How hard is it to pick up a slowly hit grounder and throw it about 75 feet to first base? Apparently, if you are the crack Cubs’ pitching staff, it’s very hard.

The Cubs have played 43 games and their pitchers have made 11 errors. Eleven! How many chances do pitchers even get to make assists in the first place?

Yesterday, it was our boy El Pulpo. He made a great pitch to get Albert Pujols to hit a weak grounder back towards the mound and then Pulpo tossed the ball over the river and into East St. Louis. The ball was then shot and killed by one of the Crips. After all, it may have red laces, but the writing on the ball is all blue.

If it weren’t so pathetic, it’d be funny. Consider that the Cubs defense is bad to begin with. In those 43 games they have 37 errors. The Cardinals have committed 15 errors in 41 games. In case you’re wondering, 15 is good, 37 is very, very bad.

There’s no excuse for it. Who do the Cubs have who’s a lousy fielder? Big Choi is a whiz at first, Eric Karros is too slow to get to anything he can’t handle, Grudzielanek’s a solid second baseman, Alex Gonzalez is having a good year at short, Moises Alou actually has a pulse in left field, Corey’s a top notch center fielder, Sammy’s put his days of throwing the ball over the screen and into the stands in the rearview mirror. Unless Mark Bellhorn has 30 errors, I don’t get it.

A great man once said, “It’s a simple game. You throw the ball. You hit the ball. You catch the ball.” The Cubs are 25-18 despite more erratic throws than a Cade McNown Football Camp. How’d we ever win 25?

It’s a miracle.

Indeed.

Antonio Alfonseca’s horrendous shot put toss to obscurity on Sunday only served to put a damper on what had been a great Cubs win on Saturday.

Mark Prior literally put the Cubs on his back and carried them past St. Louis. He shut them out for seven innings, went three for three at the plate, scored the go-ahead run and managed to shrug off yet another futile attempt by The Genius to rattle him. This time, The Genius came out and argued with the home plate umpire for about an hour and a half during the seventh inning. I had enough time to go buy groceries and have the car washed and waxed while Tony LaRussa whined and cried about the strike zone that day. A strike zone that managed to get Brett Tomko through seven innings while allowing only one run, by the way.

But you could see the Prior was starting to get tired in the seventh. Chris Widger, one of the worst players in the Major League Baseball hit one to the warning track. That’s warning enough. But in the eighth, JD Drew lined one into the gap that Corey Patterson had to do his Superman impersonation to catch up to, making a spectacular diving grab for the first out. Then, 38-year-old superstar Albert Pujols turned on an inside fastball and tied it at one.

A sinking feeling invaded most of Greater Cubdom. We’d seen this movie before.

However, this time the Cubs didn’t fold. Mike Remlinger came in and shut the door in the eighth. Then, Mark Bellhorn led off the ninth with one of the worst at bats ever. He took a few pitches and got ahead 3-1 and then had three of the weakest hacks ever off of Steve Klein. He was barely getting his bat on the ball to stay alive. Then, boom, he takes the next pitch about 385 down the left field line for a go-ahead homer. There is no explanation. Just kick back and enjoy it.

In the ninth, Regular Joe Borowski came in to try and get the save. I encouraged him through the TV to get the leadoff man out “for chrissakes.” He didn’t.

Then, with Edgar Renteria on first, I reminded Regular Joe that teams like to run on him so, “you’d better get your head out of your ass and keep an eye on Edgar.” He didn’t do that, either. Renteria stole second on THE FIRST PITCH. Not only did Regular Joe not throw over to first, he didn’t even look over there. He’s like Flash Gordon, only with an in-tact right arm.

So there it was, the Cardinals, with the tying run on second and nobody out. Thankfully Tino Martinez sucks. Tino grounded out, advancing Edgar to third with one out.

That brought up Miguel Cairo, a man the Cubs lost on the waiver wire in 2000, through some pretty shrewd manuevering by Andy MacPhail. After leading the National League in pinch hits in 2002, Miguel couldn’t hit water this year if he fell out of a boat. The entire stadium knew that the suicide squeeze was coming up. OK, maybe not the “entire” stadium. Even though St. Louis fans are allegedly the “best fans in all of baseball”, they all look like the guy who can’t give you the correct change at window number one at the McDonald’s drive thru.

No squeeze came. But a Cairo pop-up did.

That left it up to Eduardo Perez. You knew at that point that unless Joe completely missed Damian Miller with one of the next three pitches, that the Cubs had it in the bag. Eduardo flew out meekly to Troy O’Leary’s decaying corpse in right and the Cubs had won the kind of 2-1 game that the 2002 Cubs would have turned into a 1-0 eighth inning lead and a 9-1 Cubs loss.

Meanwhile, the White Sox solved their problems by firing hitting coach Gary Ward. This comes two years after they solved their problem by firing hititng coach Von Joshua and hiring Ward. Hmmm. Methinks the solution is not really a solution.

If you didn’t notice, the Sox dumped three in Minnesota and not only are they now five games out of first place, the first place team is the Twins. The Twins, the team the Sox haven’t been able to beat for three years now. In other words. It’s May 19 and the season is over on the south side.

Muahahahahahahaha!

Phil Rogers apparently had a JD Drew for Jon Garland trade rumor. As a Cubs fan, let me be the first to encourage the Cardinals to take that trade. Hey, throw Edmonds in for good measure.

One thing does make sense though. With the Cardinals struggling to find pitching, why don’t the Sox offer up Mark Buherle? Unless Kenny Williams is completely daft (and he just might be), he knows that Buerhle has no intention of signing a long-term contract with the Sox, ever. Why not trade him now, especially if you fear that his slow start is the precursor to the torn labrum that every White Sox pitcher in contractually obligated to suffer?

Hey, it’s just a thought.

OK, include me among the millions who saw “The Matrix Reloaded” this weekend. I’m going to sum up the plot for you, in an easily understandable way. You’re going to thank me for this.

“There is no plot. Just go to watch the cool fight scenes, car chases and flying stuff.”

So there you have it. I liked it, had a good time and have no freakin’ clue what any of it is about.

Roy Jones, Jr. is in the movie and he has about six lines of dialog. He sounds like he’s reading five of them. How hard is it to remember six lines? Especially when he never gives more than two in any once scene? He’d better be in the third one, because Roy didn’t get a damn thing to do in this one. You can’t have the best boxer in the world in your movie and not let him hit somebody.

Jada Pinkett Smith is in the movie, too.

But she’s no Aaliyah. Sigh.

Rick Morrissey from Sunday. You have to read this just for the Mark Prior quotes. How can you not love Mark Prior?

Phil Rogers with another one of his hilariously bad baseball columns. A few things on this one: – He says the Phillie fans are giving Kevin Millwood the “Mike Schmidt treatment.” Really? You mean they’re booing him when he drops his kids off at school? – He says the Mets regret trading for Mo Vaughn. Gee, ya think? – Last Friday night, Chip Caray gave his version of a draft preview when he said that Dmitri Young’s “son” Delmon figured to be the number one pick. Dmitri is 29 years old. So he fathered Delmon when he was 11, Chip? Delmon is actually Dmitri’s little brother. – Rogers says the Cubs will take a Candian pitcher with the sixth pick, because they like to pick pitchers who “slide” like Bobby Brownlie and Mark Prior. Prior “slid” to the second overall pick in the 2001 draft? Perhaps Ben Christenson would have been a better example, there Phil. I can’t believe they pay this guy for this crap.

El Pulpo threw yesterday’s game down the right field line. What he should have done was pull the old Rod Beck move and just nail Pujols in the back with the throw and force the umpire to call Albert for being out of the baseline. But then, that would assume that Pulpo wasn’t trying to do that.

Dusty’s not sure if he likes the thought of Mark Prior pinch hitting. Can’t be worse than Tom Goodwin, can it?

Dusty wants to know why his pitchers can’t field.

It’s all Gary Ward’s fault.

Rick Morrissey says that the pitchers are the leaders now.

Groucho thinks the Bulls could trade their first round pick, Tyson Chandler, Jay Williams, Jalen Rose AND Eddie Robinson to Minnesota for Kevin Garnett. Huh? Why not throw in the Jordan statue and Eddy Curry’s mom, too. I love KG, but that’s too damn much for one guy. Unless his name’s Kobe… Hmm…

A good one on Rod Beck and his home away from home. Out there in parking lot six at Sec Taylor Stadium.

Be afraid, photos of the Shooter.

Hey, the Rush made the playoffs!

ESPN.com on the Shooter’s trailer.

Mariotti puts down the doughnut to mock the White Sox.

Two things about Mike Piazza’s groin strain. 1) So many cheap jokes, so little time. 2) How do you do that, lunging away from a pitch? Yikes.

Marty Burns’ mullet has lots of blame for the Kings to share.

Golfers who like their cash should say nice things about Annika this week.

Some unbelievably good stuff on Michael Jordan’s “reign” in Washington. This is a five-part series and the first and last ones are just awesome. If you still have blind love for MJ, this probably isn’t for you. But if you have come to grips that he’s a great player and not a great guy, you’ll love these.

The Bachelor picked a victim.

Wayne Brady won a daytime Emmy for his talk show. He has a talk show? Really? You’re kidding, right?

Nicholas Bradford is in trouble again. At least when I clicked on this, they coupled this story with an add for a Herpes test. I’m not saying, I’m just saying. Sometimes Eight Is Enough.

What’s better, scuttlebut over college basketball coaching rumors or Supreme Court Justice rumors? Let’s combine them. I think that Tim Floyd and Lon Kruger would make fine justices.

Ari Fleischer is saying so long to the press secretary job.

Newsweek with a great piece on Jayson Blair.

Is it bad that I saw this headline and thought a Playboy bunny had been killed?

This just in, “American Idol’s” Ruben is fat.

Phil Donahue got booed at the NC State graduation ceremony. The good news is, there were more people at graduation than the total number of viewers his MSNBC show ever had.

America’s finest news source gets some man on the street reaction to Gee Dub and Tony Blair being nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.