Ron Ce to the rescue.
There are times, of course, when hazing can be dangerous. You’ll hear about it in a few weeks when college kids go back to campus and some freshman girl drinks twice her body weight in Michelob Ultra and passes out on some train tracks and gets run over. But colleges aren’t the only ones doing the hazing. Baseball has been hazing rookies for three centuries now (you know what I mean). Last night, it almost cost the Cubs.

How so? It’s obvious after watching Rich Hill and Matt Murton that the Cubs haze their rookies by replacing their baseball spikes with bedroom slippers. How else could Rich Hill have landed on his face at third base? How else could Matt Murton have fielded a routine single to left and done the splits?

Fortunately, the Cubs’ veterans seem to have forgotten about Ronny Cedeno. He had spikes on, and he put them to good use.

Dusty Baker had a strangely lucid evening last night. He did things we aren’t used to seeing from him. He pinch hit for Todd Hollandsworth with Murton, and it worked. He double switched and actually took Neifi! out of a game because Cedeno was the most logical and best fit to go into the game–and it worked.

Then again, Dusty had an advantage last night. The guy in the other dugout seemed hell bent to make Dusty look smart by comparison. Felipe Alou just turned 70, and maybe it was an effort to prove to us that he’s still active but he wore a path between the first base dugout and the pitcher’s mound last night. Felipe used five pitchers in the eighth inning, starting with our old buddy LaTroy Hawkins. The Cubs only scored once, of course, which just made the whole thing all that much more absurd.

Neifi! came through with a game tying single, as E-ramis couldn’t be troubled to try to score from second base.

In the ninth, Ron(ny) Ce(deno) singled to lead off the inning. Jerry the Lesser tried to fail to bunt him to second, but on 0-2 he finally got the bunt down. Todd Walker ripped a single to right hit and Cedeno had to stop at third.

Here’s where something’s got to give.

The Cubs have two of the five best hitters in the National League on their team this year. Derrek Lee is the best, and if you can find four more better than E-ramis, I’d be shocked.

For quite a while, the Cubs have used a lineup against righthanded hitters with the lefty-hitting Jeromy Burnitz tucked nicely in between Derrek and E-ramis. It’s certainly hasn’t hurt Burnitz, who is more patient when he has E-ramis behind him (his on base average is .371 batting fourth, only .333 when he hits fifth) and Jeromy has scored 60 runs which ties him for second on the team with E-ramis (Lee leads all of baseball with 80). Sixty doesn’t sound like much? The gritty, gutty, homosexually handsome Scotty Podsednik has scored 57.

Anyway, teams are going to walk Lee more and more to take their chances with Burnitz. So it’s time to switch Burnitz and Ramirez. Why? Because you want E-ramis to bat with runners on. So if a manager wants to prove how smart he is by walking Lee, you let E-ramis send Derrek on a jog around the bases.

Burnitz came through last night with the game-winning sac fly, thanks to an exceptional slide by Cedeno, who did something we thought only the great pinch running extravagance, Hector Luna, could, as he took the back door around Mike Matheny and touched home plate with his hand to score the winning run.

So why mess with the order if it’s working? Because it could work better. You’re not demoting Burnitz, you’re moving him to the fifth spot in the order. That’s not exactly Siberia.

The problem the Cubs will run into is that Dusty, I’m sure, feels like his right left, right left batting order won the game for them last night, and he’ll use the constant stream of pitching changes as his example.

But it was more a product of Felipe’s senility than anything.

You don’t just set up your batting order with a goal of getting the other team to make lots of pitching changes. You set it up to help generate the best number of advantegeous matchups possible.

Derrek Lee doesn’t care if he faces a righty or a lefty. He’s hitting .365 against lefties and .366 against righties. E-ramis doesn’t care either (he’s hitting .302 against righties and he’s obliterating lefties to the tune of a 1.125 OPS.

You’re encouraging the other team to pitch around Lee if you bat Burnitz behind him. Putting E-ramis behind him just puts them into a bind.

Besides, you are wasting Michael Barrett by batting him eighth. That’s just ludicrous. If you change the lineup to Hairston (R), Walker (L), Lee (R), Ramirez (R), Burnitz (L), Barrett (R), HollandsGerutMurtonsworth (LL/R), Neifi! (B), you still have your precious balance and you get more at bats for Ramirez, which is a good thing, considering since the All-Star Break he’s the best hitter on the planet.

The Cubs are now 11-4 since that horrific eight game losing streak. They are only four out of the Wild Card and the vastly inferior Nationals, Phillies, Astros and Mets are all that stand in their way of the playoffs.

Nomar could be back next week, Scott Williamson is hot on his heels and Jim Hendry is itching to make a trade before Sunday. Oooh, things are good! Right?

Ehh. Sort of. First off, these are still the Cubs and they try to make things as difficult as possible. Exhibit A last night was the baserunning of Rich Hill. First off, it was great that he was on base. We were all so proud. But the easy part is maneuvering around the bases. They are laid out 90 feet apart and if you just keep turning left you’re in good shape.

Hill was going to score on a should-have-been-double-that-Hill-held-him-to-a-single by Todd Walker, only to pull a Kal Daniels at third and fall face down in the dirt. OK, at least he didn’t a) spike himself, b) hurt his left arm or c) get tagged out.

The next batter, Lee was up with the bases loaded, so that’s not a bad thing. Lee hit a flyball to sort of deep left field. Hill went half way then Chris Speier tried to get him back to the bag to tag up. He made it back to the bag but had all of his momentum headed towards the family section in left field instead of pointed towards home plate. Hill couldn’t attempt to score. Woof.

As the game continued deep into the late innings 2-1, you couldn’t help but want to strangle Rich Hill’s holistic little neck. But all’s well that end’s well. Right?

Secondly, Kenny Williams might just screw this whole thing up for the Cubs. He could do it in one of two ways. If he gives in to the Marlins’ demands of Brandon McCarthy, Jose Contreras and Dumbasso Marte for AJ Burnett, he could arm the Marlins with enough pitching to win the wild card. If Kenny drags it out to the dealine and bails, AJ Burnett could be left in Miami to make a stretch drive salary run as he gets ready for free agency.

Why can’t Kenny let Burnett go to the Marlins for a AA pitcher who can’t help them this year and Bronson Arroyo who stinks? Come on, Kenny. Be a pal! You just know that when you trade that 400 pound Cuban to the Marlins that he’s going to go 8-0 with a 1.17 ERA down the stretch and kick our asses. Guh.

—————
Last night, the Cubs welcomed back two key cogs in the 2004 collapse. Moises Alou was back to play both right and left field (not at the same time) and LaTroy was back to ignite the late game rally. (He owes us at least one more of those tonight or tomorrow).

The media seemed to think that Cubs fans were going to give Moises Alou a standing ovation, and Comcast did their opening with a loving montage of Moises highlights as though he was a conquering hero. The truth is that Moises has played for four other teams and only spent three years as a Cub. The first year and a half of his stint in Cubdom sucked royally. We all liked him, but there were too many “how many outs are there?” moments on the bases and check swing strikeouts (including one on that Sunday in Shea, when coupled with LaTroy’s pantlode loss on Saturday will haunt us forever) for him to really be loved.

LaTroy got booed because he always had utter disdain for the fans, so screw him. I was just hoping Lee could get to 0-2 on him, because then he was guaranteed a game-winning home run.

Moises had his act in full force, too. He struck out on a pitch over his head in the second and then struck out again later and swore at the ump for a couple minutes. Oh, we miss that.

I will always like Moises because his memory continues to torment Chip Caray, and that’s good enough for me. I just don’t miss him.