soccer10k

Very insightful. It's the gist of the original post. There is some merit in the thought that it saves starters pitches, but Dusty has been given decent pens in the past and still abused his starters and relievers to oblivion. Obviously a good pen is better than a bad one, but is it any more important than the difference between a good starting rotation and a bad one? A good lineup and a bad one? No, in fact it's significantly less important. It's great that our pen has been solid so far and looks to continue to be that way, but it's no different(possibly worse) than if we were more skilled in other areas and weaker in the pen. I may be wrong on this, but I would think it would be much more demoralizing for a team to lose a lead late and have their bullpen blow it than to just have the starter pitch horribly. As I said, I may be wrong in assuming this and either way, a loss hurts, but personally I think that if you are going to lose, it's better to just lose early than lose a heartbreaker in the end. You tend to remember those heartbreakers more, at least I do as a fan. I'll never forget a Sunday Night game in 2002 I believe against the Cardinals where we were leading 9-4 going into the ninth and the Cards scored six runs in the bottom of the ninth, capped by a no doubt Edgar Renteria 3 run homer to win 10-9. Maybe that's just me. I do see your point though. My main reason for doing this was to separate the bullpen debate from the Jacque Jones thread. And I always appreciate insight from the Tiger.

Hey if we have to have two Cubs on the DL, might as well be them. I mean, it could be worse, it could be Prior, Wood, Miller or Lee on there. Oh wait... :( If any two guys were going to be injured, I would care the least of the two did, especially if they hit each other. Then again Jones is playing a little better. Did he really injure his hand high-fiving guys in the dugout after his homer? How many people on this board would seriously be disappointed if Jones and Neifi would have collided on that play and been injured? I wouldn't have felt much for Neifi, but I'm giving Jones more time to turn it around and become a decent contributor.

Pictures anybody?

Very insightful.

I'm not going to lie, I did absolutely nothing to help the Cubs win today. I didn't do anything to help them lose either though. Which would mean I helped them win. But I said I didn't help them win. Wait, I'm confused. Screw this, I'm getting a beer.

I do agree that the Cubs need to work the count against Willis. They proved they can get to the Marlins bullpen and a lack of a left handed reliever isn't going to help them at all.

At Wrigley the Cubs haven't done much against the D-Train. He's 2-0 with a 1.01 ERA in his career. Frankly, I don't care if they beat him or their bullpen. Just win. I love the Cubs Huh. I thought we hit Willis pretty well. We do. He's 2-2 with a 4.64 ERA, .299 BAA against the Cubs overall. But he does have nice stats in Wrigley. Your recollection, however, might be even more influenced by the beating he took from us in the 03 playoffs. I thought we had one or two good games against him in the regular season and that screwed up his ERA. I might be wrong though.

I'm going to criticize Jones when he's not playing well but I'm not going to criticize him any more or less than I would any other Cubs player. I'm going to give him his due when he gets a clutch hit or makes a good play and I will continue to hope for his success as a Cub. I understand why he feels this way and I think Cubs fans should do the same. If you are going to boo Jacque then you had better boo Aramis just as much because he is hitting just as bad, if not worse, than Jacque currently is.

I started this thread based on the following quote: Now, I know that a good bullpen isn't going to win a World Series for you just by itself. You have to have a good team anyway. But I firmly believe that having a good bullpen is a key to winning. I also thing that if we had our 2006 bullpen back in 2003, that we would have had a better chance to win than we did for a few reasons. 1. With a good bullpen, Baker could have taken out his starters earlier in games during the year and used the pen a little more often and could have spread out the appearances more. I don't like Farnsworth, but he had a decent (not as good as 2001 though) year in 2003, but he and Borowski were the only relievers I trusted. This year I have complete faith in Dempster, Eyre, Howry, and Williamson and if Ohman can return to his 2005 form, I'll have faith in him. That's a big difference. By taking out his starters earlier during the season in 2003 that would have led to... 2. Wood and Prior not being drained in the NLCS. It was obvious that they had run out of gas and if you take off an inning a week, that's about 30 less innings on the season. Then maybe Wood pitches better in Game 7 than he did. And even if Wood and Prior are tired... 3. Dusty has faith in his bullpen and has numerous choices in the eighth inning of 2006 if he wanted to do so. Under the circumstances, I think Dusty made the right move in Game 6 by sending Prior, our ace and Cy Young candidate, out for the eighth because he was better than anyone in our bullpen. But I wouldn't hesitate to put in Howry or Eyre in that situation. But would you put Alfonseca in the game there? How about Remlinger? Absolutely not. The bottom line is, I can't even count how many times our bullpen has choked away quality starts by our relievers in years past. Did Hendry make the best offensive moves in the offseason? No. But he deserves to be given his due for putting together one of the best bullpens in baseball this year and I guarantee that they will save the team numerous times this year. If we make the postseason, I don't think the bullpen will be the sole reason that happens, but I guarantee it will be a big part especially with Lee going down. Bottom line, a good pen is more valuable than one might think.

I'm starting a new thread talking about the importance of a bullpen.

Not to be nitpicky again Fred, but the first stat you have shows the Cubs having played 20 games and the second you have shows we have only played 17 games. The Cubs have played 18 games. Like last time, I may be misinterpreting your stats.

Betancourt singled with two outs in the bottom of the eleventh and the Mariners beat the White Sox.

So wait, you mean to tell me that a team was leading by a very convincing 3-0 margin in the 8th inning, only to have a complete collapse with 5 outs to go and blow the ballgame? Holy crap, sucks to be THAT team. Good thing it wasn't during a more important game like in the playoffs or something - i can only imagine how terrible that would be... I don't know whether to laugh or to cry.

Hope so, there aren't many better sights than Jacque positively beaming as he rounds the bases after a big home run. Agreed. Both this home run and the one against the Cards were awesome.

Odds of Z walking a batter in the 3rd?

Apparently, they think the majority of their viewers are Marlins fans tonight. They should know that Marlins fans only show themselves until the second half of September? And that's only if the team is in the playoff hunt. They probably won't show up then either... Meanwhile, Z isn't fooling too many of these guys. I do remember their fans showed up in 2003 late in the year. But I can't tell you how many home games they played when they drew less than 20000 fans and sometimes they wouldn't even draw 10000.

I like when our pitchers give up hits to the opposing teams pitchers. It's always nice to see.

Apparently, they think the majority of their viewers are Marlins fans tonight. They should know that Marlins fans only show themselves until the second half of September? And that's only if the team is in the playoff hunt.

So lets go over what we've seen in the first 30 minutes of the telecast. 1. A 2003 reference 2. A Bartman reference 3. Getting reminded that Willis was drafted by the Cubs 4. Another replay of the Derrek Lee injury play I love ESPN.

That happened to me two years in a row. I picked Mark Bellhorn in 2003 over Mark Prior in the middle of the draft. Then I picked Prior as my #1 in 2004. Then I stopped doing fantasy baseball because of it. Poor Derrek Lee.

It's not the homer that's inexcusable. It's the walk to UGGLA that is. Make them hit their way onto base but don't give out free passes.

And now they show that Willis was drafted by the Cubs. I always love being reminded of that.

It's amazing what happens when you throw strikes.

Let's get Guzman warmed up ASAP. He can't do any worse than Z is.

When the telecast started I told my roommate that the over/under on a Bartman reference was 10 minutes. I took under and I won. It's disgusting. I don't think ESPN can have a Cubs game without mentioning it. I think it was during the Cardinals-Cubs Sunday Night Game a ball was fouled off near the seats and sure enough Morgan mentioned Bartman virtually immediately. BTW, I also called the Cabrera home run to my roommate. And I think I'm going to Vegas right now.