Cubby-Blue

Crazy weather at Wrigley, Cubs come from behind to beat Cards.

Wow, that was some crazy weather at Wrigley Field yesterday, wasn't it?
Well, I mean probably it was crazy.
Actually, don't even ask me because how would I know?
I'm in Orlando.
I didn't see any of the game at all.

But I guess it was SOME kinda pitching duel between Matt Garza and Jaime Garcia, and at the end the Cubs pulled out a walk off win when Joe Mather knocked in Bryan LaHair and Geovany Soto.
Big drama with the down-to-the-last-strike thing, and Mather came through.
(Didn't we just do a "rare" post?)
And judging from some of the tweets I read, LaHair must have had an incredible at-bat against burly Jason Motte with 6 pitches in a row fouled off and finally a walk.

Cubs 3 Cardinals 2.

Wow.

So now with Marlon Byrd gone, newly acquired and thrilled-to-be-a-Cub Michael Bowdon joins the team's bullpen today, and surely he'll get right to work.
They made room for him on the roster by DFA-ing Rodrigo Lopez who could stay with the team if he clears waivers and you know, wants to.

This drawing is from this month's Vine Line.

 

 

Phil Humber threw a perfect game. How rare is that?!

Wow!
Phil Humber threw a perfect game for the White Sox!
That's like, TOTALLY AMAZING but...the hell with that, brother.
Because the Chicago Cubs got a win yesterday against the Cincinnati Reds! 
How rare is that?
4 runs in the second inning?
Paul Maholm going 6 innings and giving up just 4 hits and one run?
And then that white cloth rectangle with the blue W on it goes up the flagpole?
Well in the short experience we've had with the 2012 season - it's happened just 4 times.
Pretty dang rare.

I guess that's better than 1997, when the Cubs started out with fourteen straight losses.
But I sort of feel like wins this year will be more rare than even '97, when the Cubs got just sixty eight. 

So Dempster's on the DL, Marlon Byrd and about $6 mil now reside in Boston, Tony Campana and Randy Wells are back, and the Cubs have a new reliever in righty Michael Bowdon.

All in all, a kind of rare day for our favorite team.

One more blue W flag on Sunday and the Cubs can win their first series of '12!
LOOK! A LEPRECHAUN!  

 

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! I'm a Cub Fan.

When I first moved into my office, the person before me had put stuff up on the walls with those little square double-sided sticky things which, once pulled off, lifted not just the paint but a layer of the drywall. 
I have this gigantic bulletin board that I use to organize all my projects, and I used it to hide most of the offensive wall-area.
But before I did it, because I'm 12, I drew on the walls.
Making little horrified screaming faces with mouths where the ripped off part of the paint was.
Long time to get here, sorry.
Anyway, we're renovating the offices, so I'm moving to a temp one while that happens.
Yesterday I had Emily's radio on listening to the game and just as I pulled off the gigantic bulletin board, the Reds were in the process of dismantling the Cubs in the first inning.
The little screaming faces were revealed with perfect timing.
I just added some tacks in the eyes and the "AHHHHHH. I'M A CUB FAN" quote.
Because you know what?
Until this team wins a series, or shows any kind of life whatsoever, all we'll be hearing is that they may end up making history with their awfulness. 
That 100 losses is alot more plausible than before the season started.
And I can't really argue with them.
Kerry Wood went to the 15 day dl and he was replaced by the awful Scott Maine.
Who I'll never forget when he debuted against Boston last year.
Not only that, but apparenty Ryan Dempster is headed for the DL as well with a bum leg.
You guys are surely familiar with Bulls' Stud Derrek Rose - it's almost comedic in the way his injuries connect like this song:
 

And we all know what happens when something goes wonky with a pitcher - it just means something else is going to go wonky and that wonky thing will make something else go wonky and on and on until long, extended rest and healing.
So Randy Wells, you probably get to be Ryan Dempster for an extended while, and Scott Maine is Kerry Wood, and meanwhile the entire Cubs' season so far is not unlike yesterday's first inning against the Reds.
A deep, dark hole with no hope of getting out.

I'm working on a plan, however, so that I don't just have to draw exploding heads and people gouging out their eyes a hundred times this season.
(Although for a minute there I was considering simply doing the exact same gouging-eyes-out subject matter over and over again in different media for the entire season but....maybe a little too Andy Kaufman for me.)
Anyway, can't tell you what it is yet.

I can tell you it's almost time for game 2 of this Cubs/Reds series, and today it'll be Paul Maholm of Oh and Two and 13.5 ERA fame taking the mound for our favorite team.
Please, Paul Maholm, do something that includes strikes and outs.

 

 

Cubs Schwept. (Cubs cartoon)

 

What a crap day.
And night.
Jeff Samardzija had a buncha walks and only lasted 3.2 innings.
Plus 5 Earnies (I heard Keith Moreland say that the other day, cracked me up.)
Nowhere near giving up on him, though.
I was driving to a meeting when Sarah Spain came on ESPN and said the Cubs were down.
What?!
I thought it was a night game.
Turned on 'GN right when Darwin Barney hit the triple and drove in 3.
Had the top down, let out a satisfying "ALL RIGHT BAAAAAARRRRRNNEEEEEEYYYYYYYYY!"

Turned out to be the high point of yesterday's miserable 24 hours.

I found out they lost 3-5 on the way back to the office.
Which meant they...didn't win a game in Miami.
Schwept.
Dammit.

Then like everybody else I turned on the Hawks game.
Stupid way to start with the lame fight, and then a stupid way to end.

Oh well, may you find the correct ingredients and your gin and tonics taste fabulous throughout this lengthy summer.

Now it's the Reds and then Cardinals at home.
Must...try...to...get....psyched...UP!!!

Go Cubs! 

 

So far, this Cubs season feels like punishment.

Well, that wasn't any fun.

Last night, with Matt Garza on the mound and a lineup of Johnson, Barney, Castro, Soriano, Baker, Stewart, Soto, Byrd and 3 pitchers... the Cubs got 6 hits and 1 run to the Marlins' 14 hits and 9 runs.
A quick glance at the stats after the first dozen games shows the Cubs are last in all of baseball in homers, and probabaly average about 25th or 26th in the rest of the main categories except walks, where they're 20th.
Team pitching?
25th in ERA, 14th in walks with 40 (the Pads lead by a landslide 61!), 10th in strike outs with 95.

Which leads to our favorite team almost leading baseball in losses with 9 (KC also has 9, the Padres have 10). 

I'm seriously busy as usual, so I missed most of last night's game.
The minute I turned on the tube Lendy Castillo was groovin' a fastball to Miami pitcher Mark Buehrle, who smacked it into right and got himself an RBI.
I watched Lendy for a minute or two, Jose Reyes hit a sac fly and another run scored.
Zero to 7.

Went into another room to think.

What does this feel like right now?
Punishment.
Repetitive punishment.

When I was in 6th grade we had this teacher, Mr. Palmer, and his punishment was making us write pages.
Pages and pages of "I must obey classroom rules" in cursive, single spaced, on lined notebook paper.
You spoke during class?
"10 pages, Souers."
You looked around during a test?
"50 pages, Souers."
You said, "For what?"
"60 pages, Souers."
It easily would add up maybe a hundred or two during the course of a week.
In everybody's spare time, they'd be writing pages.
We finally decided to make a club of about 10 kids, and we pooled our pages for normal wear and tear of everyday school.
Palmer wasn't a bad guy.
If he got 50 pages from somebody and the writing was obviously from 6 different hands, he'd look the other way. 
It meant, however, a whole year of never ending punishment, because the club had demands too.

And that's what this feels like.
"I will wait til next year. I will wait til next year. I will wait til next year..."

Not like we did anything bad, it's just the way it is.
Plus, we've known 2012 was gonna be like this from the Theo get-go.

Who knows - it's still super early.
Maybe they'll gel or something.
Trades will happen and we'll see some new faces. 
In the meantime, get out your pencils. 

So Raffi Torres is suspended indefinitely, and they'll have a hearing on Friday I think.
The one good thing about Torres' disgusting, cowardly, revolting hit on Hossa is that it has resulted in a giant national conversation about how stupid hockey is.
I mean, it's a gorgeous game.
The head hockey guys just have to figure that out.

Lastly lastly, I got an email last night informing me that Cubby Blue won a "Santo" award for best original content from the guys over at Boys of Spring, where Tim Sheridan (the Cubs P.A. announcer for ST games) made a vid. 
Thanks Tim!