JonJayCutler

I just don't understand it. The guy was a force here in 07 and 08, then has a bad season because he plays through an injury, and now he is regarded as a bad player who never knew how to hit? He has been nothing but great off the field and in the clubhouse. So what is there to hate besides his contract? Not everyone is going to have a picture perfect approach at the plate. Here come the posts about how he wasn't that good in 07 and 08. :roll:

Again, discounting injuries of oft-injured players is a foolish. Why would you assume they play a full healthy season this year? They are old players with frequent health problems, the reasonable bet is they miss time this year. As for Soriano "forgetting how to hit", he never knew how, he simply counted on his physical abilities and had a horrible approach. The older he gets, the less he's going to be able to count on his physical abilities to make up for his horrible approach. It's not like disappointing seasons are something new for Soriano. For one, it's a pipe dream to pretend last year was all about the injury. He was fine enough to play, and he sucked. He's been disappointing before, he's well past his prime and he has a horrible approach at the plate, that is not a recipe for a guy guaranteed to have a strong bounceback season at 34. They might have a better offensive season this year, but there's no reason why they should see a large improvement. That's why I used the word "should". They should see an improvement, the exception being if they have another year full of injuries like last year. Also, saying Soriano never knew how to hit is ridiculous. The Soriano hate around here needs to stop. There is a difference between hating a player's contract and hating the player. Just about everyone here hates his contract, but that doesn't mean you can't show respect for the good baseball player that he is/was.

My point is that hitting will improve simply because Soriano and Ramirez aren't injured anymore. Soriano turned in his career-worst OPS last year of .726, 150 points less than it was in 2008 and over 100 points worse than his career average. Do people really think he just forgot how to hit? Ramirez is an .850-.900 OPS guy who missed about 250 ABs last year. Soto is a question mark but asking him to improve over last year isn't asking for a lot (.218 avg, 702 OPS). Then you have Byrd who has OPSed .800 for the last three seasons; he should be able to slightly improve on Bradley's 393 ABs and .775 OPS from last year. Then Lee is Lee, and I'll settle for a season somewhere in between 2008 and 2009 in terms of production from him. I understand your point about age but none of the players I've mentioned have even hit 35 yet. We've seen time and time again players put up big numbers in their mid-30s.

The low expectations are understandable due to the disappointment of last year, but I think this team will surprise some people. I say this for a few reasons. 1. We should see a large improvement in hitting. We haven't seen this so far, but its early and we just faced an elite pitching rotation on the road. Jaramillo will play a part in this, but more importantly it will be about getting our hitters back to their 2008 form. Our "big five" going into last year were Lee, Ramirez, Soriano, Soto, and Bradley. Only one of these five had a productive season (Lee). The other four didn't either due to injury or poor performance in general. This year, replace Bradley with Byrd. Even if we can just have three/four of the five have good productive seasons, its going to be a significant upgrade over last year. Throw in the stronger bench and we should be much better at the plate this year. It probably won't be as good as 2008, but it doesn't necessarily need to be. 2. Rotation depth. We don't have a dominant #1 pitcher, but we have a group of solid guys. Assuming Lilly doesn't a lose a step when coming back, we have four solid starters, and then three decent options for the #5 spot. Surely one of Gorz/Silva will stick, but if not they can always move Marshall back to the rotation. Hopefully Lou would do this before starting Samardzija. Z will be fine. He is not an ace, but hes never really had an awful season, ERA-wise. Lets hope I didn't just jinx that. 3. Luck in general. Lets face it, we caught some bad breaks last year. Injuries to two of our three best hitters (Ramirez and Soriano), injury-prone players like Carpenter staying healthy all year for the Cards, etc. People tend to forget we won 83 games last year. We only need to improve by 6-8 games to have a decent shot at the playoffs. There's my optimism for the night.

I much rather have Gorz as our 5th starter than Silva when Lilly comes back.

When did we trade Samardzija to the Reds?

Please make the playoffs and beat the Cavs. You have a much better shot at it than Toronto does without Bosh.

It feels good to win like this after letting one get away last night. Going by LOB, we probably should have lost this game.

Cubs win!

OMG.

Completely outmatched.

Lol Hendry.

Thank you Lou. I feel much better with Caridad out there.

Wells has looked decent but he has been incredibly lucky. 6 innings, 6 hits, 2 walks, 1 strikeout and 0 runs? Wow. :shock:

YES!!!!!

Nice inning Wells.

Did anyone else think that was a lazy pop?

Nice!

Defense!

That ball gets to the wall if Soriano plays LF.

63 after 3.

Theriot is useless.

Wow Hanson.

Holy crap that ball was destroyed.

This guy is good. Our best chance is to keep taking pitches and get him out of there by the 6th.