Jun 07 2008
Cubs continue to disappoint on the road
Cubs were in the position to clinch a winning road trip for the first time since April 13 in Philadelphia (I know I made an error a few posts ago, my bad)…
And then, the seventh inning happened. Zambrano gave the Cubs the lead with his RBI single in the top of the seventh. But for as fast as the Cubs took the lead, they also gave it up. Zambrano started off the bottom of the seventh with a strike out on Delwyn Young. After giving up a base hit to the pesky Juan Pierre, Pierre stole second on a 3-1 count. Naturally, Either hit a soft ground ball to third, prompting Ramirez to throw wildly to first. Pierre went running as Ramirez threw to first, Lee couldn’t handle the ball which led to an error on Ramirez and a run scored for the Dodgers to tie the game at 3-3. Shortly after, Russell Martin came through with a hard hit liner to right field. Kosuke Fukudome missed the diving attempt and allowed Either to score from first with two outs. Looney came up next with another base hit and then Kemp hit the three run home run to put the Cubs away for good.
What is it about this team that they can’t play good on the road? It seems like when I think of this team playing on the road, I can’t help but think of all the missed opportunities because of bad fielding or errors. Specifically, Theriot missed two pick-off attempts that he easily could have made. The Cubs also couldn’t catch the breaks on a couple close plays at first. I even think back to our last series in Pittsburgh which was loaded with terrible fielding (Soriano, specifically).
Up next: the Cubs are 3-3 on this road trip. They have not lost three straight games so far this year. Marquis will pitch for the Cubs and Penny will pitch for the Dodgers. The Cubs are not going to win every game, but they do need to play better defense tomorrow if they want to win. Also, our run production has been extremely low on this road trip; granted, Dodger Stadium and PetCo Park are not hitter friendly parks, but with the way the offense was swinging just last week, it is surprising to see that we have only scored eight runs combined in our last four games.
Go Cubs.
^^EDIT: I’m not suggesting that the Cubs are downright awful on the road. While they have a losing road record, there are only three teams that actually have a winning road record in all of baseball. Also, the Cubs have the fourth best road record in the National League, so the Cubs road record isn’t abysmal by any means; it is mediocre.
