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USSoccer

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Everything posted by USSoccer

  1. USSoccer
    gahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Strikeouts are not the issue. How do you figure... take a look at the first inning of game 2, we have a guy at 2nd with nobody out and what happens? We K right away. We don't move him over, nothing, just K. I really hope we don't pick up Dunn or any other Ryan Howard look a like. I get tired of having the bases loaded with nobody out and not scoring because we strike out. We were 6th in the NL in K's. Yes, lets fundamentally change the #1 offense in the NL based on 3 games in general, and one inning in particular.
  2. USSoccer
    Lee is turning into Mark Grace, which is fine as long as you are getting power numbers from other positions. He seems to be an obvious choice at #2 in the lineup if this trend continues. I see more Sean Casey than Mark Grace. Meph's post is correct, and if I could add anything to it, it would be this: Not only shouldn't we try and overhaul the roster, but it's going to be exceedingly difficult to do so anyway. Soriano is all but immovable. Fukudome is immovable-and even if you could unload him you're selling low AND eating a lot of cash. Ramirez and Soto are fine, playoff struggles aside. Font and DeRosa make a fine 2B combo, and they're relatively cheap. That leaves you SS, 1B and CF. One would think Pie get another crack at the job. Does anyone really see Hendry dealing Theriot or Lee?
  3. USSoccer
    The optimism is probably because if they can win tonight, they'll get it back to Chicago, and we have our best pitcher going tonight. And I flat out refuse to believe that a team that's this good-and we are good-is going to get waxed in three straight.
  4. USSoccer
    I like it, but you made like 5 subs.
  5. USSoccer
    I'd be happy if the cast-offs were limited to DeRo, Dempster, Theriot, and D-Lee. They had the tightest sphincters this series, so they simply have to go. Give Fuku another year. Embrace Soriano's eccentricity and encourage players to emulate him. Sign four guys that, in a psychological sense, most fit the Manny/Johnny Damon/Idiot psychological profile to replace DeRo, Demp, Ther, and D. Just not Manny himself. Too distracting. Bring in Bellhorn as a bench guy (or coach?). DeRo, really? You do realize he's driven in our only runs of this series, right? Keep him as a super utility guy if you must. This was a career year. I would expect something Gary Gaetti-like from him next year. And that DP boot must have made Alex Gonzalez blush. DeRosa shouldn't even have been on the field, because it's clear his calf isn't 100%. Wait, how do you know that? Because he had an error on a ball where he didn't even have to move? Because he has a 1.167 OPS this series? Because he doesn't look like he's moving very well laterally and he looks uncomfortable.
  6. USSoccer
    I'd be happy if the cast-offs were limited to DeRo, Dempster, Theriot, and D-Lee. They had the tightest sphincters this series, so they simply have to go. Give Fuku another year. Embrace Soriano's eccentricity and encourage players to emulate him. Sign four guys that, in a psychological sense, most fit the Manny/Johnny Damon/Idiot psychological profile to replace DeRo, Demp, Ther, and D. Just not Manny himself. Too distracting. Bring in Bellhorn as a bench guy (or coach?). DeRo, really? You do realize he's driven in our only runs of this series, right? Keep him as a super utility guy if you must. This was a career year. I would expect something Gary Gaetti-like from him next year. And that DP boot must have made Alex Gonzalez blush. DeRosa shouldn't even have been on the field, because it's clear his calf isn't 100%.
  7. USSoccer
    This is just really, really dissapointing.
  8. USSoccer
    The crowd can't handle a deficit in the playoffs, they think the 99 years of previous failure are connected to today's performance. Clearly has a major effect on the players. Then those players need to be playing somewhere else, because they're not mentally tough enough to handle the pressure of the playoffs. There are fans of World Series-winning teams that are a hell of a lot harder on their clubs than Cub fans, and it didn't seem to bother those teams. They're major league baseball players, they're not unemotional robots. World Series-winning teams don't have 100 years of losing pressure packed on them by their fans. The fans aren't unemotional robots either. The Red Sox and White Sox were still able to win WS with 80+ year championship droughts hanging over their heads, compliments of their fans. I fail to see why the Cub players shouldn't be expected to act in similar fashion as those teams. Because in the years that they broke those droughts, their fans went all in. Our fans dont-or didn't tonight.
  9. USSoccer
    The crowd can't handle a deficit in the playoffs, they think the 99 years of previous failure are connected to today's performance. Clearly has a major effect on the players. I'm going to keep asking this question until I get an answer: How much epic underperformance under how long of a sample has to occur before we accept the fact that even some tiny portion of the things that remain consistent in the organization have an effect? 10 playoff games? 100 playoff games? 1000? I think the effect it has on the crowd bleeds over into the players pressing. And as far as the whole "They are professionals" thing...yes, yes they are, but they are still human, and seeing fans who for 6 months are easily the best in baseball clam up at the first sign of adversity is going to have an affect on you. There's already pressure on them, and that just adds to it. I refuse to accept that it doesn't.
  10. USSoccer
    I just got back. It wasn't your regular crowd; it was just a bunch of lame people who really didn't seem into the game. Same thing with last year. That's awful and embarassing and should not happen in a flipping playoff game.
  11. USSoccer
    I'm going to bring it back to the crowd making a dicey situation a lot worse by acting like they watching a kitten get stabbed all day. If the crowd stays tight like that, the players are going to respond.
  12. USSoccer
    The booing is getting way out of hand. There are times when booing is warranted, but it serves no purpose in Game 1 of a playoff series. When your starting pitcher walks seven. Fans have emotions. If they want to let them out, I have no problem with it. I'm not buying it here. In a game in June, whatever, boo your heart out, but in the playoffs, the kind of crap you saw out of 40,000 people tonight is what actually makes a made up curse have a real effect. You can't negate homefield because you're waiting for something bad to happen, and then the second we go down 2, the crowd is dead the rest of the game. No noise, no attempt to get into the game at all. That can't happen. Sometimes a crowd has to help a pressing team.
  13. USSoccer
    One thing that will be annoying is the complete panic that the city and fans will be in tomorrow about "Z The Head Case". Also, if we fall behind the crowd is going to be a liability again. Like they were tonight, when they were complete crap. That was embarrasing. Completely embarrasing home field.
  14. USSoccer
    Tonight was the Ryan Dempster that all of us expected back in April, and it cost them. If he isn't walking 7 guys tonight, we don't expose the worst part of our pen and it keeps our offense from pressing, which we are making a bad habit of.
  15. USSoccer
    Cue the citywide panic.
  16. USSoccer
    As an aside, the crowd sucks tonight.
  17. USSoccer
    I can't say I'm suprised, but there's still 9 outs and at least one more trip through our 3-4-5. We have to hold the gap at 2.
  18. USSoccer
    We have 12 outs left. We should be able to get two runs. The key is the bullpen.
  19. USSoccer
    If it isn't Edmonds (which I can see for whatever reason), I think this is the year Aramis cements his reputation long term. I think this postseason is his.
  20. USSoccer
    Torre gets outmanaged all the time. He got pantsed by Bob Brenly in the 2001 World Series, and was outmanaged for 6 games and 7 1/3 innings if the 7th game in 2003 by an idiot, and outmanaged in 2004. And 2005. And 2006. He sucked in St Louis. He benefitted from great NY teams. He's not some savant in the dugout. Unless he's going to channel 1998 Bernie Williams or 2000 Mariano Rivera or 2007 Alex Rodriguez, we're not going to suffer at his hands.
  21. USSoccer
    I'll give you Lowe, because his stuff is a bad matchup for our hitters, but Billingsley is beatable, Kuroda is ok and Maddux completely sucks, and that's not factoring in his crap playoff history. We're going to drop one game in this series, but none of these guys is an ace, and certainly Greg Maddux shouldn't be scaring anyone but Joe Torre.
  22. USSoccer
    Any team in a 5 game series has the potential of shutting a team down or going cold. Realistically, their offense wasn't any better after getting Manny. Their pitching is pretty meh on the road. Given the choice between Mets and Dodgers, this was the team you wanted. They aren't that good. Short series randomness aside, we have no excuse if we lose.
  23. USSoccer
    LA's pitching is good, but it also benefits from having played a large amount of games against their AAA division. It won't be a 3 game blowout, but we're going to win it as long as no one melts down and the offense doesn't shut completely down in Game 1 and they begin to press.
  24. USSoccer
    The Lakeview people are going to plotz at that gametime. I said this earlier, but Game 1 will likely be the game we lose, if we lose one. Lowe being a sinkerballer...unless we hit him early, we probably will struggle.
  25. USSoccer
    You don't really think one of those guys should be on the roster instead of Marshall based on just tonight, do you? Marshall should be in before all of those guys. And Wuertz wasn't lights out. He walked Craig freaking Council with the bases loaded to put them ahead. -Marshall needs to be on the roster if only to give them 2 LHP. -Wuertz walking Counsell tied the game -Wuertz may have crap control half the time, but the guy doesn't get hit hard. He gets weak groundballs to SS. Of the possible options for that last pen spot, who would you go with over Wuertz?
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