I hope Bob Brenly doesn’t get fired because he bashed Alfonso Soriano last night. If I were the Cubs, I’d give him a gold star for saying exactly what we the fans are thinking. I know the Cubs canned Steve Stone after he correctly slammed the worth ethic and attitude of the Cubs and during last night’s game I was reminded of that after Alfonso Soriano cost the Cubs another game.
The Cubs need to get stop playing Soriano. Period. Yeah, he hits some homeruns and he makes some fantastic outfield assists but HE CAN’T RUN. Because he can’t run, it hurts him (and the Cubs) everywhere. He can’t turn singles into doubles, doubles into triples, make even average catches in the outfield, or steal bases. In essence, he’s Adam Dunn. I have no problem with Adam Dunn–but he’s not a lead-off hitter and everyone knows what to expect from him: a homerun or a strikeout. There are no delusions with him.
Get him the hell out of there and put him on the 60-day DL. Don’t even think about bringing him back until he’s 100%. Unlike Mark Prior (I hate to even say the name), Alfonsio Soriano has no problem saying that he’s at 80% and at least not a liar who is desperate to get back into the line-up. So DL him until he says “100%” then put him back in. He is absolutely useless right now; about as useless as the Pirates scorer who gave that play RBI double instead of an error. That cost MARMOL the save AND brought his ERA dangerously close to the 2.00 mark.
Ok, thankfully Marmol is back. He pitched a brilliant 8th inning, striking out the side. Yeah, he walked a batter but big deal. At least he calmed down quickly which is way more than you can say for Bob Howry. Good Lord, Howry needs to be traded. I don’t know why the Cubs keep him around–each outing is a stroke-in-waiting watching him. Scott Eyre doesn’t look to suck as badly as he did last year though so between him and Marmol, is there really any reason to keep Howry around anyway?
I can’t believe Marmol took the loss. His strikeouts looked so awesome that when he gave up that run to McLouth I just wanted to cry. Sometimes you have to tip your cap though and the fact McLouth was able to slam one of Marmol…well, you tip your cap. It was a great hit off the best pitcher the Cubs have.
Slacky! Someone hasn’t been doing live blogging of the Cubs game and I’m to blame. I’ll try to get back into it by writing a nice post-game of today’s blowout against the hated Pirates (just kidding, we love the Pirates).
First the positives–Soriano is hot (hot, hot) so I feel just the slightest bit of shame since I’ve been bashing him for so long. I take solace in the fact he’ll go back to being cold again instead of leading off games with homeruns. That said, I won’t complain too much about him leading off games with homeruns. Today was a great outing from Sean Gallagher. Yeah, he pitched like a rookie and walked people at inopportune times but he’s a rookie so to get six innings and only give up four hits and three walks–that’s really all you can ask for out of your 4th/5th starter and he’s certainly an improvement over even-sucking-at-AAA Rich Hill. I guess John Lieber is just sitting around because I haven’t seen him come into a game in ages.
Onto the bads: Bobby Howry needs to go. Yes, he was dominant two years ago but he’s just not that guy anymore. He struggled (at best) last year and looks abysmal again this year. I know he only came in as an inning-eater today (like he has the past few outings) but he can barely even eat innings; he gave up three runs today to let Pittsburgh back in. I did get excited that he might screw up badly enough to see Marmol come into the game. I haven’t seen Marmol for ages either. MARMOL!