The Anatomy of a Losing Streak

[Transmogrified Tiger]

The Cubs have lost 5 in a row, 3 of them to the Cardinals, so no one is happy. Lot's of people are really irritated with the team, so let's look at exactly what's caused it.

 

To begin, the starting pitching, which is convenient since it marks a full rotation.

 

Harden: 6 IP, 4 ER, 6 H, 7/3 K/BB, 1 HR

Lilly: 7 IP, 3 ER, 4 H, 5/3 K/BB, 1 HR

Dempster: 7 IP, 2 ER, 6 H, 3/2 K/BB

Marshall: 5 IP, 2 ER, 4 H, 3/1 K/BB, 2 HR

Zambrano: 4.2 IP, 3 ER, 3 H, 7/4 K/BB

 

That's an average of about 6 IP per start and an ERA of 4.24. That's not super, but far from a disaster. None of these games have been a blowout from a starter getting rocked, and with the exception of the most recent game with Zambrano coming off the DL, the starters haven't taxed the bullpen.

 

Speaking of the bullpen, they've been excellent in this stretch. 11.1 IP, 2.38 ERA, and a 12/2 K/BB ratio. Blown leads haven't been the problem here.

 

That leads us to the obvious problem of the offense. 7 runs in 5 games, and 2 in the last 4, won't win you games. It's just not going to. However, if there were a stretch where the offense would be to sputter, wouldn't it be this one? The offense scored 5 runs against Moehler and the Astros, not a bad showing. Since then, they've faced Jake Peavy, Chris Carpenter, Adam Wainwright, and Piniero. That's 3 top notch pitchers, and another who stuff-wise had the game of his life. The Cubs only had 7.1 innings against pitchers besides those 4. Looking inward, the offense isn't going to consistently do well against top shelf starts as they currently stand. They don't have their best and most consistent hitter, and while some of the slumping bats are starting to come around, it's been mitigated by having sinkholes at 2B and 3B.

 

So what do you take from all of that? The Cubs picked a bad time to have to face Carpenter, Wainwright, and Peavy in succession, plus have an awesome version of Piniero before that(I know some will think that Piniero's outing is more the fault of the Cubs than his, but the point remains), especially since there were no super duper starts from the rotation to help steal a game. Considering that guys like Lee, Bradley, and Soto are making strides, Fukudome, Theriot, and Hoffpauir continue to hit, and the bullpen is in very good form, I don't think it's cause for huge concern. They really need to have a nice offensive day to get things going though, giving the opposing starting pitchers an abundance of credit loses a lot of steam if Josh Geer goes out and dominates tomorrow night.

 

So if you've made it this far, the moral of the story is don't freak out. Losing without scoring runs sucks, but it's been to good pitchers and we haven't dug ourselves a hole in the standings. These types of aberrations happen, even to good teams.

[Guest]

It's good to put things in proper perspective. However, my fear is the one I've had since the beginig of the off-season, the cubs don't have enough offense to compete against top shelf pitching

[TruffleShuffle]

i think part of it is running into good pitchers, but there are some guys in the lineup who are just slumping. soriano is in a funk and fontenot has been horrible this month. it hasn't seemed like there were a lot of hard hit balls in the st. louis series or tonight.

 

plus miles sucks.

[CyHawk_Cub]

I think we should just blame it on Aaron Miles & call it a day

 

/thread