Jul 22 2008
road woes continue
Cubs lose again in the desert, this time 9-2. It was a rather good outing by Marquis as he only allowed two runs to score. The Cubs offense has just disappeared and seems to not be coming back any time soon. Lou Piniella stated before the game that he would have players not take any batting practice to help mix things up and maybe get the offense rolling; but that came to no avail. The Cubs left nine men on base thanks in particular to another double play ball from Derrek Lee. It was Lee’s second double play ball in two nights; both of which came after he had a 2-0 count. This game was like a carbon copy of Monday night’s game as several players made loud outs to the deepest parts of the park; usual home-runs in other parks but not at Chase Field. It seems odd when players like Aramis Ramirez smack balls so hard to deep left field but come up with an out on the warning track, and then players like Connor Jackson merely slap the ball for what seems to be a lazy fly ball yet somehow manages to go out of the park. There’s just something really odd about this ballpark and I can’t quite put my finger on it. I read somewhere that the Cubs are 3-15 (including last years’ playoffs) in games at Arizona. 3 and 15! I knew our struggles against Arizona were pretty bad, but that is pretty bad if you consider those numbers span for about five seasons. In five seasons, we have only won three games in Arizona? It seems very weird.
Finally, St. Louis held a 3-0 lead for half of their game against Milwaukee tonight but they blew their lead in the late innings. Milwaukee scored four times in the seventh-ninth innings to win 4-3 against the Cardinals. Milwaukee has pulled to within one game behind the Cubs for the division lead. Also, Milwaukee will have their aces: Ben Sheets and CC Sabathia pitching the final two games in St. Louis; so they have a very realistic shot at sweeping the Cardinals.
The Cubs finish the road trip in Arizona tomorrow. Let’s hope they can score more than one, or two runs this time out. Ted Lilly opposes Doug Davis. Davis has had the Cubs number in the past and Lilly will return to the place where he pitched in game two of last years’ NLDS. The infamous image of Ted Lilly slamming his glove on the mound after serving up a home run to Chris Young is still floating around, and with the way things are going lately, I would not be surprised to see some of that happen tomorrow.
Go Cubs, avoid the sweep and get home real quick (although they come home to play the Marlins who they haven’t beaten since 2006, but I’ll save those rants/stories for another day)…
