Soul

Neifi > Hairston ? Don't dismiss it. We might be to that point.

Hairston sucking as per usual.

Very few other catchers turn that into a triple. Nice work.

28 before that ramirez homerun. Ouch.

What is it now? 23 innings? What's the record? Let's break it, what the hell.

I highly doubt a rotation of Zambrano, Maddux, Marshall, Hill, Guzman is gonna carry this "hitless wonder" team to .500, much less the playoffs. Oh, ye of little fiath !! :wink: 8) The next time Teddy Roosevelt digs a canal through Panama we can look forward to another Cubs' World Series!

We'll have one game real soon of 10+ runs. Pat and Ronny will be commenting "save some for tomorrow boys..." But alas, we won't listen.

It's not just Lee's statistics, it's his leadership and presence. Losing him is putting more pressure on other players to make up the difference. I'm not saying Lee's absence is the total reason for our downslide. It's not. But his loss goes beyond just the stats he was putting up.

I hope it's a bump in the road, but looking at it objectively I don't see the players who make this ballclub better than average. We've got Murton and Cedeno, two rooks (basically) who appear to be slowing down after hot starts. Walker has gone into the tank. Ramirez never came out of the tank. Pierre is pretty much a joke, not sure how he got to be as well-respected as he is, Jones is a little better but face it he's not going to be a large factor. Barrett has hit a huge slowdown since his hot start. We've got a starting rotation in tatters, and once Wood & Prior come back it will take time for them to work out the rust (in other words, probably August before you see anything resembling the old Woody & Prior). Miller's a question mark. The bench is laughably weak. Have I missed anything? I appreciate the desire to be optimistic, but geez----the reality is this is not in any way shape or form a contending ballclub. The real question we should be asking is how long should we put up with this charade? Baker needs to be fired, hands down. He's not even close to the manager we thought we were getting when we hired him. Barry's roids made Baker what he is, not his managing ability. Fire Baker now. Don't wait. And I don't mean fire him to try to jump back in the race, either. I mean fire him because he plain old sucks bones. And fire him to prove the organization realizes what they are trying just isn't working. From 2003 to now is a constant, downward slide.

Me too. It's gone beyond Dusty's admittedly poor starting pitching management.

I totally bought into the Corey Patterson madness way back when, too. He was going to be something special----wow. Now lookitt. Lordy. Not that we can talk. We basically exchanged CPatt for Jones. Two peas in a pod if you ask me.

But the baserunning, Vance. Think of the baserunning.

http://mlb.mlb.com/NASApp/mlb/stats/individual_player_hitting_chart.jsp?c_id=mlb&playerID=133380&statType=1 I don't really see much of a difference. Ouch. Looks like when he does try to go to the opposite field, he's 0fer. April is done now, so some of these guys need to get over the early season slumps and start producing.

The Heat are good enough to beat us, but still I found them to be wholly unimpressive. I wouldn't be suprised if they fail to make the conference finals. And, of course, if they do----the Pistons will be there and it will get really ugly. I actually don't mind Shaq so much----but it's clear he's nearing the end. And Wade, while I think he's a star, he's not on the level of a Kobe Bryant or a LeBron James. He might never be. The way I look at it, we have one glaring need. An quality inside presence. That's it. Give us that one player with a decent backup to spell him----we're a contender. We are not far away. Not far at all.

Haha. Sad but true. It really has come to that, at least until we get Woody & Prior back.

:shock: And this all started when Lee got injured...... His injury might cost us 10 games in the standings if we keep this up.

If it's still this bad when June rolls around, then I think it will be time to just let the young guys play and to hell with the race. Right now I'm still holding out a little hope, but the problem is our young guys will need to pull along the deadweight on this roster until the big 3 get back. That's not real comforting.

Like it or not, you are Cub fans for life. There's no escape. Mwahahah.

Best of 7. How many do the Iowa Cubbies win? Bet they could take 2.

Great. Now Murton's going to suck too?

Fer Cryin' OUT LOUD man!!! :evil:

I would say players who have bad seasons, in relation to expectations, can be blamed. But if guys play to expectations, it's the GM and managers fault when they fail. And if a good player has a bad month, I'll give him some slack. Also, when players routinely make outs swinging at garbage, I still blame them, somewhat, for not fixing that problem. If a player routinely grounds into DPs with the same pathetic slap it to 2nd swing, I blame him. But when I complain about sucky players for sucking, it's implied that I blame their presence on the roster or in the lineup or on the mound for the troubles. Most of my hostility is directed at management for poor planning. I just blame everyone. It's much easier that way. .....and you save alot of money on steno pads and pencils :P

At hitting Home Runs? At being a walking crash n' burn without trying I sort of miss him. That piece where he was interviewing someone and asked about a mutual friend, only to be told "um....Joe, he's dead" was incredible. I about died myself :lol:

Me either. But I think this is the Bonds "compromise." He knows he did it, everyone else knows----he's too stubborn to ever admit it, so his way of "making it right" with the world is to retire one step short of Aaron. After that, in Barry Bonds mind, he will have atoned for himself. Hey--whatever helps you sleep at night, Barry.

I'm not tired of it. It's exactly what they should be doing. They have an obligation to their customers to be as forthright as possible, and to be open and honest about injuries. You hear every other team talking about timelines. Sometimes they are met, sometimes they are not. The Cubs, in their pathetic pansy way take offense when they are called out on it, so they hide in their little shell and pretend nothing is behind the green curtain. It's a sad yet perfect depiction of the all-around ineptness of this organization. Somebody refered earlier to the concept that the Cubs can do no right in this situation. I think that's exactly the point. They are a bunch of bumbling buffoons who can't figure out anything injury related. They can't figure out the one problem that has killed this team for years offensively. They can't figure out how to get pitchers to throw strikes. They can't figure out how to win ballgames. This front office has had a dozen years to get things right and they've failed miserably. They foolishly tried to become the next Braves, when they should have tried to be the next Marlins. If you put all your hopes on a couple arms, the odds are you will fail because arms are extremely unreliable. If they put an ounce of energy into the offense, and more than a minute of thought beyond the tools, it would be a lot easier to win games without absolutely perfect pitching. And I'm sure that would go over well with the board. I know that probably would have meant a World Series title or two, but how many people would honestly like it if the Cubs just traded ALL of their good players right after winning? How many people would want Hendry's head on a platter for doing that? Maybe not after the first World Series, but definately after the second. Remember, the Braves did win a World Series title during their run and I would much rather emulate them than the Marlins. I think the point is, the Braves are a much less likely model to be able to emulate than the Marlins. Honestly, I don't get the whole Marlins=bad mentality. There's nothing wrong with what they did. They went out, built up 2 World Series champions, and then started over each time. Translate that to the Cubs: we go out, win 2 World Series, and in between we lose, just like we are right now. How is this bad, again? At least it would mean the organization has the ability to build a winner.