Forgive Corey Patterson if he’s confused. On the day that the Cubs drafted his little brother, he breaks out of a 1-16 slump with a homer to give the Cubs a 1-0 lead and the cheers are muted and there’s a lot of head shaking in the stands. No, it’s not a Devo concert. It’s what happens when a guy continues to use the wrong approach, even though he has a little success.
How many of you saw the homer and thought, “Oh, boy, he’ll just keep swinging from the heels now. He just hit a homer.” I was one of you. There are times when a homer is a bad thing in the long run. Yesterday’s was one of those.
It’s hard to be upset when a Cub hits a homer against the Cardinals. They are the demon spawn, the Red Satanic Fowl. We hate them with every fiber of our being.
But if the desired result is Corey shortening his swing and legging out some hits, hitting a pop up into the jet stream for a basket homer is not a good thing.
Chris Carpenter, who’s doing very well as a solo act, now that his sister’s been dead for so long…almost threw a complete game despite giving up NINE hits! Nine hits, two homers and Chip thought it was a “masterpiece.” Sure, in much the same way that barbecue sauce can be a masterpiece, I suppose.
This is the same Chip who on Saturday said, “a perfect pitch from Carlos Zambrano” on a slider that not only hung, but caused Michael Barrett to dive across the plate to catch it. Sure, it was a strike, but anyone actually watching the game knew Carlos got away with one. The one solace of putting up with Chip for an entire year is that he doesn’t get to do the playoffs. Well, it looks like the Cubs won’t be doing them either.
Through their recent struggles, the pitching has been good enough to win on the vast majority of nights. It was last night. After Glendon Rusch got hosed on a 3-2 pitch to Jim Edmonds, he gave up a three run jack to Scott Rolen. Just like in the Meat Tray’s series opening loss on May 21, it was the second of the back-to-back homers that cost the Cubs the game. It’s one thing to give up a homer to Scott Rolen. It’s quite another to give one up to the decaying corpse of Reggie Sanders.
We like Jose Macias, OK. He seems to be a nice guy, he plays hard, he gets some hits, but you can just tell he’s dumber than a box of hair. Why he didn’t score from second on a single in the fifth inning is a mystery. Then, you combine Jose’s lack of genius with the complete ineptitude of Wendell Kim and you get what we saw one batter later. The game is 4-3, and Moises Alou is up with one out and he hits a shallow fly ball to Lassie. Now, if Olympic champion Michael Johnson is on third base, you might think about having him tag up, and then, in the end, you’d hold him anyway. E-ramis Ramirez is on deck, and given E-ramis’ ability and the fact that Johnson will likely get thrown out to end the inning you hold him. Now, you factor in that Jose Macias is not Michael Johnson and you really don’t send him. It’s not a tough decision.
So, Kim sends Macias and he’s out by so much that he could have started to dig a tunnel between third and home to try and burrow under the baseline in an attempt to score without being tagged.
That’s the thing about Kim’s blunders at third. They’re obvious, they’re ridiculous and you never know how many runs he really costs the Cubs. Carpenter was getting tatooed in the fifth. You don’t know if E-ramis would single home Macias, pop out, strike out, hit a three run homer…whatever. Kim seems to enjoy taking the bat out the on deck hitter’s hands. Wendell is coaching third base like the teams are full of nine year olds and can’t make simple throws and tags.
Anyway, the Cubs let Carpenter off the hook. He went into the dugout, ate a sandwich, stuck his finger down his throat and threw it up and then went out and pitched three and a third more scoreless innings. I did like it when Chip said, “In case you’re wondering, his last shutout came in 2002.” Uh, Chip. It’s 4-3. I think the shutout is unlikely at this point.
Over on the radio, Ron Santo was banging his head onto the counter top for three hours. Ron is not taking the Cubs recent struggles very well. At one point he threatened to limp down onto the field and to beat Kim to death with one of his legs.
OK, he didn’t. But he should have.
—-
I won’t pretend to know anything about the baseball draft. I do like the fact that the Cubs drafted a lefthanded hitting catcher in the second round, even if he is Sox outfield prospect Jeremy Reed’s brother, and I like that they drafted Tennessee infielder Eli Iorg, because Eli’s dad is Garth and his uncle is Dane and I love the last name Iorg! Now we just need Vance Law’s kids to get old enough so we can fill the roster with Mormons.
As for drafting EriK Patterson, I noticed that last year at Georgia Tech, EriK did strike out 53 times, but managed to draw 50 walks. I’m sure Gary Matthews can cut those walks down for him.
If you go to Cubs.com and look at the draft list you can watch video clips of some of the players. Watch the Eric Patterson video. His stance is Corey’s…exactly. Get ready to scream.
—
Carrie Muskat says that Eric is a “contact hitter like his older brother.” Contact?
The Cubs haven’t won a one run game since Sammy went on the DL. So yeah, I guess we miss the guy after all.
The docs are trying to make Irregular Joe, Regular again.
Who’s drafting for the Sox, Mark Hatley?
Grant Johnson can either stay at Notre Dame or get paid to pitch for the Cubs. I’m getting tingly just thinking about the decision.
To say you’re not talking, don’t you have to talk?
Our Olympic basketball team is looking pretty average.
Mariotti puts down the doughnut for horrific effort on how much it costs to go to a game. When was the last time he paid for a ticket to anything?
John Jackson reports that Dan Patrick works for ESPN. Wow. What a scoop.
John Paxson says he might trade a draft pick.
TJ Simers is not a big Kid Rock fan.
Morrissey wishes that Gee Dub had died and not Reagan. But really, who asked him? Hang the DJ, hang the DJ, hang the DJ…indeed.
Nancy’s pretty sure Ronnie recongnized her the last time he looked at her.
The Tuna ought to lay off the sushi if you know what I mean.
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I’d do it again. I repeat my quote:
"He made a good throw. That’s the only way he could get me out."
Although my next sentence was:
"It was my mistake probably."
Have I replaced Seabiscuit’s jockey at the Tribune? Am I the player to be named later in the Mike Kiley deal? Inquiring minds, other than me, would like to know.
This line was in Eric Patterson’s scouting report:
HITS DOWN ON BALL TO UTILIZE SPEED. MAKES CONTACT
Are we sure he’s Corey’s brother?
Chicago checks in at #4.
If the Cubs really want a left handed hitting catcher they should draft Jeff Clement from USC next year.
Jeez..first time I ever agreed with Morrissey on anything…
BTW: can we stop giving Todd Walker a pass? When was the last time that piece of shit did anything for us?
Cool…aw-toe-matick cuss word editor! Lemme try it again.
asshole!
Ha. Really cool!
Andy, gotta tweak it a little more.
Another prized "Chippyism".
Last Friday. While working, I had my portable handheld TV for certain situations. When Hollandsworth FINALLY got a big two-out hit to put the Cubs up 1-0, Chip bellowed,
"ANOTHER two-out hit for the Cubs." Is he daft? Had he not been watching this team consistently strand runners on base for the previous week?
Of course, on my bike ride home, I had WGN on my headphones (I know, not smart, so sue me). Anyway, when creepy Dave Kaplan was doing postgame, he replayed Pat’s call on the radio, which went like this upon Hollandsworth’s run-scoring single:
"The Cubs FINALLY push a run across."
So, you have two calls, diametrically opposed to one another ON THE VERY SAME PLAY. One, with Propogandist Chip extolling the Cubs’ excellence at clutch hitting–which was patently false as everyone knew–and the other call, REAL Play-By-Play man Pat expressing the thoughts of EVERY Cub fan when he affected relief that the Cubs scored a run.
Chip, your tricyle–equipped with your bell and flower basket–is boarding. Get the "F" out of town.
Sloth, as to Walker, to quote Dusty, "do you have any better ideas?" Walker played very well for awhile but is now slumping. Grudz will be back in less than a week.
Does the Chip-O-Meter ever change. Shit.
Walker or Macis/Jackson? Pick your poison. I think Walk will rebound back up to .280-.290. At least he makes contact. He may not be getting hits but it beats watching a guy with a nose to toes K zone. When Grudz comes back we can all annoint him the savior and when he goes .240/.310/340 after the first month, we can jump on him.
Query: I read in the Tribune last week that the Cubs’ bench players refer to themselves as the "Lemons". So, naturally, my question is did Desipio borrow "Lemon Aid" from the team, or did they borrow it from Desipio?
When we get everybody back healthy(whenever the hell that is, probably when we’re out of the playoff race) this is the lineup:
Grud-2B
Lee-1B
Sosa-RF
Alou-LF
Ramirez-3B
Hollandsworth-CF
Barrett-C
Gonzalez-SS
This of course is barring any trades(Hendry pickup that phone up.)
Baker get real and go with it. No reason to have Patterson, Bako, Martinez, Ordonez or any more of your useless pawns in this lineup. No use in playing the numbers. Go with it and stick with it. There should be no excuses when everybody is healthy.
I second that. You just wonder if Baker figures that one out. We’ll see our great a manager he is when everybody is healthy.
Does Chip think he is doing the games on radio? His calls frequently do not match what is shown on TV. For example, the frequent "blasted" fly ball that an outfielder has to come in to make a play on. Or the last play of last night’s game, which he referred to as a "long run" for Reggie Sanders, but was actually a half trot a few steps to his left. Or the frequent "foul by an eyelash."
Maybe he is just unaware that we can all see what he sees. That would also explain why he doesn’t groom the monobrow. What a douchebag.
ME in center field every day?
With those statues in the corners?
Yeah, that’ll be fun.
Whoever is selling the Purple Hair weed to these Desipio readers, I’ll buy a lid from you. Meet me at the parking lot across the street from the firehouse on Waveland. Anything that makes mature adults think that:
A) I can continue to hit .330, and
B) play center every day,
is something that I need to be putting into my pipe when I relax at night.
Smoke on, people!!!
Morans.
Grudz isn’t a leadoff hitter. He doesn’t walk enough nor is his OBP that good. He’s better suited as a 7 hitter.
He’s had 3 good years in 9 seasons. Expect the next one in 2005.
Compare careers.
Walk-.290/.346/.434 (8 seasons)
Grud-.285/.329/.387 (9 seasons)
Walk walks more, K’s less, averages fewer doubles, triples, HR’s, RBI’s. It’s even in runs scored and Grud has the advatage in hits (by 9). Based on their baseball-reference.com fielding totals, Walk is a better fielder too (that surprised me).
Not that it matters but here’s how I’d line em up:
Walker-2B (good OBP)
Lee-1B (good OBP/power)
Sosa-RF (superstar)
Alou-LF (superstar)
Hollandsworth-CF (1.019 OPS)
Barrett-C (.937 OPS)
Ramirez-3B (.918 OPS)
Grudz-SS (anyhthing is better than A-gon’s 244/.261/.411)
Todd, you’re right, you know. I look forward to the day when you can spend most of the day spitting seeds at the rest of the Lemons.
Of course, that would require about six guys getting healthy again.
It would also require Corey yanking his head out of his ****…he’s tried to yank everything else, lately.
Dammit Hollandsworth! That CF spot belongs to Tom Goodwin when he returns from the DL!
TW, my OBP in the last 10 games is .256
That just isn’t getting it done, is it?
TW–
And who’s pitching for this lineup, Wilbur Wood?
With Grudz at short and Hollandsworth in center, you’re going to need your starter to throw about 175 pitches to get out of all of those four-out innings. You’ll see more balls finding gaps and holes than you would in an Annabelle Chang movie.
Doesn’t anybody appreciate good defense anymore? The Cards’ defense–along with Wavin’ Wendell and the usual absence of timely Cubs’hitting–went a long way towards keeping the Cubs down yesterday.
Trust me–that 16" softball defense that you propose will have you MORE frustrated than a 2-pitch Patterson at-bat.
.346 career OBP? Now, THAT’S the stuff of Rickey Henderson legendary status!!!
How about when Maddux pitches, and you have Gabor, Maddux, me, & Ordonez all in a row???
Hey Andy, are you really gonna slap a big-ass viagra add at the top of the page and not say anything about it?
A guy can’t slump anymore? Who are you gonna put there? Macias? Lee would really be your only other viable option but he has too much power to waste up there.
Walker is the closest thing to a leadoff hitter the Cubs have. Like I said before, at least he isn’t flailing away at garbage. The hits will come.
Well, it’s not like Korey lights it up in the field either. If Burnitz can play CF in Colorado, I think we can get by with Hollandsworth. We might lose a couple games to D but I’d bet we’d win more with our O. Plus, we get a lot of our outs by K. That goes a long way to mask defensive shortcomings.
And no .256 is not good. And as Steve Stone said about a week ago, "The days of the .390-.400 OBP leadoff hitters are all but gone." .346 is not stellar, but it’s not bad when you’re not an elite player.
Yes, I would put Macias out there. Hell, we rode Walker’s hot hand for awhile. Now I’d like to see Macias get a quick shot before Grudz gets back.
Part of my dislike for Walker is the ridiculous hype the media slapped on this guy when he came here. He’s never been that great of a hitter, his OBP is mediocre, and his range is non-existent.
And now he shows how "selfless" he is by obsessing over his 1000th hit & flailing at everything.
Regarding Grud playing shortstop: it’s definitely not optimal, but I’d like to see it tried at least until Gonzo returns. Grud’s range and glove can’t be any worse than Ramon Martinez, and Re6y Ordonez is an overrated head case. I was at the game yesterday, and he made every possible mistake in playing a soft grounder by Carpenter. He didn’t charge the slowly hit ball, got handcuffed, didn’t keep the ball in front of him, and worst of all, just looked at the damn thing on the ground, instead of trying to recover and throw out Carpenter, who was practically walking up the first base line. At least with Grud’s bad glove, we’ll get a decent bat in the lineup. You know, one that hits higher than .050.
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Mr. Hendry, I am a solid defensive shortstop, who is having a good contract year(.325/.402) for a team that will be out of the race shortly. Would love to finish up the season playing on a real contender and hopefully in the playoffs. Think you can help?
Guillen, you’re due for a .220 second half.
Plus, I can’t stand your last name.
I don’t see how .290/.346/.434 over 8 seasons isn’t good. We pray daily for Korey to acheive that. We’ve been waiting forever to see A-Gon to come close to that.
And do you remember how long it took Sosa to hit his 500th HR and how crappy he played until he did? It may not be a big deal to us because the record is 4,256 but how many people can say they’ve got 1,000 ML hits? especially a guy who’s been traded around.
You’re right, TW. Sammy was obsessed with his 500th HR. True team player.
He & Trash Boy are two of a kind.
–Impatient sigh–
Yeah, Burnitz is playing center for CO and they’re what–on their way to the pennant?
Remember when Burnitz ran his chubby legs into the wall at Wrigley and dropped the ball? The hustle was admirable, but most centerfielders–perhaps even Todd Hollandsworth–wouldn’t have needed To run all out like that; they would read it better and catch it in front of the wall.
By the way, the guy who clubbed the ball that Burnitz nearly killed himself on was—you guessed it—Corey Patterson.
And please, TW, this idea of CP being less than ordinary on defense…no offense, but you should watch more Cubs games. I admit that maybe, just maybe, too–cool–for–school–Corey sometimes is too nonchalant out there–he’s got a little Farnsworth in him, and wants to impress the Trixies–but you put Todd Hollandsworth out there and, after a week, you’ll be in the fetal position crying for ANYBODY–hell, even Dwight "Three Ring Circus" Smith to play center—ESPECIALLY if you honestly believe that Hollandworth will continue to hit at the level that he has been. Like your good buddy Todd Walker, Hollandsworth’s got a big slump awaiting him.
Guys, don’t mess with Corey. Unless we get a guy like C. Beltran to play center field, Corey’s not going anywhere. And, if you happen to go to the game, just remember–booing a guy for lack of performance (as opposed to lack of effort)–does NOT make a player better. It just makes you look liek an inbred Sox fan.
If you don’t stop picking on Korey, I’m not going to sign with the Cubs. Take that you meanies.
How about booing a guy because his lack of performance is directly related to his unwillingness to change his approach (ie rather swing at balls than watch a strike)?
And no, it’s not the BEST solution, but the problem the Cubs are having now is that they’re not scoring enough runs. Playing Hollandsworth helps that. Playing Grudz at SS helps that. No it’s not the best solution. Hell, you could play them both 6 innings a piece and replace them with Patterson and A-Gon if you’d like.
And I’ve seen enough of Corey to know that he’s a left fielder. Horay for him, he’s fast and can run down balls. His instincts are shite. He has no idea if and when to dive for a ball and his throwing choices are just like Sosa’s (questionable at best).
Mike D.:
Korey’s defense is lousy. His RF is bottom quartile. His assists are sub par. His ability to play the line drive base hit into a double is legendary.
He’s got one good defensive ability: Catch the deep drive in the gap. This is more than offset by the fact that he can’t throw and he has a tendency to screw up singles and turn them into doubles.
Come on, Moneyball sycophants! Defense is overrated!
I don’t mind booing Korey when he strikes out on three pitches out of the K zone, or pops out on the first pitch.
But it’s really bothering me when he tries to show some patience, & makes an out on the 5th or 6th pitch — and the fans still boo.
And Walker continues to get a free pass.
I don’t know about Walk getting a pass. I think it’s just that we really didn’t expect much out of the 2nd position anyway. When all you have to do is replace Grudz, those shoes aren’t that big. And there are other "superstar" players that are sucking it up too. So in comparison it doesn’t look as bad. 1 mil poorly spent or 6 mil poorly spent. Granted his last month has been forgetable but only Alou, Barret and maybe Hollandsworth had anything to brag about. A-Ram has picked it up nicely as of late. But Korey, Lee and whatever’s been put out in RF and SS has blown far worse than Walk.
I don’t know much about Dubois or Kelton, and that may be the answer to my question, but aren’t they high enough on either of them to give them a few starts in a row, a fair shake, and see what they can do?
Worst-case scenario, you score 1 run instead of 2 every day.
Or is it only other teams who are allowed to discover, because of injuries, a surprise contributor?
If you are going to call up these two guys and keep their ass on the bench, then keep them in Iowa so they can stay in hitting shape. Bringing them up and giving them two AB’s every five days, if that, is a bright idea. They are probably already shot because they spent the past few weeks eatin’ sunflower seeds and dippin’ instead of getting major league at-bats.
That’s what I’m saying #41. Bring them up for a reason or it becomes counterproductive.
The D-Backs brought up Kata and then Tracy. Even the Cards brought up Bodhi Hart and he hit over .300 for a long while last year to give them a spark.
Granted, the spark goes out after a while and they start proving why they weren’t in the bigs yet, but they’ve made their contribution.
Comparing those guys to the Cubs prospects may be apples and oranges but, if that’s the case, then the question is what’s going on down there that the Cubs don’t have any apples to pick?
You mean teams should try new people out at positions when the people currently at those positions are not doing well?
What an interesting concept…
It’s amazing that our managing God Dusty has been in the sport of baseball longer than I’ve been alive and has never thought of that!
#42,
I even seem to remember the Cardinals bringing up Albert Pujols when Mark McGwire and Bobby Bonilla were hurt. I wonder if Albert still has the second half of a round trip ticket from Memphis to St. Louis.
They brought Albert up too soon. He wasn’t ready. Just look what happened to his hamstring.
Dusty’s LYING!!! Albert was ready. Look at how he’s played over the last few years. At least he said his hamstring was hurt, unlike Dusty who LIES about injuries!
So far the only banner ads we’ve had today are for a casino and for Viagra. Suddenly, Desipio looks like the outfield billboards in New/Old Comiskey.
We had a dispute with Google and they pulled our account, and the new ad host promises that after a few days (today was our first with them) that they’ll target our ads to our audience.
Hey, if it’s good enough for Raffy Palmeiro, it’s good enough for me.
Or something.
Erik Patterson is a "contact hitter" like his brother. Almost exactly like his brother. Didn’t he strike out 53 times in 258 at bats? The last time Corey struck out last night he would have needed a shovel to first dig the ball out of the dirt and then he still couldn’t have hit it with the shovel.
That’s only one ever five at bats. I can top that!
Fuck shit ass
bastard bitch hell damn fart