Chicago Cubs Baseball

Every Sunday during the Chicago Cubs baseball season I’ll try to issue a report card, assessing the week that was from a long distance point of view. Here’s the report card for the week of May 7 to May 13 :
Weekly Record: 2-4
Season Record: 17-18

Chicago Cubs baseball returned to its pre-May ways and it didn’t take long to do it. Whatever the Cubs were doing (or not doing) during last week’s win streak suddenly took a left turn at “Success Ahead” and just kept going south.

If not for two superlative starting pitching performances from Jason Marquis and Ted Lilly the Cubs easily could have finished the week winless. With the exception of the aforementioned nearly every component of fundamental baseball abandoned the Cubs for more familiar ground - losing.

Here’s this week’s Cub report card.

Weekly Grade: C
Season Grade: C+

Starting Pitching:
Marquis and Lilly, the two off-season acquisitions, were the story of the week. Or at least the only positive stories among the starting rotation. Marquis recorded the Chicago Cubs first complete game of the season with a 1-0 win over Pittsburgh on Wednesday.

Lilly was nearly as compelling, taking a one-hit shutout into the eighth. Although just 3-2 on the year, the lefty lowered his ERA to 2.53.

After another sub-par outing Carlos Zambrano earns the Question of the Week award - not for anything he asked - but what all Cub inquiring minds want to know: “What’s wrong with Zambrano?”

Rich Hill is beginning to look more like 2006 Rich Hill and Angel Guzman, well…

Weekly Grade: C
Season Grade: B-

Relief Pitching:
When Michael Wuertz and Ryan Dempster are the aces of the relief corps it’s time to start painting the “Wait Til Next Year” banners.

Dempster got the relievers rolling on their usual course when he blew his first save of the season Tuesday. The Cubs went on to lose, 4-3, in 15 innings.

Did I mention reliever Neal Cotts took the loss in that one? Cotts also managed to turn a close game into a rout on Friday against the Phillies.

But the coup de grace came Saturday. For those of you who haven’t heard, the Cubs scored six times in the seventh to take the lead. Enter Bob “Blown Hold” Howry. Between Blown Hold Howry and Will “Bad” Ohman, Chicago relievers managed to give all six runs back en route to - yes - another loss.

It was Howry’s third blown hold of the year, while his record dropped to 0-3.

You know it’s bad when you begin longing for the return of Alfonso Alfonseca.
Weekly: Grade: D+
Season Grade: C

Hitting:
In a total of six games Cub hitters stranded 48 runners. And with two outs and men in scoring position, Chicago left an alarming 21 runners on base.

Jacque Jones, whom I maintain is the worst two-strike hitter in the game along with being one of the streakiest, earned this week’s “Tank You Very Much” award. The fictitious award is given to the Cub performer who’s lack of clutch performance enables the opposition to win. Jones gets the award for stranding nine of the 21 batters by his lonesome, including six in one game.

Ouch.
Weekly Grade: C-
Season Grade: C+

Base Running:
When you’re still talking about base running at this level of competition problems are abound. How many runners were thrown out at the plate this weekend? Answer: Three.

Weekly Grade: C-
Season Grade: C

Defense:
The week started with three errors by the Chicago Cub defense against Pittsburgh, and really didn’t get any better from there. Sure, there was Alfonso Soriano’s game-ending assist in today’s game, but nine errors in six games will never translate to winning baseball.

Weekly Grade: C-
Season Grade: C+

Managing:
Despite the Cubs’ woes, I’ll continue to stand with Piniella as the right man for the job. Matter of fact, I would hate to think where the Cubs would be now with Dusty at the helm.

And we think this week was bad.
Weekly Grade: B
Season Grade: B+