By Marty Gangler
Through the first 23 games of the season it has become painfully obvious that the roster of this Chicago Cub team is ill-equipped to play winning baseball. A 25-man roster filled with too many second basemen, too many outfielders, and second basemen who play outfield has left Uncle Lou putting more lineups together than the Chicago Police Department. Square players being jammed into round holes just doesn’t really work. What’s funny is that this team has a number of nice puzzle pieces; it’s just that the pieces belong to a few different puzzles. Jim Hendry is to blame, of course. How he has kept his job the last few years is perhaps the greatest puzzle of all.
So we here at The Cub Factor thought it would be fun to look at some other life instances that remind us of the 2007 Chicago Cub roster.
* You go camping with a tent that has no center pole but two extra corner poles.
* You show up for your SAT with three pens but no pencil.
* You go to the 7-11 to buy a pack of gum but you only have a $100 bill, so you buy a couple cups of Ramen, an egg salad sandwich, some paper towels and an US Weekly to pad the bill. And once you leave the store you realize you forgot the gum.
* You have a 55-gallon drum of baby’s milk and a hungry baby, but no bottle.
* You try to buy a Twix from the vending machine at work with the last of your spare change, but the Dried Fruit Trail Mix falls instead. You try to pretend the trail mix is a Twix, but all your work friends can see you have failed to adjust to changing conditions.
* You go camping again without a center pole and try to use a tree branch instead, but it snaps. Then it starts to rain so you sleep in the car, but there’s five of you and you drive a Dodge Neon so it’s really cramped. So you toss and turn all night and hurt your back and feel like crap the next morning and you’re supposed to be on vacation. You blame the weather, not your poor planning.
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Week in Review: The Cubs went 3-2 this week, losing two of three to the (still in) first place Milwaukee Brewers and taking two games from the Cardinals, to bring their record to 10-13, tied with the Cardinals for last place in the division. But the Cardinals won the World Series last year, so in my book the Cubs are still in last.
Week in Preview: The Cubs take a 3-game winning streak to Pittsburgh for three against a hovering-around-.500 Pirate team; then they are home against the Washington Generals, um, I mean Nationals, the worst team in the National League. Expect the umpires to throw a bucket or two of confetti on the crowd next weekend, good times.
Second Basemen Report: We may have closure! Looks like Mark DeRosa will be the real second baseman. DeRosa started at second for all five games this week just when we thought he was headed to the outfield. In other second baseman news, Ryan Theriot now looks to be the starting shortstop. I’m sure that’s what Hendry thought would happen when they got Cesar Izturis from the Dodgers in the Nomar Garciaparra deal for Greg Maddux. It’s all going according to plan . . .
In former cub Second baseman news, Miguel Cairo is playing second base with the Yankees this season. He has had 9 at bats this season without a hit, but he’s due. He is missed.
Two-Hole Report: In second place in the batting order news, The Cub Factor would like to welcome Felix Pie. He now joins DeRosa, Theriot, Cliff Floyd, Jacque Jones, and Matt Murton as players who have batted second to start a game. Also, in last Monday’s 5-4 defeat to the Brewers, there were eight players in the number two spot in the batting order.
Floyd, RF 2 1 0 0 1 2 1 .250
b-Murton, PH 1 0 0 0 0 0 2 .270
Eyre, P 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 .000
Howry, P 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 .000
e-Theriot, PH 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 .340
Dempster, P 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 .000
f-Marquis, PH 1 0 0 0 0 1 1 .273
Cherry, P
Sure, they didn’t all take a swing, but this is typically is more of a “ninth” spot-in-the-order situation.
Sweet and Sour Lou: 49% sweet and 51% sour. No change on the Sweet-O-Meter from last week. Yes, the Cubs did go 3-2 for the week, but Lou is still plenty grumpy about the games they fumbled away
Mount Lou: Lou is stable right now as the Cubs show a fraction of life. But losing next weekend’s series to the Nationals at home will bring dumb questions and magma to the surface. Look for an eruption around the fifth inning on Saturday.
Beachwood Sabermetrics: A complex algorithm performed by the The Cub Factor staff using all historical data made available by Major League Baseball has determined that on-field temperature affects both teams playing.
Over/Under: Plays a “real” shortstop would make this week but don’t “count” as errors for Theriot: 2.5
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Catch up with The Cub Factor.
Posted on April 30, 2007