Little Slide Rooter

Newsflash: The Astros 7-9 hitters are weak even for 7-9 hitters.

i really want to see Pence break one of those twig legs of his.

Be honest, how many of you are going to watch Demsters every move here and wait until you see something that resembles discomfort?

Heres your homework class: I want to to take a baseball, throw it overhand as hard as you can. Then repeat 99 more times, and tell me if you feel any discomfort the next day.

Im feeling better about Harden now.

I know this sounds kind of dumb, but I was talking about it with some guys at work. If some kind of magical baseball fairy were to make a deal that not only could Zambrano pitch the rest of the season at top form, but also guarantee a World Series win, however, the catch is that Zambrano would miss all of 2009, would you take it?

Were they supposed to wrestle Z into the MRI machine? In the old days, they'd put a date on someone coming back from injury, but then the player never would. If they don't know what the situation is, I'd rather they say so than try to reassure fans with unrealistic projections. COme on, they're clearly holding stuff back. Lou first lcaims he's skipping Harden's start as a precaution, then he eventually admits something isn't right....then the next day finally admits there's discomofrt. Meanwhile Harden keeps claiming he's fine. So Harden is the one we can't trust!!! It's a campaign by Harden to make sure people buy playoff tickets!!! And he would have gotten away for it if it werent for you kids and your dog.

What does Lou have to gain by denying anything? Pretty much nothing. I listened to the interview on the Score, and he didnt sound like someone hiding anything, he sounded like a guy who didnt know any more than anyone else, and was baffled as anyone as to why Z missed the MRI.

Any chance of Rich Hill making heroic comeback?

Hey Chicago, what do you say, Cobs wont lose any ground today.

I think Adam Dunn just walked off.

I really dont like that the word elbow was mentioned. Granted it was just by Bohrs and Bernstein who dont know any more than we do, but still.

Welcome back Howry Light.

What happens in those situations is basically a matter of luck or happenstance. The idea is to get a lot of base runners on so that some of those times when we happen to get hits, there are runners on. We're inevitably going to fail more often than not in those situations. That's a fact. For people to be complaining about not getting hits in certain cherry picked situations is missing the point, entirely. Hey... the CUBS are really clutch with the bases loaded !!! CUBS AB R H 2b 3b HR RBI BB SO BA OBP SLG OPS BABIP P/PA IsoD RBI% bases loaded 136 26 44 15 0 6 145 19 29 0.324 0.370 0.566 0.936 0.376 3.76 0.046 0.345 All ABs 4816 750 1353 286 19 161 711 558 1007 0.281 0.358 0.449 0.807 0.327 3.88 0.077 0.198 I'm not trying to argue with you, as I know you're posting this tongue in cheek - just a disclaimer. ...but even if those numbers held true over a somewhat significant amount of time, right there is an example of a situation where someone would say, "Look at how good they are in the clutch," or whatever, while totally overlooking the fact that for the bases to be loaded in that situation, a number of factors that would be conducive to good offensive production would probably already be in play, i.e. an already struggling pitcher, less freedom to pitch outside the zone, margin for error, etc. Culprit #1 was Bob Howry Culprit #2 was Lou for leaving in Howry as long as he did. theres no quetioning that. However, cant you just admit that maybe, the offense could have come through with a key base hit or 2 when we were piling up base runners?

I knew I should have gotten Bob Howry that table saw for his birthday.

They do that sort of thing. Hopefully it is just the tired arm, he can rest get two starts in before the postseason. Kind of like the news teasers "a product that you probably have in your very house can kill your entire family. find out what it is at 9"

We can always count on you to stay psoitive in a world of chicken littles. Im not to worried, but still, I feel like Im in the waiting room at the hospital waiting to hear if my mother or father are going to pull through after a bad accident.

but bad news is worse news.

Ummm... 8-2 Mets now. :ninja: Behold the awesome power of the jinx. Too bad the Cubs cant beat the Astros if their life depended on it.

Our offense was fine yesterday. Depends on what you mean by fine. home runs, check. base hits, check. Clutch hitting with RISP, not so much. Don't give me that clutch hitting crap. We scored 7 runs. We didn't lose because of the offense. No, we lost because of a combination of offense, defense, and pitching. You're right... we should fault the offense for not cashing in every single runner that got on base. Sorry, but the offense did more than enough. Expectations are ridiculous if you want to start nitpicking about the fact that they didn't happen to get hits in some situations late in the game, especially when the Astros should've had no business being tied in that game. You can't complain because hits don't happen to come in clutch situations, especially not when you score 7 runs in the game. Well, scratch that, you can, but that complaint would be dumb. Complain all you want if they go up there with a bad approach and give the other team easy outs all game. Hell, complain if they go out there with a good approach but don't manage to score much (I'm not inclined to do that, because that's basically blaming them for bad luck, but to each his own)... but when you both have a good approach and score 7 runs in a game, the offense is the last place you should be looking to lay any blame. Seriously, how many stranded base runners have we left since this disasterous streak? You cant tell me theres no such thing as clutch hitting. Solo home runs galore are only going to take you so far. What happened to that Cubby carousel we were seeing? Its been a while.

Good thing the Mets had that big 1st, because are not tacking on. Is it me, or aside from Gagne has the Brewers pen been pretty decent lately?

What the hell man. Why no news. Maybe its a good thing, and everything is good and Lou wants to wait until game time for the announcment. Or not. But maybe.

Come on Mets, you cant expect the Cobs to lower the MN on their own.

ALRIGHT! If the Mets can hang on 4 more innings, we can have another piss poor game and still get our magic numbers ot 13/19. Thanks Mets!

Our offense was fine yesterday. Depends on what you mean by fine. home runs, check. base hits, check. Clutch hitting with RISP, not so much. Don't give me that clutch hitting crap. We scored 7 runs. We didn't lose because of the offense. No, we lost because of a combination of offense, defense, and pitching.