Cubby-Blue

Brian Urlacher's Knee and Brett Jackson's Strikeouts have a chat. (gif)

Well, there's a couple things that'll give you pause.
Brian Urlacher missed his 5th practice in a row, while Brett Jackson struck out 5 times in a row (going back to his first game).
Lovie Smith and Dale Sveum will try to calm the masses, but that stuff is out there.
Certainly injury is way more worrisome than a habit of striking out.
I've got huge expectations for the Bears this year, and none for the Cubs.
Anyway, these are the things that are lodged in my brain right now.
Sorry to add to your concern.

Brett Jackson debuts, trades blows with the Dodgers all day long. (gif)

Well yeah, the Cubs ended up losing and getting swept, but that was an oddly satisfying game to watch.
Dale Sveum bat Brett Jackson 2nd, which was also odd, but anyway...with Jackson, Anthony Rizzo, Wellington Castillo, Starlin Castro and Darwin Barney (Josh Vitters will play soon, too) on the field all at the same time you sort of got to see what this new Cubs hullaballoo might be about.
The lead changed or tied 8 times, which gave the game an excitement you haven't seen in awhile and showed that the kids have given the Cubs some new kind of life.
Very nice!
I was watching at the Windsor over on Milwaukee with my buddy Brad and despite all the coolness, when we saw Carlos Marmol warming up we both decided to leave immediately.
There was a freshness to this game, and neither of us wanted to re-visit a same old story ending, which I guess happened with Shawn Camp on the mound anyway.

So...something to look forward to!
It'll completely crack me up if these kids get hot and the Cubs end up drafting way later than 1st.
I mean, these kids, they're not exactly strangers, right?
Oh wait, the pitching.
Forgot about that. 

 

Cubs invent new ways to lose vs. the Dodgers.

Ouch.
Joe Mather had a rotten night with the glove.
I mean - PLENTY of effort, right?
But in the end you'll remember Matt Kemp saying he "had a little help" with his game-winning home run that bounced off Mather's glove like a mini-trampoline and then went over the fence.
Later, Mather would make another grand effort, diving at a line drive (can't remember who hit it) and having the ball stick for about .005 of a second, but then roll out.
Mather threw to second while sitting, then continued to sit there, looking at the grass and contemplating life as a Cub.

Chris Volstad pitched well enough to win. 
That's actually a very encouraging thing to say.
All odds against him as he was up against Klayton Kershaw, he pretty much shut the Dodgers down for 7 innings.
Volstad is an enormous man, and he definitely has skills so you just hope he can figure out how to pitch.
More than any year ever, wins don't really mean a thing.
2012 is more like a big long spring training and I half expect the pitchers to say something like "I was working on my cutter today".
It would be nice for Volstad's head to get a win since he hasn't had one forever.
But, you know... no cigar. 

Anthony Rizzo and the Calm Before the Storm.

There's this cool thing Anthony Rizzo does when he's at bat just before the pitcher throws.
We've all seen him long enough to notice it, but until I went to the game the other night and had the awesome seats, I hadn't really.
He stands there and the bat moves back and forth, but pretty much everything else is just...there.
You could say coiled or whatever, but it felt like the calm before the storm to me.
He's not at all like Aramis Ramirez with the Whole Body Swing.
When he swings, it's really like a swat isn't it?
Not a whole lot of effort.
And when he connects, there's a smart boom, and that ball goes a loooong way.

Anthony Rizzo got the National League Rookie of the Month award for July, 2012.
Here are the numbers from Cubs.com:
"In 25 games last month, Rizzo led NL rookies in hits (32), home runs (seven), RBIs (17) and total bases (55) while ranking second in runs scored (14). He also finished third among NL rookies with a .330 batting average, .375 on-base percentage and .567 slugging percentage." 

Those are nothing to sneeze at. 

Not alot to cheer about this year, but man - everybody and I mean everybody I talk to is nothing short of astonished by this guy.
He'll be fun to watch.

 

Almost saw no hitter history last night from AJ Burnett.

We had second row seats behind the Pirates' dugout.
I was seriously scared and never once took my eye off a right handed batter because I've seen the screaming fouls fly into the stands at one million miles per hour.
Truly amazing seats, except I noticed that I was directly behind the "L".


An omen?
Certainly was. 
But we were SO close to Anthony Rizzo!

And also this nice older woman who said she'd sat in this same seat for like 26 years!



Wish I knew how to keep score.
Anyway, you know the story of this game.
It was all AJ Burnett.

He looks kinda locked in here, walking off after the 6th or 7th.
You know I couldn't help myself.
I yelled, "HEY AJ - YOU KNOW YOU'VE GOT A NO HITTER GOING!?"
Not a single Pirate acknowledged my jinxy jerk behavior and I sat down, embarrassed. 

So now it's the bottom of the 8th, I'm sitting with Sutter when Steve Clevenger comes up and promptly grounds out to Rizzo.
To my amazement, Sutter claps and says, "ALL RIGHT!"
I go dude, what are you doing?
"I've never seen a no-hitter." he says.
And the sweet older lady?
Not happy.
"WHY DON'T YOU GO SIT SOMEWHERE ELSE?" she barked.
Then Darwin Barney got hit in the head.
That's ordinarily teffifying, but it appeared to be a glancing blow.
They took him out.
Then Luis Valbuena strikes out.
"WAY TO GO, AJ!" yells Sutter.
"TRAITOR!" barks the old lady.
"I'VE BEEN COMING HERE FOR A LONG TIME. NOTHING WRONG WITH ROOTING FOR A LITTLE HISTORY." Sutter fires back.
"THE CUBS AREN'T GOING ANYWHERE THIS YEAR ANYWAY."
Adrian Cardenas comes up and battles and battles and from where I'm sitting it looked like the ump completely blew what shoulda been a called strike three. 
And then, you know what happened.
Cardenas smokes one to right, the no hitter goes away, the old lady smirks, and after AJ gets that last out we all stand and give him an ovation.

 
Later, I realized I coulda been tweeting awesome live photos from my seat.

But the long story here is this: we'll probably see alot of Coleman or Germano or whoever go about 4 innings, pray for as little damage as possible, and then a parade of bullpen guys.
I don't really care - the end of this story hopefully will be about a Wuh...Wuh...Wuhrld Ssssssssss.

Can't quite say that out loud yet, but you get the idea.