lumafia

You can call me NightHawk.

I've batted against former major leaguers and high draft picts in non-professional leagues and it's neither terrifying nor awesome. When you are in the box it's see ball hit ball. Who is dealing is means nothing. That's not to say I was remotely successful either, b/c mostly I wasn't, but when i've been in the box it doesn't matter. Did any of them share a similar pedigree to Mark Prior I had a couple of AB's off Prior the summer after his senior year of high school. He was getting some innings in prior to starting his Freshman year with Vanderbilt. We were playing in an 18+ league in Nashville. I think he only threw 4 innings. If I remember correctly, I was going into my Junior year of college. That same day Joe Blanton was pitching for our team and I was catching. Looking back, I got to see the business end of a couple of pretty good pitchers.

Only the Cubs.

Against the Pirates on 4/22/10, the Brewers batted around in the 7th and again in the 9th, en route to a 20-0 victory. It's no "11 consecutive hits", but batting around twice in one game is batting around twice in one game. Pirates lost seven straight from 4/20-4/26 Pirates allowed 25 hits in the aforementioned game against Milwaukee. Only one less. The Brewers batted around in the 3rd and 8th innings against Pittsburgh on 4/26/10. This in addition to the previously mentioned game where they batted around twice against Pittsburgh only four days earlier. Brewers had 21 ABs with RISP in the 20-0 game against the Pirates. However, it would have been more if not for a couple of homeruns with two guys on base, as opposed to only one homer against the Cubs. Furthermore, while Milwaukee had 29 ABs wtih RISP against the Cubs, they tallied 12 hits for a .414 avg in those situations. Against Pittsburgh, they went 10-for-21, for a .476 avg with RISP. The 2-3-4 hitters are at least typically some of the better hitters in the lineup. The Pirates allowed the Brewers 6-9 hitters to go 11-for-22, including two hits by the pitcher. Later in the game, they gave up a hit to a relief pitcher that was inserted higher in the order on a double switch. This is irrelevant as it's not like an injury to any player was going to hurt the Cubs chances at this point in the season. The same can be said for the Pirates during their streak, even though it was April (sorry, Jake). Pirates were outscored 72-12 from 4/20 - 4/26. The Pirates never even led late in any game during their streak to even allow for a walkoff. And while they didn't allow a cycle, Edmonds came close, hitting a single, two doubles, and a homer in one game. They also managed to give up four hits in a game to Greg Zaun of all people. This is only looking at 2010. I'm sure if anyone went back through the years, they could find SEVERAL examples of bad weeks that rival or surpass what the Cubs have done. Fair enough. Henceforth, upon which time you find yourself wishing to refer to the suckiness of the Cubs, thou musteth include the Pirates.

ONLY THE POSTERS ON NORTHSIDEBASEBALL.COM! :banghead: Seriously though, I think it's the heat. We need posters who are more comfortable posting during the heat of the summer.

now THEY sucked Actually, if you look 2 days prior to the start of the 99 losing streak, they allowed 17 runs. So in a 6 game stretch, they were 1-5, and had gave up 81 runs. :shock: They did score 34 runs in that stretch, so it wasn't a total loss.

Wow....only the Cubs. ;) Of course, I'm going entirely off memory alone, and I am not blessed with the time required to go through every game log over the last 50 years to look at box-scores in order to determine whether or not the obscure records the Cubs allowed during that 4 game stretch have been duplicated and/or exceeded. It just seems like every time the Cubs played a game last weekend, some Sportscenter anchor had to list 2 or 3 obscure futility record that the Cubs tied, broke, came close to, or in general, did/allowed something to happen that hasn't happened in a long time. I would also like to point out, as databases full of statistics from major league baseball grow larger and more complex by the day, sports enthusiasts and major sports networks and outlets will certainly be more capable of uncovering random records, thus making it more common to see obscure records being broken and/or approached more often.

Wow....only the Cubs. ;) Of course, I'm going entirely off memory alone, and I am not blessed with the time required to go through every game log over the last 50 years to look at box-scores in order to determine whether or not the obscure records the Cubs allowed during that 4 game stretch have been duplicated and/or exceeded. It just seems like every time the Cubs played a game last weekend, some Sportscenter anchor had to list 2 or 3 obscure futility record that the Cubs tied, broke, came close to, or in general, did/allowed something to happen that hasn't happened in a long time.

Honestly, it seems like every time there's a game where one team gets killed and the other wins by putting up football numbers you hear about it was the first time since so-and-so that a team did or didn't do this or that. That may be the case, but the Cubs allosed 35 runs in 2 games over a 4 day period. I'm not going to say that the Cubs had the suckiest 4-day period in the history of baseball, but I can't remember a Cubs team sucking that bad over a 4-day period since I've been watching, and I've seen some pretty sucky teams.

I agree with erik. While the Cubs haven't set a ton of futility records, and some of the "records" they came very close to setting are rather obscure, I would have a hard time believing that many teams have done some of these things in such a reasonably short amount of time. I can't be sure, but the Cubs certainly seem to be trying to re-define the word "suck".

There are other things at play other than just steroids. One thing that can be quantified is the type of pitches that are being thrown by pitchers compared to what was being thrown 10 years ago. According to fangraphs, the % of offspeed pitches, and variety of offspeed pitches, have increased over the last 10 years. Pitchers are becoming more balanced with the different types of pitches they are throwing, and are getting better at throwing those pitches. In general, pitchers are throwing fewer fastballs and curveballs, and more sliders, cutters and change-ups. Based on the inherent advantage of pitching as it relates to the game of baseball, even a slight improvement in pitching can have an exponential effect on offenses.

Here are some more fun stats for you guys. If you extrapolate how many runs yesterday's lineup would score over a full season (626) and the number of runs the Cub pitchers from yesterday's game would allow over a full season (826), the Pythagorean Win-Loss record would be 59-103. Personnel choices in yesterday's game was woeful, at best.

When 4 of the 9 spots in the order belong to either a pitcher or a backup-calibur player, you have to mail it in every game.

If someone would have told me after spring training that the 3 best hitters in a lineup would have been Castro, Colvin and Fukudome, I would have sworn on everything that is holy that all 3 would have been traded to the Pirates at some during the year.

Koyie has struck out in 9 of his last 11 AB's.

The Cubs have had the unique opportunity to play 3 of the worst offensive teams in the last 17 years of Major League Baseball this season. The Seattle Mariners (.642 OPS), Houston Astros (.649 OPS) and Pittsburgh Pirates (.672 OPS) have the 1st, 2nd and 5th worst team OPS since 1992. The Cubs are 8-19 (assuming today results in a loss) against those teams. :shock:

Cubs will score 10+ with that lineup. :lol: It's a crappy lineup for sure, but I can recall a few times in the past where we've scored a bunch of runs with the "forfeit lineup". I remember the days when Dusty would pencil Macias, Perez, Hairston and Blanco into the same lineup. Ha. Here's another good one....Jose Macias (.444 OPS), Tom Goodwin (.460), Ramon Martinez (.605), Paul Bako (.582) in the same lineup.

Cubs will score 10+ with that lineup. :lol: It's a crappy lineup for sure, but I can recall a few times in the past where we've scored a bunch of runs with the "forfeit lineup". I remember the days when Dusty would pencil Macias, Perez, Hairston and Blanco into the same lineup. Ha.

No pressure Randy, but if you give up 2 runs you will lose.

:-&

I guess a guy is technically "working on" a no-hitter after the first pitch, as long as the first pitch hasn't resulted in a hit.

Really....you drew that assumption based on comments he made, and not the fact that he has sucked for 80% of the season? Thank you, Captain Obvious.

Ok so I was 1 at bat early 7 actually. 1 actually. Soto, 6 other outs, a sac bunt and a walk. That's 7 AB, or 9 PA. By that rationale, considering all of the AB's that have taken place all over the world in every conceivable circumstance, it could be thousands of at bats.

Last year's injury (or this year's if his struggles weren't a carry over from the same injury) was the first that significantly hampered his performance, though. Teams will, at least, use that in negotiations. I guess my point is that a good GM is going to want to see him perform for more than just 3 weeks before making a decision to pay his salary and give up prospects. I would.

I think Theriot has been hiding Lou's dementia meds again.