Soul

Been thinking that all year. Unfortunately more often than not the opposing pitcher has gotten it back together and we've stopped scoring after one decent inning.

He swung at 4 balls that AB, or more. Not borderline ones either. What the hell does he think he's doing?

I'm sick of Soriano swinging at every pitch no matter how bad. It's stupid.

He's gonna K.

Don't swing at the first pitch sori.

Nice, but uh.....Lilly can't bunt either. Let's just stop trying to bunt. It's embarrasing and never works.

You noticed, eh?

Brutal.

Not worthless but certainly weaker than the W3 stat which uses expected runs rather than actual runs. ERA shows very weak correlation from year to year for a pitcher, FIP shows a much stronger correlation and pulls out variables that don't belong to the pitcher like fielding etc. Its still not the greatest stat though, something like Shandler's xERA is probably the best. Take a look at Joe Blanton once. He pitched better in 2006 than he did in 2005 from pretty much every stat he can control but his ERA was over a run higher that year. The reason his ERA was so high in 2006 was BABIP and LOB% which are things pitchers have little control over and are predictors of his true talent level, that combined with a good bit of luck in BABIP in 2005. The difference is that things like K/9, bb/9, GB% etc are predictable, they correspond year to year and most pitchers don't see big changes in them. ERA is a result that the pitcher only partially controls, it is all over the place and you really cannot predict it year to year. If you want to see the results of his pitching you look at ERA, if you want to predict future results you look at indicators. Thanks for the explanation. Is there anything out there that's reliable other than pitcher abuse points that could be used to predict an arm injury? Some pitchers can just take the abuse, it's not common but some can do it.

I love how Yost throws any random lefty he can find against us. Nothing like realizing your team's badness in a certain area is noted and responded to in spades by opposing teams. Hell, if I was an opposing manager I'd start pulling freaking BULLPEN LEFTIES out and start them against us. It's that horrible, honestly it is. Did you know the Cubs rank 28th in OPS against lefties? .716 29th in runs scored? 140 29th in total bases? 439 29th in RBI? 133 The Brewers rank at or near the top of the league in those categories against lefties. And Ted Lilly's numbers against Milwaukee have been pedestrian: 2 starts, 1-1 record, 5.25 ERA. Tonight is a scary night. We lose to some young, inexperienced pitcher in our building to allow the Crew within a half game? Can you say momentum switch?

I've got a horrible feeling about this game. I might not even watch. The Cubs seem to do better when I don't watch anyway.

And Zambrano has been just as pathetic. I wish that wasn't true. He did have a couple months where he found it. Now he's back to giving up the big inning again. It reminds me of April.

Soriano's versatility is an illusion. He should be able to do a ton of things for you -- hit anywhere in the order, play multiple positions, etc. etc. But every time we try to bring that out in him he promptly sucks and forces us to put him back leadoff and in LF. It's incredibly frustrating. I'm starting to really hate the idea of paying him all that money for that many years.

Runs scored/Game Cubs 4.60 NL Ave 4.64 average? yes sub-par? maybe pathetic? unjustifiable. Wrong. Keener's not referring to season totals. It's recently that matters, because that's when we stopped winning. In August the Cubs have scored 112 runs, that's 15th in the N.L. The offense is pathetic, period.

I don't think anything short of retirement would have gotten Rolen back to 100% with his shoulder. It's not something that he just came back from too soon, his shoulder is shot. Oh, for some reason I didn't know that. Must be sort of like Bagwell then. He's only 32, so that does suck.

Soriano was really bad before the injury. He was. I'm beginning to think he's going to be prone to long slumps forever because he doesn't seem like to care much for coaching. It's always Lou needing to tip-toe around Sori's wishes. I hate that, I don't care the kind of money you make. We're going to be tip-toeing around this guy for 7 more years. It's really starting to get under my skin.

I think you're right, and that would be so typical.

True. I've never been able to muster up much hatred for the guy. When he joined the Cards, I remember something about Rolen refusing to really talk to the Cubs at all. That's not going to score a lot of points with me, but maybe I'm wrong about that. He does seem like a pretty decent guy. I hope he never plays well for the Cards again, though. Let him heal up and come to the Cubs for a resurgence 8-)

if by "being Z" you mean pitching a shutout last night.... Not necessarily. What if Z only gives up 2? Maybe the offense finds a way to squeeze a couple across.

Why wouldn't Rolen have made sure his shoulder was healthy before playing on it? Is it some sort of degenerative condition that doctors can't help?

So if Zambrano would have been Zambrano in August, we would be 5 1/2 games up. This division would be over. He picked a bad time to start sucking.

At the rate we're making Sheets throw? Don't think so.

Seriously, that was the top of our order.

You have got to be kidding me. Wow, who the hell swings at those pitches???????????????????????

Give me robot chick and I might forget the brand of beer :wink: