CHICAGO SPORTS BLOG – CAN THE CUBS OVERCOME OBVIOUS DEFICIENCIES

CHICAGO SPORTS BLOG – CAN THE CUBS OVERCOME OBVIOUS DEFICIENCIES

How things change in one week. I guess that’s baseball. One week ago the Cubs were flying high beating up on mediocre teams en route to a first place lead that grew to as much as 2.5 games. Now they find themselves chasing the St. Louis Cardinals in the NL Central after losing to them last night in extra innings. It marked the second defeat in a row that left several question marks for a team that some picked to go to the World Series.

Rich Hill didn’t make it past the first inning – walking four of six batters he faced and only threw 27 pitches 17 of which were balls. This really taxed the bullpen on the first day of a key six-game road trip -OUCH! Alfonso Soriano despite driving in all three Cub runs yesterday looked horrible in left field for the second day in a row costing the Cub relievers runs. Despite hitting a game-tying two-run home run he really looked poor at the plate. Ryan Theriot has shown a little bit of a tired bat and his ability to go to his right playing shortstop seems to be limited. Aramis Ramirez took a pitch on his left wrist area and was removed from last night’s game which cost the Cubs a big bat in the late innings. Felix Pie continues to look baffled at the plate especially in clutch situations.

Cub Manager Lou Piniella is standing behind his players and the team but he has to do that. As a discerning die-hard fan I’m concerned with our starting pitching namely Rich Hill and Jason Marquis. Ted Lilly seems to have corrected his problems but time will tell as he pitches today in a key game for the Cubs. Thank goodness for Carlos Zambrano and Ryan Dempster who have held the team together. We all know we’ll need more than two competent starters to make a run at the division and playoffs. The Cubs have used their bullpen a great deal in the early going to the tune of 107 innings which ranks at or near the top of all of baseball. Within all this relief pitching the only shining stars have really been Carlos Marmol and John Lieber.

Although the Cubs have been somewhat inconsistent at the plate as of late I’m not too concerned about the offense. We need Soriano at the top to be much better and we need the middle of the order to get clutch hits. The rest of this current road trip will be paramount for the Cubs to make a strong stance in the NL Central Division.

JEFF ARDITO & DEAN’S TEAM CHICAGO