Dempster appears to be broken.

FIFY

quote:

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Dumpster

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Having two pitchers on the DL changes the situation too. I wonder if he'd get a trip to the DL if that weren't the case.

I think his main problem has been that he pitches alright until he hits the big inning. Last night, unfortunately, the big inning came after he got the first out in the bottom of the first.

For whatever reason, I had him on my fantasy team, coming off the bench for "lesser" offenses....which I deemed the Dbacks as such.

If you're wondering, his ERA for the evening was 189.00

Quade hadn't managed Dempster's outings very well in his earlier appearances, but what can you say about last night's ?

And just to complain, and I know I'm biased, but with the way things are going I wish we had Sandberg at the helm. Things can change and make Quade look brilliant, but I'm not sure anyone could make this group "good". It might as well be someone interesting.

Yeah, you kind of wonder what it was about the end of last season that made everyone click. Was it the fact that it was just Lou being disengaged and all other coaches doing a fine job. No knock on Riggins, but I felt like our SPs always overperformed under Rothschild. For Dempster, I believe last night was mental. He was struggling to locate his pitches. That being said, I also read that his velocity was noticeably down.

Cubs win! 2 HR for Soriano.

Per Paul Sullivan's twitter:


"Soriano's nine home runs in April sets a franchise record, surpassing D-Lee, Lee Walls and Sammy (Sosa, not Fuld)."

Trade him while he's hot!!!!!

Not sure anyone will want to inherit the 50 years left on his contract.

Garza with a solid performance tonight. Fonzi's still hot too.

Go Cubs Go! (I almost posted then I decided to hold off when Marmol gave up the single).

Worst team I've ever seen at manufacturing runs. 7 leadoff men got on base with 10 hits and we score 3 runs. That's embarrassing. I gotta say, Quade has not impressed me in any sense.

In other news, as of today, the NL was exactly .500 at home and on the road. You don't see that very often.

Zero chance at winning tonight.

Russell vs Kershaw. Has fail written all over it.

Yeah, I'm still wondering why Russell is still starting. IMO, Quade is just throwing away every 5th game. I'm not going to complain about them not bringing up a minor leaguer to take his spot, but I do wonder what the logic is behind it. Going into the season I didn't have great expectations for the season because it sounded like management was prepping for next season. Then they went and got Matt Garza and I started to wonder about that theory. After the season started though, there have been a few head scratchers that would fall in line with my original theory...Russell being the biggest of them all.

...oh and keeping with your theme, WhataMaroon88, a balk and a wild pitch accounted for two of the four runs given up. And even more depressing is the thought the Cubs currently have a 12-15 record after playing: 3 against Pit, 7 against AZ, 3 against MIL, 3 against HOU, 3 against SD and 3 against LA. That's as opposed to 5 games against COL, the only team over .500 we've played.

Wow.


[This message has been edited by bluestainedivy (edited 5/2/2011 4:59p).]

Russell gave up 5 R, 4 earned before he was pulled after 4.2 innings. He has an 8.1 something ERA overall.

The "good" news is that Soriano was 2-4 today with ANOTHER home run. Also peculiar, Samardzija threw 2 more innings of no hit, no walk baseball.

Yeah, I'm not sure what to make of Shark's string of quality outings. Perhaps he's more deserving of a start than the sip. BTW, I think 4 of the runs Russell gave up last night were with 2 outs. Correct me if I'm wrong.

since things really can't get any worse (and since the SI jinx has nothing on the billy goat...)

Also, Barney named April rookie of the month.

Cubs win 4-1. 3 came in the 9th.

First homer as a Cub for Pena.

Dempster went 7 innings of 1 run ball.

Dempster and Pena bucking their trends...Very good to see that. I was worried for Dempster after he walked the first two batters on eight pitches. Ironically, thank goodness for Ethier who came up hacking and after getting two strikes and 2 or 3 balls, grounded into a double play.

Yeah, Demp really seemed to settle down after getting out of that first inning jam.

Looks like Russell's out of the 5-spot. The Cubs will go to a 4-man rotation for the time being.

From a Bruce Levine article:

quote:

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With the injuries to Cashner and Wells, James Russell and Casey Coleman have been filling in as the fourth and fifth starters. Going into Russell's start against the Los Angeles Dodgers on Monday night, they were a combined 1-6 with an 8.68 ERA.

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http://sports.espn.go.com/chicago/mlb/news/story?id=6468516

[This message has been edited by bluestainedivy (edited 5/4/2011 1:28p).]

WHOOP!!! Geo, Pena and Byrd with jacks to put the Cubbies up 5-0 in the 6th. Good to see solid starting pitching and the heart of the order come to life. C'mon ARam!

Cubs win old school style!

WHY THE HECK CAN'T THE CUBS HIT WITH RISP!?!? 5 left in scoring position through six innings.

[This message has been edited by bluestainedivy (edited 5/6/2011 3:47p).]

Anyone else start thinking "here we go again" when the ground ruled double stopped the runner at third? Thank goodness ***udome shot middle for the winning hit.

i did. I was thinking, we are going to lose off of a ground rule double.

Guys, this is the most unclutch team you've seen. Before the game today they were 3rd overall in team AVG and 28th in battin with RiSP. On top of that, I'd like to know how many runs we've given up with 2 outs in an inning (heck even 2 strikes and 2 outs).

This is a season like no other IMO. I just keep o hearing all of these headscratching stats. We had 13 hits, all singles and I believe that's the second time we've had a game like that.

Somehow Byrd has an 11-game hitting streak?

Another thought: it used to be that as Fonzi goes, so go the Cubs. I feel that's the case with Castro now

...at least the Bulls won

This is probably the least amount of baseball I've watched to start a season in years.

^
^
^
+1

I'll be at Fenway in 9 days. But I won't get to see Geo as he has been put on the DL with a strained groin.

So far, rain delay looks like it helped

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Hendry hugging it out with Pujols. We can only hope for next season.

Garza has really been solid lately. He's got a lot of enthusiasm too which you really like to see with a club that has a tendency of being dead.

What does Matt Garza think about Pujols coming to the Cubs?

well played Mauer.

Anyone know good sites to watch the Cubbies online? GD Fox screws up my MLB.TV.....

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