Milton, can you do the hokey pokey?The real opening day is Monday (at Wrigley, during the day, etc.) and we’ll have a GameCast, so stop on by at 1:20 for the first pitch (or whenever it stops raining), but the Cubs were in action on Sunday night, on ESPN, with our favorite announcers Jon Miller, Joe Morgan and Steve Phillips.  So it seemed like a good time to follow and along and see what happened.

Just like when we did this for the US-Japan WBC game, Jon Miller is dressed like a 280 pound canary and Joe couldn’t wait for the opening standup to end before he turned his back to the camera.  He apparently got yelled at by the booth director this time, because he turned around and started shooting dirty looks.  Joe’s a pro.

Jon sets Joe up to talk about Ryan Braun and does it by saying that Braun’s 71 homers in his first two seasons put him in the top five all time, and Joe really earns his keep by breaking it down thusly:

“He had 34 homers one year and 37 the other.”  Thanks.  Nice job.

Steve says something about how Alfonso Soriano is in the best shape of his life and blah, blah, blah.  Not interesting.  Steve, we’d rather you tell us about how you had to meet Mo Vaughn at a strip club to get him to sign his contract.

The good timing award goes to Jon, who says just before the first pitch that, “Soriano is third all-time with 50 leadoff homers.”  One pitch later it’s 51.  And he’s only two behind the Beege now.  At his current pace this season, the Beege is toast before the Cardinals leave town next weekend.

Then Steve starts to tell us how Kosuke Fukudome’s patience rubbed off on the other Cubs last season.  We all know this is bullshit.  It was year two of Lou and Gerald Perry threatening to strangle Cubs’ hitters if they didn’t see more pitches, it was the first full season for Ryan Theriot, Jock Jones was gone, catcher wasn’t an offensive black hole any more, etc, etc.  But nice try.  Instead of talking about last year, Steve could have talked about how Kosuke had eight hits in his last three games.  But no.

Kosuke does walk while Steve is talking about it, which is nice, and then Derrek Lee hits another six hopper to short (by my unofficial count the 12th he’s hit already this year–and it’s unofficial because I’m making it up, but it’s a lot already).

Are we surprised that Soriano is off to a good start, though?  The Cubs opened in nice, climate controlled domes (well, Miller Park isn’t heated or air conditioned–it’s basically a big green barn with a glass roof).  We’ll see how this carries over at Wrigley this week when he tries to play left field in a snowmobile suit.

Now something happens that I’m uncomfortable with.  Joe starts to talk about E-ramis shouldn’t be batting fifth.  He even says that the biggest reason for it is that he’s the Cubs’ best player and batting him lower means fewer at bats for him.  I’m in shock.  Did I really hear that?  Then Joe says that it’s nice to have a lineup with lefties and righties alternating but the most important thing is to bat your best batters higher.  (Again, I’m stunned.)  Then he says, “You just bat them together and circumvent the rest.”  What?  Was that English?

Bottom 1, Cubs 1, Brewers 0

Dempster begins the inning so wild that you would have thought it was a playoff game.  He ends up intentionally walking Prince to load the bases, which would norally be followed by an unintentional walk, but this time JJ Hardy flies to center to score Weeks.  Kosuke throws to third, instead of the doing the typical Cubs’ outfielder trick of throwing home at all costs, and letting the other runners advance.  Dempster thanks Kosuke by throwing a wild pitch and advancing both runners.  Guh.  Midget Face flies to center to end the inning.

Top 2, Cubs 1, Brewers 1

Jon shows his age by referring to Mike Fontenot as former Cubs pitcher Ray Fontenot.  Joe then adds to the confusion by explaining that Theriot and Fontenot played together in the minors “in Ohio.”  Iowa, Ohio, whatever.

The ESPN cameras zoom in on the right shoe of Koyie Dolan Hill and Steve explains that on Friday Koyie fouled a ball off his foot (wrong, he got hit by a pitch) and he has some swelling in his foot and the Cubs don’t want the foot to rub on the shoe so, “They opened up his foot.”  Wow, that’s barbaric.  It’s also wrong, they cut a hole in his shoe to let his foot ooze out a little.

Bottom 2, Cubs 1, Brewers 1

Joe grabs a shovel and the bullshit starts flying.  For some reason he and Steve compare Soriano’s swing to Hank Aaron.  Joe says that they’re different because Hank’s swing was designed to hit groundballs.  Hence all of those groundball homers Hank hit.

Then, Joe says that later in his career, Hank decided to break Babe Ruth’s record (yes, one day he just decided to do it, apparently) so he started pulling pitches to hit more homers.  He says this happened just around the time the Braves moved to Atlanta.

Hank Aaron averaged 33 homers per season with the Milwaukee Braves.  He averaged 37 homers per season with the Atlanta Braves.  Joe’s right.  He decided to hit four more homers a year to ramp up his chase at the Babe.  Who knew?

Top 3, Cubs 1, Brewers 1

Things get uncomfortable for me again, as Steve Phillips starts to explain why Alfonso Soriano should not be leading off.  Joe contends that just because a player has one skill (in this case, power) it doesn’t mean it will translate to another part of the lineup.  His argument is simply, Soriano plays better leading off, so let him lead off and enjoy his success.  Steve argues, sensibly, that Soriano didn’t want to move to the outfield, but did it, and is now a passable big league outfielder.  You could argue (though Steve didn’t) that Soriano is worth more as a leftfielder because his defense there is average or better where at second it was completely shitty.  Steve’s argument centers around Soriano not getting on base enough and not running anymore.

How’s this for timing?  While Steve is arguing this, Soriano walks, and steals second.  You can’t make this up.

Bottom 3, Cubs 1, Brewers 1

Joe says that Brewers’ bench coach Willie Randolph is helping Rickie Weeks out with his “rhythm.”  So many jokes, so little time (and too many NAACP representatives.)  This will be made more absurd later on.  Trust me.

Steve says he asked Prince Fielder before the game what his favorite part of the game is.  Oooh, let’s play along!

Is it:

a) The postgame spread
b) All the Gatorade you can drink
c) Hitting
d) the pregame spread?

Apparently it was c.  Damn, so close.

Prince hits the ball right into the exaggerated shift the Cubs use against him, but Mike Fontenot inexplicably starts to wander around the outfield before throwing to first, allowing Prince to chug down the line and beat the throw.  Fontegnome redeems himself when the next batter, JJ Hardy hits one that he dives for and throws him out to end the inning.

What was almost lost in all of the excitement, was Joe’s failed attempt to make a terrible argument about how you can tell what pitches a catcher can’t hit by what pitches he calls for when he’s catching.  I just made more sense explaining it than Joe did, and that didn’t make any sense.

Top 4, Cubs 1, Brewers 1

Jon apologizes for calling Mike Fontenot “Ray” earlier.  Joe says, “That’s OK, I call Prince “Cecil” a lot.”  I doubt that makes Jon feel better.

Steve and Jon talk about OPS (a player’s on base average added to his slugging percentage) and Joe chimes in that it doesn’t work because some hitters have a good on base average and bad slugging percentage or vice versa.

Uh…doesn’t it kind of point that out?  Let’s use two examples, from the Cubs last year.

Ryan Theriot.  Gets on base, can’t hit for any power.  2008 – On base average – .387 (pretty good!), Slugging .359 (awfully bad), OPS – .745 (decent, not all that great)
Alfonso Soriano Slugging 2007 – .532 (pretty good), on base average – .344 (not that good), OPS – .876 (pretty good, not great)

Uh, Joe.  I think it works.

While this chatter is going on, the Cubs are having a strange inning.  Milton Bradley gets hit in the leg with a pitch.  With one out, Fontegnome walks.  Theriot singles, but Milton doesn’t try to score, and we get the always unpleasant sight of Mark O’Neal on the field.  We learn later from Lou that Milton felt his groin tighten (hello!) and they took him out before he could hurt himself.  (Since it’s going to rain at some point tomorrow, chances are Milton won’t play againt until Wednesday–but that’s just my prediction.)

With the bases loaded and one out this really happens:

Jeff Suppan walks Koyie Dolan Hill with the bases loaded.  Seriously, Koyie!  2-1 Cubs.

Joe now thinks Soriano is up and can hit a grand slam.  Uh…Koyie’s not good, but even he doesn’t bat ninth.

Prince elects to play in front of Koyie at first, which means Koyie can’t see…anything.  It’s an eclipse.  Dempster grounds to third.  Incredibly the Brewers don’t throw to first after forcing the runner at home.  So just two out.

Soriano walks…again.  Up yours, Steve Phillips.  3-1, Cubs.

Kosuke is up, and Suppan is still in.  Kosuke walks.  4-1, Cubs.

Finally, Ken Macha takes Suppan out.  He brings in Jorge Julio, who…

…walks Derrek Lee.  5-1, Cubs.

The inning ends with four runs on one hit!

Bottom 4, Cubs 5, Brewers 1

Midget Face leads off with a homer.  5-2.

Jorge Julio’s token at bat is hilariously bad.  So bad it reminds me that Nationals pitcher Daniel Cabrera has batted 16 times in his career and struck out 16 times.  Wow.

Top 5, Cubs 5, Brewers 2

The guys interview the electric Ken Macha and he refers to his team in the third person.  “Dempster gives the Brewers trouble.”  Look Ken, I’m careful not to refer to the Cubs as “we” or “us”, but if I worked for them I probably would.

Jon says that the Brewers have hit more than 420 homers the past two full seasons.  Joe says that’s there problem, they score 40 percent of their runs on homers, they need to learn to “hit more line drive singles.”  But doesn’t 40 percent sound like a reasonable number?

Steve points out that Macha has two coaches on his staff who interviewed for his job.  Hitting coach Dale Sveum and bench coach Willie Randolph.  So yeah, Bob Brenly is the only guy to interview to manage the Brewers who doesn’t work for them now.  That’s kind of embarassing, really.

With Fontegnome on first, Theriot doubles over a hapless Ryan Braun to score Fonty.  Six to two Cubs.  Then, something amazing happens.  Theriot notices that Julio is not paying attention to him at second and steals third without a throw.  See, THAT’S WHEN YOU DO THAT!  When you can get a running lead and the pitcher doesn’t notice.

Dempster bunts with two outs.  Why?  That’s just dumb.  If you’re going to give up, just stand there and see if Julio can throw three of his next seven pitches for strikes.  I bet he can’t.

Bottom 5, Cubs 6, Brewers 2

Remember when I said the “rhythm” thing would get worse?  It’s here.  ESPN is showing old clips of Dave Concepcion and Joe turning double plays and they are playing music to it.  Oh, make it stop.  And by the way, Concepcion sucked.  He was basically Ivan DeJesus on a better team.

Joe says he misses Mark DeRosa and that “he was a good player.”  Does Joe think Mark died?  He’s in Cleveland.  I mean that’s close to death, but it’s not complete.

Dempster just needs to get throught this inning to qualify for a win.  He takes a funny approach.

Weeks singles.  Counsell singles.  He hits Braun with a pitch (with an 0-2 count).

Uh oh.

Prince is up and he hammers one to right.  ESPN follows the flight of the ball in such a way that it looks like it will land in Waukesha.  But wait, there’s Reed Johnson!  He reaches over the wall and catches it!  He saves three runs!  Holy crap.  Milton’s injury just paid off to the tune of three runs.

Dempster gives one more run back as Hardy grounds to third to drive in a run.  But when Midget Face K’s to end the inning it’s 6-4 Cubs, and not 6-6.   Holy crap.

Top 6, Cubs 6, Brewers 4

On the replay of Reed’s amazing catch, he’s right in front of the Cubs’ bullpen, and you can see all of the guys there not watching him, but watching it on a TV monitor, and they all start to jump up and down just after he makes the catch.  Pretty cool.

Derrek Lee hits another six hopper to the left side, this time to third.

The classy Brewers fans then cheer as Julio hits Reed in the back.  Reed gives a “What the fuck?” look and jogs to first.

Bottom 6, Cubs 6, Brewers 4

When Joe starts a story “I never get tired of telling this one…”  you know we’re going to be tired of hearing it.

Phildo Rogers is proud that Casey McGehee hits an infield single to start the Brewers sneak attack.  Alas, the inning ends with him still on first.

Top 7, Cubs 6, Brewers 4

ESPN says that Chris Berman is hosting SportsCenter tonight.  Note to self (and all of North America) do not watch SportsCenter tonight.

Bottom 7, Cubs 6, Brewers 4

The new Cubs’ pitcher is Sean Marshall.

Joe explains that the Brewers haven’t “really replaced CC or Sheets” and that “they need to get more from guys like Prince and Braun.”  Holy crap, they’re going to make those guys pitch?

Marshall works through Counsell, Braun and Prince 1-2-3.

Top 8, Cubs 6, Brewers 4

Joey Gathright hits for Marshall and walks.  He’s the TENTH Cub to walk tonight.  Wow.  Now that he’s on first, he HAS to run.  Who knows better than us that Jason Kendall can’t throw?

Seth McClung is pitching and his pickoff throws are terrible, so he basically just wanders off the mound, over and over and over again.

Gathright steals second anyway.  (Though it kind of looked like he was out.)

Counsell robs Soriano of a single, fully pulling one out of his ass and beating him by a step at third.  Gathright’s still at second.

Fukky singles to left, but it’s right at Braun, so Gathright can only advance to third.

Lee is up with a chance to hit into a crippling double play, but he hammers one to the wall in right, Hart catches it, but Gathright tags and scores.  7-4 Cubs.

Bottom 8, Cubs 7, Brewers 4

The Marmot is in to pitch the eighth.  This gives the crew ample chances to pick at Lou’s decision to use Gregg as the closer.  Look, we’ve been through this.  Marmol is by far the Cubs’ best reliever, and using him as a setup man allows Lou to use him whenever.  Like today in the eighth, or yesterday in the ninth.  Until Gregg completely shits the bed (which, admittedly could happen at any time) this makes sense.  Just go with it.

Marmol overmatches Hardy and Hart for strikeouts and Duffy tries to avoid striking out by just popping up to E-ramis.  That was easy.

Top 9, Cubs 7, Brewers 4

Theriot walks (the ELEVENTH of the night for the Cubs).  Koyie rips a double into the corner, Braun takes forever to get there and Theriot scores without a play.  8-4 Cubs.

The ESPN crew talks about Bob Uecker.  I love Bob Uecker.  I don’t like the Brewers, but I like him.  He’s hilarious.  His book “Catcher in the Wry” is hysterical, and it pisses me off when Cubs’ fans boo him when he sings the stretch.  It’s ignorant.  He’s one of the few guys who came up with a decent way of handling the “root root” part of the song.  He simply sings “I’ll root, root, root for the Brewers, and you do the same for the Cubs…”

Oh, well.

Gregg is pitching the ninth.  What could go wrong?

Bottom 9, Cubs 8, Brewers 4

Gregg is in, giving the crew another chance to kick around the folly of not using your best reliever as the closer.  Gregg shuts them up by getting Kendall to ground out (He’s now 0 for his last 25 dating back to last season, ouch) and striking out pinch hitter Brad Nelson.

Cubs fans get up and start cheering, Brewers fans start to run for the exits.

But Gregg gives up a homer to Rickie Weeks.  8-5.

Then a double to Counsell.  (Gulp.)

Steve wants to know why nobody is going to the mound to talk to Gregg.  What are they supposed to tell him?  “Uh…get an out!”

Ryan Braun is up and Joe keeps saying that Braun wants to hit a three run homer here so Prince can win it with one.  One problem.  You can’t hit a three run homer with one guy on base, Joe.

Braun walks.

Gregg’s pants begin to fill with poo.

Prince steps in.  He struck out on Saturday to end the game.  He can’t do that again, right?

Well, he does.  Gregg blows a fastball by him on the inner half, and the Cubs win 8-5.

A nice win, a second straight series win, a 4-2 road trip.  Not bad.  Especially when they probably should have won the two games they lost.  All in all, the starting pitching has been very good and the offense is starting to crank it up.

But, the bullpen is…uh…how do you say…shitty.

Amaze your friends.  Before the first full week of June, the end of games will look like this.

Seventh inning: Kevin Gregg (gives you at least two innings to get his runs back)
Eighth inning: Jeff Samardzjia
Ninth inning: Carlos Marmol

But I don’t think there’s any way to make Marmol the closer without putting Samardzjia in the bullpen to get the game to him.

But hey, it’s only April 12.

Don’t forget.  Gamecast opening day, 1:2o p.m., Monday.