Chicago Cubs Baseball

The good news is Carlos Zambrano was ready for Game Four of the NLDS. The bad news is Chicago Cubs baseball won’t be participating.

Arizona’s Diamondbacks made sure of that Saturday night, sending the Cubs gently into the good Chicago night with a 3-0 sweep in the NLDS. The Cubs went with a whimper, leaving their bang somewhere in the month of September where they collected a season-high 43 home runs.

As for the whimper, Derrek Lee shed tears following the D’Backs’ sweep. Zambrano wanted to. My guess is, most of Cubdom merely sighed. Most of us have already been through this scenario. And for those who hadn’t before, welcome to the club.

Only this time there were no Bartmans, black cats or Curses of Billy Goats to blame. It was simply and purely bad Chicago Cub baseball.

Not that the Cubs didn’t have their share of goats. From the mound to the mountain of missed opportunities at the plate, Chicago Cub players had plenty of blame to share. Among the chief hitting zeroes were Lee (4-12, four strikeouts), Alfonso Soriano (2-14, four strikeouts) and Aramis Ramirez (0-12, five strikeouts) - all quiet men whose silence was deafening at the plate.

Before casting the entire blame on the shoulder of the Cubs’ “Big Three,” let’s not forget Chicago batters stranded an incredible 27 runners, 11 of those with men in scoring position. And the four double plays the Cubs managed to hit into on Saturday night tied an NLDS record.

Those kind of numbers takes a group effort, folks.

As for Cub pitchers, in this case, a picture truly is worth a 1,000 words. Who’ll ever forget the image of Ted Lilly slamming his glove into the Arizona night after surrendering a homer to the Diamondbacks’ Chris Young? Or the deer-in-the-headlights look of Rich Hill as Arizona took batting practice against the left-hander?

For those of us (myself included) who yearned for Carlos Marmol as the Chicago closer - maybe we’ll want to rethink that position. Marmol was anything but “marmelous” in giving up home runs in each of his two appearances, including Arizona’s winner in Game One.

And what does it say about Jason Marquis, who’s only consolation pitching for three playoff teams in the last three seasons, is to finally make the playoff roster, but not even considered for action?

But the grand poobah behind this year’s Chicago Cub post-season collapse is Lou Piniella. For all the right moves that Piniella made during the course of the regular season were all eclipsed in this single three-game set. From yanking Zambrano in the first game to failing to move runners over throughout, Piniella was as on of a bad roll as possible.

As a manager Piniella has a World Series ring to his credit. And I just have this blog. But as a lifelong baseball fan I know bad baseball and bad managerial moves when I see them. This three-game series covered both.

Independent Thoughts on Baseball

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