NL Central Roundup

If 3 games is any indication of how well a team will do over the course of 162 games, and it usually is, then I proclaim the Pittsburgh Pirates NL Central championnes. Kudos to the numerous ESPN "insiders" who have predicted this outcome for each of the past 3 seasons. This "is" the year for the Pirates. Too bad Disney didn't purchase the Pirates to market their new Pirates of the Carribean movie. Instead, their "marketing geniuses" are scrambling to deal with Keith Richards and his self-purported "daddy-eightball".

For the Pirates, going down to Houston and winning some tight games says a lot about the Pirates, and even more about the Astros. But the Bucs are scoring late, and in close games, that makes all the difference. P.S. I love Xavier Nady.
Up next: CIN, Adam Dunn will go yay-yo with 7 HRs in week 1

In the #2 slot, we have a virtual tie with the Brewhaus and Reds sittin' at 2-1.

The Brew-crew almost swept the Dodgers, 'cept for Jason Schmidt pitching out of a based loaded jam in the 5th. If Ben Sheets could pitch all 162 games, the Brews should be able to overtake the Bucs. The crew have the Cubs next, which will send my beloved throughly to the bottom of the NLC standings.
On tap: CHC, Zambrano should fare better in his 2nd start, the stats prove it.

The Reds, won 1 convincing game against the Cubs, lost 1 convincingly, and was handed their second win on a Pete Rose betting slip due to gaffes by Will Ohman and Mikey Barrett.
Up next: PIT, take advantage of no Dirty Sanchez in game 1

Cubbies have 3rd place to themselves at the moment, but not for long. An always tough Brewers series looms this weekend, where the scores will range from 10-9, to 13-4, to 9-8. Most days I wish the Crew were still an AL team.
Up next: MIL, Barrett starts the season 0-44, mark my words

And holy-whoa! Houston and St. Louis are bottom feeding after they got their arses handed to them in different ways.

St. Louis got outscored 20-2 against the NL runners-up of last year, the fightin NY Mets. Their defense looks attrocious, and their pitching is quickly falling apart. I bet they wish they still had Jason Marquis sitting in the bullpen, unused, at the beginning of this season like he ended last season.
Up next: HOU, Pooholes starts to carry team on back

I mentioned Houston above, their bullpen is suspect.. especially Brad Lidge. And with no Jeff Bagwell, I don't think they can will themselves to win anymore.
Up next: STL, hit the ball to Preston Wilson, the dude can't catch

And thats your NLC roundup. Should be a fun weekend with all intra-division games going on. We are going to see pretty quickly who can run away with this division and make geniuses out of ESPN at the same time.

Oh-man!

Will Ohman.. your hall pass is being revoked.

Same old Cubs. Starter leaves with a lead.. reliever gives it up on walks and wild pitches.. no chance of a late rally. I think the 3 batters in the ninth saw a total of 5 pitches from David Weathers. I can't wait to see the replays of Barrett and Ohman getting crossed up on a fastball.. and the subsequent passed ball for the winning run.

Last night's 4-1 win might end up being their best played game all season, but winning 1 out of 3 against the Reds isn't going to cut it.

1-1

Ted Lilly, the Cubs new $40mil man looked solid (9 Ks) is his debut for the North Siders yesterday. Had all his pitches working for him, especially a low inside-fastball at the knees to righties. It seems like a while since the Cubs had a pitcher who could throw more than 2 pitches for strikes. We'll have to see how his next outing goes before officially annointing Lilly the new Sausage King of Chicago.

Equally impressive yesterday was the Cubs ability to hit singles and score runs. 4 in a row at one point scored the game's first run. Lilly's suicide-bunt-popup made the Reds look stupid. And the insurance runs later in the game were nice to see, courtesy of Mark DeRosa who looks a little too much like Todd Walker (same uni #7 and unshaven fotch), but appears to be 100 times the clutch hitter Walker ever was.

Ryan Dumpster musta lost 30 lbs, he no longer fills his 2006 uniform. Still throws like a jackass though, walking a guy with 1 out in the 9th is no way to go thru life. Glad to see Piniella out to the mound rather than Larry Rothschild. Rothy probably would have told him to go to hell. Thats probably the worst thing Baker ever did, was let Rothschild go out and talk to pitchers. I know if the manager goes out twice in an inning you need to take the guy out.. whatever.

The cloud is lifting..

To those people who want the Cubs to be sold to private ownership because they think Tribune Co. didn't want to spend money on the franchise, the Tribune Co. showed them this offseason, to the tune of $300 milly. To the ignorant, they see that as the team "responding" to their wants/needs, finally. I saw that as carbing-up before the marathon.

A business' health is usually linked to its assets (and debts in some cases, like 99% of the mergers over the past 10 years). If you know you are going to try and sell a baseball franchise, why wouldn't you load up your roster with high-priced talent that you won't be responsible for? If the Yankees payroll was a meager $50 mil, do you think the franchise would be worth $1 billy today? The answer is No. In my mind, you have to spend money to be worth money. Its why the bottom-feeders remain bottom-feeders. It can only drive the Cubs asking price up to have a roster chalk-full of guys you know, guys you pay alot, guys that you expect to win with.

The other story to me is, the most blatent conflict-of-interest in my lifetime will soon be coming to a close.. a media outlet owning a media generator. Its the whole circle-of-life thing going on.. baseball team plays, owner televises it, owner writes about it, owner sells advertisements, baseball team plays. The best thing for the Tribune Co. was for the Cubs to have a roller-coaster ride throughout the years.. and it worked. Notice how the Cubs only fielded a decent team every 5 years or so, at least in my lifetime. At the same time, they built the teams assets up, marketed the hell out of themselves, and did their job. Kudos. But the problem here is at the top, the execs don't care if the Cubs win the World Series or not. Too bad for them, because it would be the biggest sports story in the history of history, and they would have been the media outlet for it all. The Chicago Tribune would be sold all over Japan and Southeast Asia, and we wouldn't be talking about selling anything.

Opening Day 2007

Today started out with such promise. The rumors of a Cubs fire-sale have come true, now that Tribune Co. has picked a suitor to give itself the coveted ROI it so longed for. From $20.5 mil in 1981 to $600 mil in 2007, my math is a little shaky and I'm no financial planner.. but thats a pretty good investment.


The reality of today should have given the 2007 Cubs the spark it needed to start the season, better than 10 shots of HGH to the nutsack. Instead, human growth hormone was flowing onto the field in Cinncinnati. The nutsack burst...


Carlos (don't let it go to your head) Zambrano let the only guy on the field who is taller and fatter than he is take over the game. Adam Dunn torches the Cubs for the 50th time in 5 seasons in the bigs, for 2 homers. And he gets a standing O for his efforts.


Then there's the small problem of Aaron Harang, the lizard faced wax-pitcher who has become the latest in the line of near .500 pitchers (48-43) to absolutely baffle the Cubs lineup.

Here's a breakdown of the Cubs efforts today.

1. Soriano - 1 for 4, a dribbler up the middle reminds me of Juan Pierre.

2. Murton - 1 for 4, a dribbler down 3rd base line with the defense playing him back

3. Lee - 2 for 3 walk, business as usual

4. Ramirez - 1 for 4, 1 LOB with 2 outs, business as usual. He'll turn it on in Sept.

5. Jones - 1 for 4, meh

6. Barrett - o for 4, typical..

7. DeRosa - 1 for 2, freaking walks with the Cubs knocking on the door, takes a 3-0 fastball. Santo can't believe it.

8. Izturis - 1 for 4, 2 LOB with 2 out, pops out during said rally on the first pitch. Great-o.

All-in all, a poor effort. They reminded me much of the 2006 team, so much promise and high hopes being washed away by a passive attitude towards swinging the bat, overrated starting pitching, and no possibility of rallying from behind.

Time to caulk the tub and then watch the NCAA championship. I am going to throw up if Ohio St or Florida win another football/basketball title this decade. It actually makes me yearn for the days when Florida St. would toy with the Gators and Ohio St would get steamrolled by the berserker Michigan Wolverines.

Wood out til July

No medical basis whatsoever. This is my gut talking.

Breaking news... Cub's Wood hurting, I had Wood..

Woody's shoulder that he didn't have surgery on in the offseason is hurting again. Being an optimist, he should be able to pitch for the Cubs stretch-run in September when they have a 10 game lead on the mighty-fighty-second-place-Pirates. Stock shares of "I've Got Wood!" T-shirts & Co. went down 3 points in afternoon trading. Shares of "I Had Wood" T-shirts & Co. went up 5 points.

Also, Toby Hall on the other side of town has a torn labrum. Time to bring back Sandy Alomar Jr.

In a non-related story.. Theismann gets booted off the island of Kornheiser, Tirico & Theismann. He will be replaced by "Jaws", Ron Jaworski.

Cubs Report by R. Mexico

I fully expect that in 2007 the Cubs will break out with a 96-win season, slay the Bartman dragon, eat the goat, and save a lot of money on their car insurance. If none of these things happen, I will subject myself to chinese water torture.

Kerry Wood injures himself getting out of a hot tub, and all I can picture is that beer-tub with an outboard motor attached from Major League. He's in line to be the next Ricky Vaughn, he just needs some 50's style specticles.Check out how fast the pitchers and catchers are this year compared to last year. Aramis Ramirez is hustling also. I think that calls for a restructuring of his new contract.

You may not know this, but baseball players are subjected to standardized testing to quantify their knowledge of the game. Here is Mark Prior's answer to question 3, some simple geometry. No wonder he's having trouble finding the plate.

Since January, we've seen the last hurray of Glendon Rusch. His locker postcard of "Tina Eat" from Napolean Dynomite and Michael Barrett rookie card most likely was destroyed like Sammy's boombox.

Camp is breaking soon.. more to come in the days and months ahead....

2007 Cubs December Report Card

Good
Soriano

Bad
2nd Base - after going thru like 12 second baseman last year, we sign 2 more in this offseason (for sake of argument, I'm counting DeRosa and Soriano as 2-bagsmen).

Soriano in center

Lofton would have been a great understudy for Felix the Pie.

Theodore Roosevelt Lilly for $10mil

Ugly
Aardsma for Cotts

Marquis for $7mil

Cliff Floyd

No closer

Grade: D

Basically what happened in the pitching area, is a bunch of MLB teams let Scott Boras set the market value for pitching this offseason, simply based on who his priority is at any given time. This is why Lilly gets $10mil and Zito will get $14mil.