Some people are always looking for omens.  I know a guy who is pretty sure the number of red lights he hits on the way into work is a telltale sign of what kind of work day he’s going to have.  The same guy thinks nobody notices that he has a hare lip.  And no, the guy isn’t Dave Wannstedt.

If you are looking for omens for the Cubs, you’re probably less than enthused by what you’ve found so far.

I guess it’s good that you can go 6-11 in a 17 game stretch and actually gain two games on the division leader.  But come on, you know that you’re going to look at the Cubs’ failure to get even with the Brewers during this stretch with much regret later on in the season.

Bad omens?  No matter if it’s spelled bad omen or bad Ohman, there have been lots of examples so far this year.

Just yesterday the Cubs got shut out by Byung Hyung Kim for six innings.  This is a guy who can’t say awake for six innings much less concentrate enough to shut a team out.

How about losing an extra inning game in which you don’t allow a hit in extra innings?

How about playing “you think that loss was brutal, top this?” with great regularity.

Which loss was worse:

a) Blowing a four run lead in the bottom of the ninth to the Mets who had benched most of their starters that day.
b) Scoring six runs in an inning in Philadelphia to come back from the dead to take the lead, and then giving up six  in the next half inning.
c) Turn a 5-1 deficit into an 8-5 lead in the seventh in LA with one of the most impressive innings of Cubs’ offensive baseball in…well…forever, only to give up four runs in the bottom of the eighth and lose.

And I had to narrow down the list just to settle on those three.  That doesn’t even include the total collapse against the Reds when Carlos Zambrano lost it, Ohman bounced a couple of curveballs and after the damage had been done, Mike Wuertz struck out the side with the bases loaded.

Much of the team’s problems stem from the fact that (again) the roster has been poorly constructed.  Only the Cubs could have five outfielders and play four of them out of position.  Signing Cliff Floyd was a good idea.  Signing him when you couldn’t get rid of Jock Jones was less of a good idea.  Spring training should have been the time to teach Alfonso Soriano to play right field.  Instead, they tried him in center, despite the fact that their top prospect plays center.  He failed, which hurt Matt Murton most of all.  Murton can’t play right field.  He makes Jock look like Andre Dawson Jeromy Burnitz out there.

The infield is in decent shape, largely because the best corner infield combination in the National League is in place.  The Cubs have a real problem though in the middle infield.  Ryan Theriot needs to play every day.  He’s passable at shortstop, especially when your only other option is Cesar Izturis (though, I’ll hand it to Cesar he’s played pretty well of late). But because of the Cubs’ logjams of mediocrity they can’t use Mark DeRosa in the role he’s best suited for.  That of a utility guy who plays more than most utility guys.  So he ends up playing Theriot’s best position most of the time.

I’ve said it before and Lord knows I’ll end up saying it again, but the biggest problem with this team is the way it was put together.  There was no plan.  Just a GM with a wad of cash and a free agent list.  He offered money to everybody and signed the ones who’d take it.  That’s a hell of a way to put a team together, and the sad part is that the approach was actually better than the one Cubs’ teams have been using for nearly a century.  Woof.

We spent the weekend on the message board arguing about just how much damage stupid little Michael Barrett does to the team whenever he puts his shin guards on.  It’s my opinion that he’s doing irreparable damage to the Cubs’ chances in close games.  Poor pitch calling, terrible defensive fundamentals and incomprehensible in-game decisions are pretty much his calling cards.  And he’s developing new and even more annoying habits all the time.  This year, more than any other, he’s given to exaggerated gestures behind the plate when he’s calling pitches.  The most annoying of which is when he wants a pitch to be low he smacks his mitt on the ground to emphasize it.  You see other catchers do it from time to time, though they are nearly always careful to not actually reach the ground with the glove, to avoid making it obvious to the hitter.  Not Michael, he not only does it frequently, he might as well announce it to the hitter.  “Hey, listen up, I’m going to smack the ground, so that sound you hear is me…smacking the ground.”  But more damaging than that is that when he wants a pitch up, he signals it by raising his glove above his head just before the pitch.  That move pretty much guarantees that the next pitch will be called a ball.
And why not, you basically just told the umpire “This one’s going to be high and out of the strike zone.  So call it there.”  Even when the pitch is lower than Barrett’s exaggerated target, it’s going to be a ball.  Again, while some catchers do it occasionally (say in 0-2 counts), Michael does it constantly.

I’m not advocating that Henry Blanco become the every day catcher.  But the Cubs need to find a front line catcher with actual defensive aptitude.  They’ve already made Hank Carlos’ personal catcher because Carlos is 2-3 with a 7.07 ERA when Michael catches him and 3-1 with a 3.27 ERA when Hank does.  Most damning is that his K/BB numbers are 22/24 with Barrett and 29/8 with Hank.  It’s not a new phenomenon.  In past years, Carlos has worked better with Hank than Michael.  The reason is obvious to even the most casual observer.  Hank forces Carlos to throw his sinking fastball more than Michael does.  It’s Carlos’ best pitch, it works against righties and lefties and when he’s on it generates either swings and misses or ground balls.  The more sinkers, the fewer homers he allows, too.  This is a guy who allowed only 9 homers in 2003 (in 214 innings)  He’s on pace this year to give up 39.  Thirty-nine!

The only thing saving the Cubs right now is how bad the NL Central is.  It’s terrible.  The Brewers got off to a good start and all of a sudden they were supposed to be a dominant team?  They came back to earth, and are now showing signs of tunneling under it.  But the Cubs are still closer to last place (4.5 games) than first (five games.)  The Cardinals are so bad it’s funny and they are only 1.5 behind the Cubs.

Jim Hendry was quoted yesterday as saying that if the Cubs are still in it, he has the money and authority to make some moves.  I’ve got news for him.  The moves need to be made now.  When Phil Rogers recognizes that Felix Pie fits the team better than Jock Jones it has to be obvious.

Pie gives you excellent defense and great speed.  He’s done nothing at AAA but hit.  He was hitting over .400 when the Cubs called him up in April.  He’s hit .400 since they sent him back this month.  But people are afraid he’ll flounder if given the every day job in Wrigley.

What if he hit .214 with an on base average of .263 and slugged only .343 with 11 K’s and four walks to go with a homer and only 9 RBI in his next 70 at bats?  That’d be terrible, right.  You’d have to send him back to Iowa, because he’d be killing the Cubs.  Right?

That’s Jock’s May.  Lou is platooning Jock to protect him from facing lefties (he’s hitting .211 against them this year).  Why not bring Felix up and platoon him with Angel Pagan?

Felix has nothing else to learn in Iowa.  He’s been there more than a year now.  This isn’t rushing Corey Patterson to the majors when he didn’t deserve it.  This is the opposite.  Felix is being blocked by a bad baseball player.  And they wonder why they lose.