By Jim Coffman
Was there ever a better illustration of the baseball adage “momentum is the next day’s starting pitcher” than Sunday’s game in St. Louis? The previous Cubs-Cards clash was a potentially devastating loss for the boys in blue, the kind that seemed certain to kick off a losing streak.
Starting with Jim Edmonds dogging it on a potential eighth-inning sacrifice fly (if Cub fans want to boo him his first time up against the Reds this week, that will be OK with me) and getting himself thrown out at the plate and ending with Kerry Wood starting the ninth with a pair of walks and going downhill from there, it was plain ugly.
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But then Sean Marshall pitches six masterful innings the next day and the Cubs match the Cardinals’ only glimmer of hope, Ryan Ludwick’s sixth-inning solo home run to pull within two (3-1), with a run of their own in the seventh (on Derrek Lee’s large two-out double). And that’s that (that was especially that when the Cubs scored three more before they were through). The losing streak ended before it started.
Breaking news: The Brewers are going to finalize a trade for C.C. Sabathia on Monday. That’s a problem, but it’s not a huge problem.
Milwaukee envisions Sabathia and Ben Sheets as a classic one-two pitching punch but Sheets is overdue for his annual injury. Every year the Brewers’ ace tantalizes with his talent, and every year some injury puts him down for the count when it counts.
What’s most problematic is that Milwaukee will apparently be giving up about the third-leading prospect in its system along with a few other lower-level minor leaguers to make the deal (stories this week suggested Brewers shortstop J.J. Hardy might be part of the trade package but early reports Sunday evening seemed to rule him out).
Cleveland will apparently be making this deal well before the trade deadline without even considering any sort of package of prospects from the Cubs’ organization. That certainly reflects poorly on the overall talent level down on the farm.
On the other hand, Len and Bob were talking Sunday about the fact that Ryne Sandberg’s Peoria Cubs recently won their 11th in a row, so there must be at least a prospect or two calling central Illinois home this summer. It’s that or Mr. Sandberg is working managerial magic the likes of which we haven’t often seen around here.
Camo Sox
I was all set to write a biting little bit about all of those ridiculous camouflage uniforms worn by the White Sox and others along with the special blue caps with red, white and blue color schemes within the team logos (many of those actually look sharp). The uniforms and the caps were parts of baseball’s efforts to “honor the military” over the July 4th weekend.
Ha, I would have harrumphed, as if this is about anything other than selling more merchandise at the team shop. But then I found out that a significant portion of the proceeds go to a fund dedicated to helping veterans transition back into civilian life. All I can say to that is that if you can’t pummel Major League Baseball for crafty little money-grubbing schemes, well, what can you pummel?
Grating Gordon
I used to cringe at the idea of the Bulls trading Ben Gordon because I used to wonder who would score when it counted if Gordon wasn’t here. So many of the 50-plus regular-season and playoff wins in 2006-07 seemed to hinge on Gordon coming through with big baskets late. Then in 2007-08, teams wised up about the Bulls’ shooting guard and rushed to contest his jumpers no matter how far out he stood at the time. In the process, they essentially gave him an engraved invitation to try to go to the hole. They knew he was a turnover waiting to happen as he dribbled toward and then into the lane.
But Gordon’s main problem, and the reason his re-signing should be the Bulls’ last priority (as opposed to the first, as Genius John Paxson has suggested), is his performance when the other team has the ball. He simply cannot play defense.
We know Kirk Hinrich can D up (when he’s not sitting on the bench in foul trouble). And so can Larry Hughes, although it seemed like he decided to stop doing so late in his tenure with the Cavaliers (before he was traded to the Bulls as part of the Ben Wallace deal in the middle of last season). Those guys get the shooting guard P.T. this year, plain and simple.
Of course, all of this doesn’t matter a ton because the coach will still be Vinny Del Negro. Vinny Del Negro! Usually a little time passes and I can get on board with a Chicago coaching hire at least a little bit. I’ll do my best to accentuate the positives and if not eliminate the negatives at least tamp them down. I just can’t do it with this one. Wouldn’t it be neat if Paxson could be forced to explain how Del Negro will be the coach to convince Larry Hughes to play defense again (he once led the league in steals)? Of course that’s not going to happen.
Cricket Chirp
A huge win for Sri Lanka in the final of the Asian Cup over the weekend – the tiny island nation’s best cricketers piled up exactly 100 more runs than India to earn the triumph. India had plenty of success earlier in the tournament but in the end, the Sri Lankan bowlers were too tough. No matter what’s happened before, it always comes down to the starting bowling.
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Jim Coffman appears in this space every Monday with the best sports wrap-up in the city. You can write to him personally! Please include a real name if you would like your comments to be considered for publication.
Posted on July 7, 2008