Happy Carlos Zambrano Day!
It’s simple.
The Lawnmower gains control, or else the Cubs will need a miracle. So we’re not at “praying for a miracle” yet. We haven’t used that card. No sir. Not yet.
And any of you sackless spazzes that want DOOM, please just leave and never come back. Seriously.
Worst case scenario has Ryan Dempster trudging back up the hill on Tuesday to atone for his performance last night. Holy crap–seven walks? And to think that nibbling bastard was one barely-fouled off ball from escaping the Loney at-bat which turned out to be his nut-punching demise. That’s the worst Ryan Dempster start in months. In fact–runs and checks BB-Ref –it’s been over three months since Dempster got shelled this badly.
In his thirty-fourth start of the season last night, Dempster failed to get out of the fifth inning for only the second time. He owes his teammates better and, given a second chance Tuesday, I doubt he’d disappoint.
Ideally, Game 5’s not even necessary. When you look ahead to the two games in cavernous Dodger Stadium, you’ve got Rich Harden on, like, a month’s rest, and Ted Lilly–who as Dolan suggests, has been the Cubs’ best pitcher for the last three weeks.
So even if Zambrano shits the bed, don’t be surprised to see this series come back here.
Of course talk of the Lawnmower failing is not acceptable today. It’s disrespectful. Sure, Carlos’ antics have left little cause for him to be granted his own Hire Jim Essian-sanctioned day. But if Manny’s gonna be Manny, flicking his wrist at tough curveballs for 425 feet, then it’s past time for Carlos to “be” Carlos and shove it up L.A.’s hiney tonight. And what better time to do it than on his own motherfucking day?
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Comments
Ron Santo Z could have the game of his life tonight and it might not mean shit unless this offense does something.
Steve Buechele's Blond Mullet Well said.
Dear Pants shitting cubs fans,
You are all worthless and weak. You have two choices, Sack up or shut up.
Frasier Crane Reggie Go fuck yourself! There were just too many walks. Walking Lowe twice was horrible. I think Dempster lost control when he didn’t get the call that walked Lowe the first time. Coulda, woulda, shoulda. Hopefully the Dodgers got all their hitting out of the way. Good news is Marmol & Wood are strong and ready to go. The bullpen was good.
Listening to Tony Gywnn was brutal! The guy was sucking helium before each sentence. Sounded like Elmer Fudd. He has a voice for print. Gywnn has no business speaking on the air.
Beating a dead horse I would like to say again I would have been more comfortable with Hoffpauir on the bench than Cedeno or Howry. Theriot was healthy and played all 9 innings at short. Point being, I could see a pitcher getting knocked out early & in need of an extra PH more than an injury to Theriot or the need to use the 11 pitcher. Once again the problem in playoffs with the Cubs are the cold bats not the defense. We need another bat not a glove with a whole in it. Theriot needs to go to the 2 hole.
Bottom line: only 1 fucking game. Win today & it becomes the best of 3
Frasier Crane Fontenot had a good PH. Ward & Johnson/Edmunds are the only other options. I’d put Big Z ahead of Cedeno & Pie on the PH depth chart
Dave Couple quick facts:
- Since 1995 (beginning of the Wild Card era), the World Series Champion has NEVER gone through the postseason undefeated. Good teams lose games in the playoffs. It was only one loss for the Cubs.
- Since 1995, the future World Series Champion has only swept the first round half of the time (7 sweeps in 13 seasons). Losing one game in the NLDS isn’t the end of the world, even though someone will counter that the game one winners win the series like 75% of the time.
It isn’t the end of the world. Z gets in done tonight.
Mark Post season ball always depresses me. Doesn’t matter who is playing, winning, or losing. It always feels like a different game. Miss those lazy dog days of summer already.
Dodgers got hot last night and played unusually well. Cubs played unusually poor. Four more games–anyone can still win it.
djwoody Which was more painful?
Watching the Cubs play piss poor baseball or listening to Dick Stockton, Ron Darling, and Tony Gwynn.
Christ on a bike that was a rough night. I need to start drinking now to prepare for 8:30pm.
Jaden Thank you Mike. The crowd last night reflected the doomsayers of the Gamecast and it was embarrassing. They represented every stereotype I’ve heard and tried to refute. Down 2 with what, 15 outs left to go and we fall completely silent? What a joke.
I’m not trying to pull a D Lee and say they should never be booed or that they can’t handle it, but the fact is they played their asses off for 81 games at home, and to abandon ship in the 5th inning of Game 1 is just stupid.
If anyone’s going to the game tonight, ya’ll need to go nuts for every batter you see while we’re trailing or not. The players and coaches are completely accountable, but sucking the life out of Wrigley isn’t helping anything.
Maybe, just MAYBE these guys are pussies and need that sort of thing?
Reuschel's Jowls After a 162-game season, if this team can’t pick themselves up with a two-run deficit in the fifth inning at home, then they deserve every bit of negativity and doomsaying thrown their way. Blaming the fans for the fact the Cubs pitched and hit like ass last night is just stupid. The Cubs had two opportunities to chase Lowe with a lead (or at least put the boot on the throat), and they couldn’t get out of their own damn way at the plate to do so.
I blame Dick Stockton, myself. Have we won *any* games the past two seasons with that clown on the mic?
Keghorn Come on fans, please go out to Wrigley tonight and show some hysteria! If you see someone sitting near you not smiling and clapping and yelling, encourage them to cheer and remind them that this is OCTOBER BASEBALL!!!
Jaden I’m not blaming the fans at all, the players need to sack up no matter what. I just found it embarrassing. We’ve seen this club win basically every important series this year and comeback from much larger deficits. They deserved it in the 8th and 9th, but the game was far from over in the 5th.
I agree with Mark, the postseason has a bad feel to it with the odd time slots, awful, just awful announcing and TV segments…we’re now 0-7 under the Stockton regime.
Reuschel's Jowls From what I heard from my friends at the game, the silence was more anger-based than woe-is-us. Which I can live with. I’m pissed off at this team right now, too.
And for the record, I don’t trust Z any further than I can throw him in a big-game situation. But he’s all we’ve got tonight.
Jon MIKE D IS RIGHT.
If you DOOMSAYERS want off the bandwagon, that’s fine with me. More room to put my feet up.
Reuschel's Jowls Piss off. Just because we’re rightfully fed up with this bullshit come playoff time doesn’t mean we’re jumping off the ledge.
Bad Kermit The DOOMSAYERS are annoying, but so are the people putting their fingers in their ears and shouting “All is well!” (not that Mike is). All is not fucking well.
Game One’s matchup favored the Cubs, and they fucked it up. Game Two’s matchup favors the Dodgers. A win last night would have sure been nice. This isn’t over by any stretch of the imagination, but this also isn’t the same thing as being pissed about losing a game in June to the fucking Brewers.
I don’t blame people for being furious about last night. That was the most annoying goddamn game I’ve watched all season.
Poon Fuck all you bitches trying to blame the fans for not being into it. I was at the god damn game and I cheered for the Cubs the whole fucking night. Don’t give me that “oh a bunch of rich people who bought scalped tickets” shit. The majority of the people I talked to all bought their tickets from the Cubs, not scalpers. So all you god damn useless laptop scientists and your keyboards full of whine need to fucking nut up. It’s YOUR fault.
BigFlax @Dave - True enough, Dave, and the future World Series champion lost the first game of their division series as recently as 2003, when the Marlins lost to the Giants in San Francisco before winning the next three. We all know what happened in the next series. (The last time a World Series champion lost game one of the LDS at home was 1996, when the Yankees went down 0-1 to Texas, losing 6-2 at the Stadium, then won the next three. That’s the only time it’s ever happened, though.)
Dave @BigFlax - Good point about the home team not losing the first game. I didn’t even think to look into that. I was just grasping for something that would possibly support the Cubs current situation …
any major dude The team played bad baseball. The crowd could have all been painted blue, wearing scary bear masks, waving big noisemaking bear paws in the air, making intimidating growling noises on every pitch, singing Go Cubs Go between every inning, constructing an ad hoc monument park for Santo, Banks and Williams in deep left field using beer cans and corn dog sticks and the team still would have played bad baseball. Watching the game on television, I got the impression that the crowd was reacting to the game with some combination of petulance and stunned disbelief, which is exactly how you’d expect knowledgable baseball fans to react to their (very good) favorite team playing bad baseball.
Screw Stockton, Gwynn, Yaley McYaleington III and Verducci for bringing up the crowd every several minutes. It’s obvious that TBS told them “the people of Chicago, who have suffered for so many years, are going to be the stars of this series”. The human interest angle is a way of watering down playoff baseball coverage so Chad and Trixie’s even dopeier friends, who only watch baseball a few times a year when Chad has everybody over to his dad’s summer place for some barbeques, can have an angle to follow. This is the same marketing strategy that gave us the rally monkey and Eckstein’s Scrappy Mystique.
The focus should be on what the guys down on the field are doing. And last night, they were doing some really awful things and not doing very many good things. When you have a knowledgable fan base, good baseball makes for good crowds and good moods, not the other way around.
Bad Kermit @any major dude - I’ll give Yaley one tiny bit of credit. He totally called out TBS for taking RIDICULOUSLY long commercial breaks. He mentioned that Marshall (I think) had basically been standing on the mound for several moments, waiting for the broadcast to come back. TBS is a shitty station to host postseason baseball.
Anyone want to time the commercial breaks tonight?
CactusMcHarris Well, it was a hell of a hit for Manny. Not a bad pitch but some artful hitting.
Would you have let Dempster stay in after he got the sacks full?
And get your hate off My Man Tony G. Sure, he’s no Vice Scully, and the announcing could have been better, but I think that we’re letting the results of the game cloud our evaluation.
The Cubs stunk.
I should know…I’ve seen the Pads pull the same tricks in the last few postseasons (rare as their appearances have been) that they somehow wound up in.
Keghorn Could no one else feel the tension as they watched the game? I know Cubs fans may be nervous for a playoff game, but even when you watch WGN, you see/hear the fans more laid-back and cheerful than last night’s crowd. I’m not issuing blame anywhere and thats not the point of this post. I was just amazed at how different of a feel this game had than any other.
Mind you, I was wondering this before the second inning when Verdouche-y went off about the fans.
Adam check out this video on changing the name of Wrigley Field. Don’t let it happen, they shouldn’t be able to just sell the naming rights after so many years of history!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HwhPTJMzzBc
djwoody I’ll be the first to say it:
DOOOOOOOOOOOOM!
If it didn’t hurt so much, this would be comical. Best team in the NL all year (perhaps in all of baseball) taking a monumental dump once again in the playoffs. Son of a bitch.
CT
bocaj
BigFlax
StPatrick
TDubbs
These aren’t your 1909-2007 Cubs.
Message to World:
BITE ME.