anyway….) is going to be Aramis Ramirez.  If Ramirez can get ahead in the count against Harang he should get a fastball that he can really pound at.  Pie is also back in the lineup today (or at least when I was looking at the projected lineups earlier he was) and if he gets on base, he’s a good candidate to swipe a couple of bases.  I figure that he’s really coming off an emotional high from his game winning hit last week and needs to stay amped up and continue to grow as a better hitter.

Its been a busy weekend, so I haven’t had time to write or research much for today’s post. The Cubs have dropped two straight and are looking to Jason Marquis (de-suck) to get them back on track. He really needs to throw well today. You can’t say it enough right now, our starting pitching, thought to be a strong suit going into the season, is really in the tank. You know things are jacked up when the best starter for the team so far is Ryan Dempster.

Today Soto has a day off, with Blanco the other half of the Cubs battery. Back in the lineup is Fukudome who had a day off yesterday. He’s hitless in the last couple of games, and hopefully will get back on track. Thats all I’ve got for the moment.