abuck1220

Reading Ted William's book, he says otherwise. When you're struggling, you work the count into your favor, then you can expect a better pitch. In a 2-0, 3-0 count, you can almost expect a fastball to hit. It makes plenty of sense. if the first pitch is a perfectly hittable pitch right down the middle, how is getting down in the count 0-1 going to get the count in your favor? are you just assuming that if you stand there and don't swing, the opposing pitcher is going to fall behind 3-0?

:-s Is it Deene calling the game? yep. grieve doubles home two, and the cubs lead 3-1. heart of the order due up against hill.

Valid point. But when you're struggling like Corey Patterson, and trying to drive in runs, you do not swing at the first pitch at all. The guy isn't hitting well. Pitchers are throwing him garbage. Rusch throws the ball away like El Duque did earlier today. that's ridiculous.

murton k's (wainwright's 11th) after cedeno's bunt gets thrown away allowing hill to score. 1-1 game. announcer says murton was sent to iowa to work on his power stroke. so corey was sent to iowa because he was using his power stroke too much, and murton was sent down because he wasn't using it enough. good times.

i blame corey for neifi grounding into that dp.

after walking the pitcher and getting behind the next guy 2-0, hill gets a k and an inning-ending dp. nice.

missed an inning of the i-cub game, but hill gave up an unearned run in the fifth...and he walks the pitcher to lead off the sixth. :evil:

I can't speak for anyone else, but my mama taught me not to talk with my mouth full of crow. are you telling people to eat crow because rusch had one good inning? :roll:

two more k's for non-glendon. 7 thru 4 innings of one-hit ball.

the non-veteran has 7 k's thru four innings of one-hit ball. :shock: but rusch is doing pretty awesome too.

five k's thru three shutout innings for rich hill. i'm just sayin'...

9 out of 10 first pitch strikes for hill. 5 k's thru 3 innings of one hit ball.

hill k's the side in the second. he's pretty good.

damn...i thought iowa was on the road tonight. guess i'll just have to listen on the radio. hill leads off the game w/ a k and gets the next two guys quickly. third out came on a flyout to murton, who is in rf.

a 22 year old who already had a year of success under his belt. his other choices were juan cruz and alan benes. quit acting like dusty and pretending like he unearthed the talents of prior and wood. they were dropped in his lap. even the most incompetent manager would know to have z and prior in the rotation. it's ridiculous to give him credit for having those guys out there.

by the way, with williams in the pen, the cubs have an eight man pen. idiotic.

cruz was fantastic last season out of atlanta's pen. and he was flat out dominating at AAA this month. dubois is in his first big league season, and he hasn't really been given consistent playing time. and even with the inconsisten playing time + a trade, he's slugging .453, which isn't awful. feliz, luis gonzalez, and overbay slug at about that clip. hill's a decent utility guy...career .345ish obp. that's barrett, walker, winn, milton bradley range. choi's got a near .800 OPS. better than piazza, castillo, feliz, lawton, wilkerson. so while none of those guys are stars, they've all had some success...it's not like they're out of baseball or anything. and they're all still young...and most importantly, for the teams that have them, cheap. Maybe I was right about Cruz after all! :D Choi had a 3 game stretch where he hit a bunch of home runs and has done little since. LA could really use some hitting, and the guy can't even start consistently. Sure, sure blame it on Tracy though. :roll: did you not read the end of my post? So they're getting "shots" but Murton and Hill aren't?? They're playing sporadically just like the Murton and the rest. People would still be beating the "I Hate Dusty" drum if Choi was still in Chicago. hill got four starts. murton just got demoted. if you can't tell the difference between those situations and cruz, hill and choi seeing action in games for the last 3-4 years, i don't know what to tell you.

What we hear: So, now that we've successfully convinced Corey (and Corey's convinced himself) to try pull everything until he can't hit, let's go ahead and tell Murton he can't play in the majors because he gets too many base hits to right field, and because we need to pull our team OBP down a bit. that's hilarious. i don't know if i've ever heard of a guy being demoted because he knows how to go the other way. shame on you for knowing how to hit! watch jeromy burnitz beat weak grounders into the dirt for three weeks and then we'll talk!

i hate the cubs.

It's kind of funny that when this regime started overhauling the organization, they decided to concentrate almost exclusively on pitching, as they were going to try and emulate the Braves, who dominated with pitching. Yet in the process they ignored offense (or concentrated on the completely wrong aspects of offense), which is really where Atlanta did the most damage. Perhaps drafting and developing pitchers, then trading them off for bats wasn't the genius idea they thought it was. Perhaps you need guys who can hit to win baseball games, and perhaps you need to develop your own guys who can do that. I don't know though, I'm just a fan who hasn't "been there". yeah, dummy. obviously people in charge of a sub-.500 team with a $95 million payroll know what they're doing.

i love how dusty lumps zambrano and prior into his 'young players' category. gee, thanks for sticking with two of the best pitchers in baseball instead of throwing estes, kirk rueter or glendon rusch out there. and it's not like he took a wild chance on a scronny AA guy with those two...they were pretty well established in the rotation when he got here. and we wouldn't want a youngster out there making fundamental mistakes...thank goodness we have his veteran-laden team out there playing fundamentally sound baseball. :roll:

You needed proof to validate your assumption? Common sense would've saved you time. :) every once in a while i like to throw some facts in there to back up my wild accusations...just for something different. :D

Obviously disagreeing w/ you is worse. no...i was wrong to question the cubs' way. obviously, this refusal to play young players is working out great. they are under .500 with one of the highest payrolls in baseball, so they obviously know what they are doing. i say if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

while true, i doubt the media would give him much credit.

cruz was fantastic last season out of atlanta's pen. and he was flat out dominating at AAA this month. dubois is in his first big league season, and he hasn't really been given consistent playing time. and even with the inconsisten playing time + a trade, he's slugging .453, which isn't awful. feliz, luis gonzalez, and overbay slug at about that clip. hill's a decent utility guy...career .345ish obp. that's barrett, walker, winn, milton bradley range. choi's got a near .800 OPS. better than piazza, castillo, feliz, lawton, wilkerson. so while none of those guys are stars, they've all had some success...it's not like they're out of baseball or anything. and they're all still young...and most importantly, for the teams that have them, cheap. Maybe I was right about Cruz after all! :D Choi had a 3 game stretch where he hit a bunch of home runs and has done little since. LA could really use some hitting, and the guy can't even start consistently. Sure, sure blame it on Tracy though. :roll: did you not read the end of my post?